A garden from scratch - The garden at Charlton Farm, Wiltshire The home of Mrs Simon Rivett-Carnac

Within only 14 years, seven acres of featureless grass have been transformed into a garden full of incident and charm, writes Caroline Donald

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IF ever there were a blank canvas, it was the landscape around Charlton Farm in north Wiltshire that Sarah RivettCarnac, her husband, Simon, and their two young sons inherited when they moved there in 2010. Surrounding the new-build house were seven acres of grass with not a feature on them, save for two ash trees and an oak on the hedgeless boundary. Once part of the nearby Charlton Park estate, the land had been sold off between the wars and had housed a chicken farm for more than 15 years. It was then bought by the previous owners, who built a speculative house that went on the market the week of the 2008 crash and consequently stood empty for two years.

"I am very ramshackle. I simply give it a go and see what works"

However, Mrs Rivett-Carnac, an artist and ceramicist, relished the challenge of making a garden from scratch. She also has the advantage of the horticultural acuity to achieve it, having started aged three by with a trough of alpine plants in her native Scotland (she is still keen on ‘little things in pots’), moving on to acquiring a collection of pelargoniums at boarding school and creating a wild garden around her cottage in Perthshire. That love for plants and their creative potential has never left her.