Ruth Darrah began gardening as a child, growing radishes at a Norfolk rectory – but never expected to be running a top-rated garden school.
A career in marketing took her around Europe and limited her hobby to window boxes and courtyards.
Back in Norfolk with her husband and their three children, and a house with a proper outside space, she was so eager to get back into her passion that she enrolled on a course at Easton College, near Norwich.
When it was cut from the college’s programme her disappointment turned to determination, as she worked out how to continue learning about gardening. After talking to fellow students and their lecturers she decided to set up a course herself.
“Two people had signed up within a couple of hours. Within a week it was full,” said Ruth. “I have to admit. I didn’t do a lot of market research despite having worked in marketing! It was back of a fag packet stuff and gut feeling.
“I thought they were the most fantastic tutors and Norfolk has so many wonderful gardens. There needed to be something.”
That ‘something’ became the Norfolk School of Gardening. She rented the walled garden at Ketteringham Hall, near Wymondham, for its first four years and has just moved to the grounds of Bixley Manor, near Norwich.
“Most people don’t know this is here. In the winter you can just see the pink of the manor house through the trees, but most of the year it is completely hidden. It is a real secret garden,” said Ruth.
Bixley Manor, surrounded by gardens, woodland and farmland, is owned by the Colman family, of mustard fame and was home to Sir Timothy and Lady Mary Colman until their deaths in 2021.
The Norfolk School of Gardening has leased part of the formal gardens and a paddock where generations of Colman children once kept their ponies, plus an outbuilding which has been converted into a classroom and a historic Boulton and Paul greenhouse which would have been made in Norwich around 100 years ago.
It has been joined by three more recent made-in-Norfolk greenhouses, re-erected by East Harling-based Rhino Greenhouses after being transported from Ketteringham.
Over the past few weeks staff and volunteers have also moved many thousands of plants, ranging from tiny seedlings to 15ft trees. Some have already been replanted, and as winter turns to spring, the paddock will be transformed into a teaching garden complete with a pond, orchard, wildflower meadow, woodland, raised beds made from old decking and four seasonal pruning gardens planted with specimens to prune in spring, summer, autumn or winter, for students to hone their skills.
There will also be a sustainable cut flower garden. Water butts will be joined by a guttering system designed by the engineer husband of one of the volunteers, collecting rainwater from a large polytunnel.
“After last year everyone is concerned about water use and whether there are some things we can’t grow any more, such as annuals from seed which need to be propagated in a heated greenhouse and then potted on several times and then use lots of water,” said Ruth.
Instead she recommends plants which reappear each year, such as roses, grasses and penstemon.
Ruth grew up in Winfarthing, near Diss, where her father was the village rector – and a keen gardener. “If he wasn’t taking a wedding he’d be in the garden.
“I was one of six children and we all had our own patch of garden. I grew radishes in mine and I still love growing radishes!” she said.
Moving her garden has been an enormous task and Ruth hopes she has found it a forever home, just minutes from her own home in Bramerton.
"A really fabulous thing about this place is that Sir Timothy was passionate about trees. He had these really unusual tgrees unusual silver birches, whitebeams, cherries and the most fantastic cedar,” said Ruth.
Her husband, Peter, has also set up his business in another outbuilding at Bixley Manor. The Home Team arranges care for elderly people.
Before launching the Norfolk School of Gardening, Ruth volunteered for Citizens Advice and as a prison visitor, and helped found Age Space, an online organisation aiding people to find information about looking after elderly relatives.
It was sparked by her own parents’ increasing frailty. “There were so many things we needed to know. There is Mumsnet for people with babies and children, but there was so much I needed to know about finding care for my parents,” said Ruth.
The Norfolk School of Gardening grew out of Ruth’s desire to learn about gardening and is now a full-time job – which, she says, means she still hasn’t had time to do everything she wants in her own garden!
This year it was placed top in a national Garden Illustrated list of places to do a gardening course.
Courses are accredited by organisations including the Royal Horticultural Society and Easton College and range from day classes (two particular favourites are on creating a cutting garden and gardening for year-round colour) to the Norfolk School of Gardening’s own year-long diploma in garden design.
Tutors include garden experts with an international following, and Ruth said a typical student might be early or newly retired with spare time to garden, but there are people in their 20s upwards. Some are beginners, some experts, some are even professionals.
“We have people with small city gardens and we have had three people who open their gardens for the National Garden Scheme, and they absolutely loved the course,” said Ruth.
“I had a hunch people would love what we do, because I knew we had brilliant tutors and a beautiful place for people to learn. I think I have been bowled over by just how much people love coming to the school, and how many people come back, time after time. It's the best feedback you can get!"
The school also has a group of volunteers who are all past or present students.
“Some are now professional gardeners who work alone, and volunteering is for them a social thing,” said Ruth. “We have a regular volunteer day and do different things each week. We might be planting up a new bed, weeding an existing one, pruning shrubs, sowing seeds or taking cuttings, and we try to teach our volunteers new skills, so they get something useful out of the time they give us.”
It also offers bespoke teaching in people’s own gardens ranging from the specific (perhaps how to plant a particular border) to gardening alongside an expert for a few weeks.
“I never expected to be doing this,” said Ruth. “But there is something really lovely about people who like gardening.
“I have worked in lots of places and I have never known this, where they all get on with each other and keep in touch. It’s created a network of Norfolk gardeners.”
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