The English Garden US November 2019

100 PAGES OF GORGEOUS GARDENS WITH LATE FLOWERS & AUTUMN COLOUR

THE

english

GARDEN NOVEMBER 2019

For everyone who loves beautiful gardens

Churchill’s garden at Chartwell

The

BEAUTYof AUTUMN Plants & ideas for a long-lasting garden

Mulberries: Britain’s most sought-after fruit

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CONTRIBUTORS

Abigail Rex Abigail has been a garden photographer for 20 years, and enjoys working with her nine-year-old son out on her allotment.

She photographs the inventive garden at Broughton Grange on page 12.

George Plumptre George is chief executive of the National Garden Scheme. A new edition of his book, The English Country House Garden, was published last year.

He visits Ramster in Surrey on page 46.

Welcome T

urn your notions of the gardening calendar on their head: autumn is the real start of the gardening year, not spring! This is the best season not just to plant spring-flowering bulbs, but also perennials, shrubs and trees. Now’s the time to plan ahead, and I hope the inspirational gardens in this issue will help you do just that. At Broughton Grange in Oxfordshire, a curvy parterre is colourfully filled with an unusual selection of late flowers, while a ‘meadow’ planting of perennials and grasses features a tapestry of evocative autumn hues. Late-flowering perennials play their part at Knoll Gardens in Dorset too, augmenting masses of swishing grasses. Ramster, in the Surrey Hills, is ablaze with the finest autumn leaf colour, while the walled garden at Holehird in the Lake District shelters a dizzying array of vibrant late-bloomers.

Also in this issue, Vanessa Berridge steps on board the Belmond Royal Scotsman for a tour of northerly gardens by rail, we explore the fascinating history of mulberry growing in Britain, and Amanda Hodges discovers how the garden at Chartwell helped Churchill cope with the strain of being a wartime Prime Minister. Of course our gardens are a delight for the senses, but they are an important solace for the soul, too.

CLARE FOGGETT, EDITOR

IMAGES NEIL HEPWORTH; KAREN HATCH

Jacky Hobbs Jacky is a writer, stylist and photographer with a passion for gardens and interiors. She loves entertaining and finding things in the garden to decorate the table. On page 71, she discovers how best to naturalise bulbs.

ON THE COVER The colourfully planted garden at Holehird in the Lake District is tended lovingly by volunteers.

Photographed by Joe Wainwright.

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OCTOBER /NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 5

October/November 2019

CONTENTS 32 26 38 12 20

46

Gardens 12 Broughton Grange In Tom Stuart-Smith‘s terraced, ‘new’ walled garden in Oxfordshire, his exquisite prairie-style planting comes to the fore as summer draws to an end.

12 71

20 Knoll Gardens At this specialist nursery in Dorset, Neil Lucas has filled the gardens with seasonally interesting grasses.

26 Holehird These beautiful Lake District gardens were rescued from neglect in the 1970s and tended by volunteers ever since.

32 Whitburgh The Salvesens have created an unexpectedly contemporary garden in a historic setting in Pathhead, Midlothian.

38 Cholmondeley Castle The gardens and arboretum at this Cheshire castle are a lovely reminder of their enthusiastic creator, Lavinia, Marchioness of Cholmondeley.

46 Ramster Under the care of one family, this Surrey garden has opened to visitors for the National Garden Scheme’s 92 years.

52 Border Gardens by Rail Travel in comfort by train to visit some of the splendid gardens either side of the Anglo-Scottish border.

65 26 6 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

89 Writers’ Gardens Chartwell in Kent was the perfect retreat for statesman Winston Churchill to indulge his passions of painting, writing and gardening.

Design 58 Design Guide Helen Elks-Smith remodels a Surrey garden, with unusual looping paths and a definite emphasis on relaxation.

83 Craftspeople Lucy Goffin and Graham Gough on how their respective crafts are shaped by the local Sussex landscape.

32 Plants 65 Euonymus Stars of the autumn firework display, euonymus are prized as much for their pink fruits as for their flaming foliage.

71 Naturalising bulbs These drifts of spring bulbs are easy to achieve and a beautiful way to maximise underused areas of the garden.

