The gardens at OCE have always been a highlight of the estate, often the first feature to impress potential residents and the one they grow to love even more once they live here. Spring is the time they look their best… so in the absence of a Garden Ramble this year, we take you on a photographic tour.
When the OCE head gardener, Rob McLaren, takes a walk through the grounds he and his team nurture you feel his pride in continuing the work commenced by Fraser Sanderson over 30 years ago. The gardens have several functions. They allow individual residents to personalise the space around their own homes, they create continuity through shared areas, they provide a beautiful environment to live in and they are continually evolving.
One constant is the mature trees that line Anderley Avenue and are dotted through the estate. These magnificent specimens lend their gravitas and dappled shade to the roads and gardens they border. They are a feature near the village centre, combined with underplanting to make the walk around the croquet lawn and down the winding path a daily pleasure.
The merging of private and public spaces often creates a riot of colourful blooms offset by the shades of green used in the more formal estate landscaping. The gardeners support and assist residents with their gardens, be it a bed of alstroemeria to reverence a former country garden or native plantings for bush lovers.
The need for privacy is balanced with the desire for outlook. When homes change hands, gardens, especially overgrown ones, are often replanted, one new border showing a South African Totara as one of several shrubs hugging a bank and merging visually with the maple tree above.
Where newer homes have been built, the gardens lining the driveways display contemporary layering and repetition, green pittosporum balls against the reddish laura pendulum by the houses.
The garden plots are yet another expression of creativity at OCE, residents growing and sharing their own produce, growing friendships and sharing fun.
