Scotland for Gardeners - 560pps_Scotland for Gardeners - 560 pps 08/04/2014 13:34 Page xxvii
and start to earn some of their own . . . we decide to spend some of the money that this frees up on plants and gardening. Is it possible to say what makes a great gardener? Is this really not the same question that I’ve just been trying to answer when evaluating a good garden? I’m not sure that it is. Most great gardeners are enlightened dictators with huge amounts of energy and a single-minded vision, often ignoring advice from others. Sometimes they fail; the clever ones take stock, remove the failures and move on. It is the daring, risk-taking attitude and the vision to see what something will look like in years to come that can make a great gardener. This is why I am wary of gardening by committee. When committees run gardens, everyone has a say. ‘You can’t do this, that tree was planted by the earl of somewhere . . . you can’t do that, we have always had rose beds there . . .’ This resulting lack of decisiveness all too often causes committee-run gardens to fall into a gradual but terminal decline through lack of innovation. No one is prepared to get out the chainsaw and make the bold decisions. You can’t pickle a garden in vinegar and preserve it; a garden is a process not an object, a dynamic entity, the ultimate ‘time-based art’ which can grow and deteriorate at equal speed. All good gardens thrive on evolution and change. A great expert on this subject, and one of Britain’s greatest ever gardeners, Graham Stewart Thomas, wrote at length about this issue; he found it reared its head again and again in his work as gardens director of the (English) National Trust: ‘We have learnt that committees are unsatisfactory for running gardens; all great gardens have been made by an individual or a succession of individuals. The mere fact that a committee is formed so that there shall be majority agreement, carries with it obvious dangers.’ (Graham Stewart Thomas, Gardens of the National Trust) Every great garden evolves, decade on decade; momentous decisions have to be made from time to time: to cut down woods or overgrown avenues of trees, to knock down walls, to get rid of tired old sections, to fill in or dig ponds, to give up growing roses. Great gardeners take risks. Committees are risk-averse. It can’t be helped. Which brings us on to the issue of garden conservation.
xxvii