Join us in the garden that changed the world

IMAGES JOE WAINWRIGHT; CLIVE NICHOLS; DIANNA JAZWINSKI; RAY COX; ABIGAIL REX

77 Mulberries These ancient trees produce sought-after and delicious fruits, which are seldom available commercially.

Regulars

Chelsea Physic Garden

8 On Location The high ridge of the South Downs takes in country, coast and gardens.

London’s oldest botanic garden

10 Out & About News, events, jobs to do in the garden – and the best prairie plantings.

Over 5000 Species of Plants - Europe’s Oldest Rockery Garden of Medicinal Plants - World Woodland Garden - Glasshouses

95 The Reviewer This month’s new books, plus an interview with Stephen Anderton.

98 Last Word Squashes brighten the plot and gladden the heart of Katherine Swift.

chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk

Offers 63 Discover Europe See the best British gardens with a range of itineraries from small group travel specialists, Discover Europe.

OCTOBER /NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 7 Untitled-1 1

23/05/2019 11:55:43

ON LOCATION

Double borders in a carefully orchestrated blue and yellow colour scheme lead to an old apple store at West Dean, near Chichester.

SOUTH DOWNS

Up, Up & Away The high ridge of the South Downs takes in coastline, countryside and gardens

Direct trains run from London Victoria to towns like Chichester Lewes and Eastbourne.

From there, take local buses or hire a car.

T

he South Downs, Britain’s newest National Park, stretches from Winchester in the West to Eastbourne and the iconic landscape of the Seven Sisters in the East. It’s a beautiful part of the country, famed for its dramatic chalk cliffs and the mesmerising views from the South Downs Way, a 100-mile long path along the chalk escarpments and Greensand Ridge that forms the spine of the

8 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

National Park. Dotted throughout the countryside are pretty towns and villages, perfect for a leisurely lunch or an overnight stay, like tranquil Alfriston with its village green, Firle and Ditchling to the east, and Hambledon and East Meon to the west.

Of course, there are plenty of wonderful gardens to take in too, not least West Dean, near Chichester – a masterclass of horticultural excellence, with 13 restored Victorian glasshouses. New head gardener

Great Escapes Stay in a mediaeval castle, sample the finest British wine and explore a rolling landscape filled with history STAY IN AMBERLEY Enjoy a

taste of mediaeval luxury with a stay at Amberley Castle. It was listed in William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book and retains many of its original features.

The guest rooms are beautifully furnished with antiques and there is a highly regarded restaurant. Tel: +44 (0)1798 831992; amberleycastle.co.uk

HISTORIC BUILDINGS The South Downs are rich in history and

IMAGES CLIVE NICHOLS; SHUTTERSTOCK

magnificent buildings. Medieval Arundel Castle (above) has a fantastic garden, while neighbouring Arundel Cathedral overlooks the rest of this ancient town. Chichester Cathedral has stood at the heart of Chichester for 900 years and has architecture from across the ages, including original Norman features and a Victorian spire.

Tom Brown has recently moved to West Dean from Parham House and Gardens, near Storrington. This fantastic Elizabethan house is also well worth a visit, and is known for its herbaceous borders and imaginatively planted greenhouse.

Closer to the coast, just outside Worthing, is Highdown, the former home of Victorian plant collector Sir Frederick Stern, its garden packed with rare specimens gathered from the famous plant hunters’ expeditions of the time. Literature lovers will want to include a stop at Chawton too, where they can visit the museum now set up in the cottage where Jane Austen penned many of her best-known novels, and the 14-acre garden at Chawton House – her brother’s former home – which features a walled garden with roses, orchard and herbs. ■

FOOD AND DRINK There are many tasteful pubs in the South Downs, offering local produce and ales. Try The Jolly Sportsman in Chiltington near Lewes, which has a superb seasonal menu. The area is also renowned for its vineyards: the chalky soil is the same as in Champagne, France, so grapes used for sparkling wine thrive here. Visit Ridgeview Wine Estate (left) or Breaky Bottom for tastings. thejollysports man.com; ridgeview.co.uk; breakybottom.co.uk

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 9

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER

Out & About Phoebe Jayes recommends gardens that embrace the New Perennial Movement, and rounds up jobs to do in the garden – plus the latest news

Autumn jobs Start to move tender plants into the shelter of the greenhouse and mulch the crowns of any staying in the soil.

Autumn is one of the best times of year to establish new lawns from turf. They don’t need as much mowing now, so can be left alone to establish.

Give deciduous hedges a final trim to keep their outlines neat over winter.

Perennial PRAIRIES Late summer and autumn are the best times to admire prairie planting inspired by Piet Oudolf’s pioneering New Perennial Movement Trentham Gardens

Sussex Prairie Garden

Geilston Garden

Tom Stuart-Smith led the restoration of the Italian Gardens (above) at this Staffordshire estate, behind which you will find the Rivers of Grass and Floral Labyrinth, designed by Piet Oudolf himself. Tel: +44 (0)1782 646646; trentham.co.uk

Immerse yourself in eight acres of ornamental planting at the Sussex Prairie Garden, where some 35,000 swaying grasses and perennials are planted in a naturalistic style (below).

