PRECISION is the word that keeps coming to mind when considering the waterside gardens at Fullers Mill near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. In particular, the precise way in which every plant, large and small, is placed to best advantage both for its own development and to draw the visitor on with an interesting specimen or intriguing view. This counts for so much in the depths of winter, when flamboyance and floriferousness are in short supply—and it is unexpected in a plantsman’s garden. But Bernard Tickner, who carved this space out of rough ground and woodland over 50 years, was a man of many talents.
Before buying Fullers Mill—a cottage on the banks of the River Lark—in 1958, Tickner had never gardened. His business was beer: he was head brewer at Greene King, where he developed Abbot Ale and a special Queen Elizabeth Coronation Ale in 1953. Although, as he wrote in his memoirs, (2017), gardening became his work and brewing was
