Charlie McCormick reflects on a decade of transforming a Dorset garden into a dynamic blend of wildness and cultivation, tracing the evolution of the space she and her husband, designer Ben Pentreath, called home before relocating to Scotland. Their former residence, an old parsonage set in a small hamlet, featured a garden of roughly half an acre that initially had structure but lacked careful tending. Over ten years, McCormick allowed the garden to unfold organically, combining intuitive planting with selective nurturing to create what she describes as "a soup of ordered chaos."

Upon moving in, McCormick began training the garden’s topiary, incorporating peacocks and other birds into its character, while allowing climbing roses and vines to cascade and grow without strict pruning. The boundary alongside the nearby churchyard supported unbridled vegetation, including ivy, rambling roses, and an invasive Russian vine that overwhelmed an ancient lime tree, which eventually fell unexpectedly on a still day.

The garden’s “allotment” area was marked by neat rows of vegetables and cutting flowers, bordered by a simple chestnut fence adorned with Rosa ‘Seagull.’ Pumpkins sprawled into the meadow with large leaves resembling lily pads, while an orchard of about a dozen apple trees—the couple's wedding gift from years prior—hung heavy with fruit, though left largely unpruned.

McCormick emphasizes her style as intuitive rather than rigidly planned, allowing seasonal shifts and spontaneous growth to guide her gardening decisions. She eschews formal diaries, instead reacting to the garden’s cues in real-time and balancing wildness with selective cultivation. This approach contrasts with newer trends in “wild gardening,” which she critiques as overly contrived attempts at naturalism.

For McCormick, the garden thrives at the intersection of untamed nature and carefully tended cultivation—nurturing food and flowers while embracing natural processes. She prefers manual pest control over chemicals to maintain soil health. Her adaptive style involves embracing volunteers such as Babington leeks, Ammi majus, and Verbascum emerging in unexpected places, alongside the deliberate care required to prepare dahlias and giant marrow pumpkins for horticultural shows.

Over time, McCormick gradually replaced parts of the lawn with expanding borders filled with diverse species including Paeonia ‘Coral Charm,’ Acidanthera murielae, and Cephalaria gigantea. These borders often overflowed beyond their intended edges, sacrificing neatness for exuberant visual impact.

Documenting their experience, McCormick and Pentreath coauthored a book celebrating the home and garden they left behind following the sale of the estate by their landlord. While Pentreath narrates the history of the house and its discovery, McCormick’s contribution recounts the garden’s transformation as a personal and evolving expression of landscape artistry, where chaos and order coexist season by season.