Tel: +44 (0)1273 495902; sussexprairies.co.uk

In summer, the prairie border at this Argyll & Bute garden puts on a dazzling display that’s rich in colour. Stop by the kitchen garden and apple orchard, where seasonal fruits, vegetables and herbaceous plants will be on sale. Tel: +44 (0)1389 849187; nts.org.uk

Hauser & Wirth

Pensthorpe Gardens

Piet Oudolf is also the designer behind the gardens surrounding this Somerset art gallery. A vast perennial meadow features huge drifts of plants, many chosen for their winter seedheads.

Tel: +44 (0)1749 814060; hauserwirth.com

The naturalistic planting by Piet Oudolf in Pensthorpe Natural Park’s Millennium Garden features bold waves of texture and colour. Seedheads and grasses make this Norfolk garden a must-visit in autumn and winter. Tel: +44 (0)1328 851465; pensthorpe.com

10 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Clear fallen leaves, especially from lawns where they will turn the grass below yellow.

And net ponds to stop leaves from sinking to the bottom and turning the water murky.

Plant spring bedding in borders or pots for displays next year.

Scented wallflowers, high-performing violas, hazy-blue forget-menots and primulas all make charming spring displays and team well with bulbs too.

CURVES

BIG PLANS

for Chatsworth

by Capability

The famous gardens surrounding Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, home to the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, are undergoing their biggest transformation since Joseph Paxton’s work finished more than 200 years ago. Designers Tom Stuart-Smith and Dan Pearson have been tasked with revitalising the garden with Steve Porter, Chatsworth’s head of gardens.

Work has already begun on StuartSmith’s redesign for the Rockery and an undeveloped 15-acre site known as ‘Arcadia’. Pearson will redesign the Jack Pond area. chatsworth.org

A rare curved walled garden has opened to visitors for the first time this summer, ahead of its restoration. The walled garden at Berrington Hall in Herefordshire is one of only two ‘Capability’ Brown curved walled gardens in the UK. Previously rented by a tenant farmer, the National Trust has taken the garden back into its care and launched a fundraising campaign to restore its Georgian design. For around two years, while fundraising takes place and before the conservation work begins, visitors will be able to see the walled garden and a creative temporary planting scheme. nationaltrust.org. uk/berrington-hall

IMAGES JOE WAINWRIGHT; MARIANNE MAJERUS; SHUTTERSTOCK; MATTHEW BULLEN; JOANNA KOSSAK; NATIONAL TRUST/JAMES HARGREAVES; NGS

Beth Chatto’s RHS HONOUR Plantswoman Beth Chatto was named 2019’s RHS Horticultural Hero at the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival this summer, with the team at Beth Chatto’s Plants and Gardens in Essex invited to build a garden at the show.

The result was a recreation of Beth’s renowned Gravel Garden, which, famously, has never been watered.

“We’re not designers but we are inspired

by Beth, the plants she used and how she used them at home,” says nursery director David Ward. bethchatto.co.uk

NGS Garden of the Month The formal Victorian-style Meynell Langley Trials Garden has been developed over 20 years, and is set over just threequarters of an acre. It started out as a simple vegetable garden, but now features 250 varieties of herbaceous perennials, over 180 hanging baskets and floral displays, and a range of fruit, including 35 varieties of apples in espalier and stepover forms. Visitors in October can enjoy apple tasting, with pruning demonstrations earlier on in the year.

Meynell Langley Trials Garden, Lodge Lane, Kirk Langley, Ashbourne, Derbyshire DE6 4NT. Opens for the NGS on 6 October, 10am to 4pm. Adult £4; children free. Refreshments available. Visit ngs.org.uk for more about 2019’s open days and to buy a copy of the 2019 Garden Visitor’s Handbook, the guide to other NGS gardens that will be open throughout the year.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 11

Billowing BRILLIANCE

Tom Stuart-Smith is famed for his ingenious garden design which is matched by his artistic planting prowess. In the terraced, ‘new’ walled garden at Broughton Grange in Oxfordshire, his exquisite prairie-style planting comes to the fore at summer’s end WORDS JACKY HOBBS PHOTOGRAPHS ABIGAIL REX

BROUGHTON GRANGE

Pockets of purple heliotrope and ageratum contrast with red snapdragons and clumps of purple kale in the unusual parterre.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 13

T

Clockwise from top

Hydrangea quercifolia with Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii; head gardener Andrew Woodall; the rill is softened by perennials; Anemone hupehensis ‘Hadspen Abundance’.

and comfortable, was masterminded

by Tom Stuart-Smith in 2000. In winter and spring, the geometry of the garden at Broughton Grange – defined by clean-cut hard landscaping, slick waterways and architectural trained trees – dominates. But when summer’s profusion is engulfed by autumn, the garden’s holding framework becomes more diffused, softened by effusive planting.

The Middle Terrace, a billowing Mediterranean meadow, punctuated by upright columns of yew, Taxus baccata ‘Fastigiata’, is consumed by a fusion of sashaying grasses, cushioned flowerheads and rattling seedheads. Head Gardener Andrew Woodall praises the prairie planting for its autumn ease.

“Once the planting is in place, everything is simply successional,” he points out. “We may tweak the mix, add a few more clumps of desirables, aconitum, sedum or asters, while thinning the more invasive elements, such as the phlomis and geranium, to maintain a balanced meadow.” Tom’s prairie-style planting is organic, designed to evolve, self-seed and drift with minimum maintenance.

The planting is intrinsically bold, with integrated, comely clumps of similar plants rather than severe block planting. Edges are blurred, grasses merge or are spiked with flowering stems or architectural seedheads. Variety and repetition are key, plants enmesh creating a seamless tapestry. Grasses are the holding plants, abundant and purposefully varied. “Use about 25 per

In autumn, the garden’s holding framework is more diffused, softened by effusive planting

14 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

HIS AUTUMN IDYLL, ABUNDANT, CALM

A broad strip of Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’ and clumps of Stipa calamagrostis separates the parterre from the lawned slope below it.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 15

cent grasses, as a guide,” suggests Tom, who favours Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’, with bronze, spun-sugar wands that seem to float with light-catching transparency, and Miscanthus ‘Ferner Osten’, which glows bright coppery-red in autumn.

These are blended with golden oats, Stipa gigantea, which gives airy, ephemeral, height to the undulating planting, and statuesque Miscanthus sinensis ‘Malepartus’, which holds dusky-pink, feathered plumes above cascading, fine-striped, silver-green foliage. Switch grass, Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’, echoes these burnished hues.

Autumn colour is typically associated with trees, however it’s an essential element of prairie meadows, too. Tom encourages you to “think about the autumn colour of herbaceous plants” and highlights his dramatic colour-change favourites: Amsonia hubrichtii, which transforms into a ferny golden orb, and tickseed, Coreopsis tripteris, which saves its show of brilliant yellow, daisy-like flowers until late summer and early autumn.

Threaded through the gauze of grasses are spires of late-flowering perennials, adding colour to the buff or neutral grassland palette: brickpink Persicaria affinis; Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Taurus’, which Tom is increasingly using because it flowers for even longer; rusty-plumed rodgersia; and the white pokers of bugbane, Actaea simplex ‘Atropurpurea’. Clouds of clumped flowers add bolder colour, dominated in autumn by soft violet mounds of Aster ‘Little Carlow’, Aster x frikartii ‘Mönch’ and Geranium ‘Brookside’.

Dusky terracotta Hylotelephium telephium ‘Purple Emperor’, Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus’ 16 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Top left In the prairie

meadow, mauve asters give way to phlomis seedheads as autumn progresses, punctuated by upright yew spires.

Top right More acers are being planted for their autumn colour.

Above A formal vista looks out to adjoining Oxfordshire countryside.

and pink Japanese anemone ‘Hadspen Abundance’ add a rosy glow, while flat-headed Achillea filipendulina ‘Gold Plate’, golden Echinacea ‘White Swan’ and Phlomis russeliana gild the garden. Steelblue Eryngium x zabelii adds a metallic sheen to coppery desiccating grasses and seedheads.

All of these flowering perennials and grasses are crucial prairie-meadow components that linger all summer long, their colours and texture softening with the season. Come mid-autumn, structural seedheads form, while tiered whorls of burnished phlomis and bleached metallic eryngium stars add renewed architectural interest to the increasingly sepia-coloured gardenscape. This is the gardener’s ‘armchair season’, when Andrew advocates “just enjoying the colour and letting things be”. Tom echoes these sentiments, advising: “Leave things standing as long as you can bear them”.

The walled garden’s hard landscaping is more evident when the garden is winter bare, with the traversing and descending pathways and clean-cut rills less blurred. Throughout the garden, however,

are verdant punctuation marks: columns of yew in the Middle Terrace, quartets of pleached limes courting the axis of pathways and vistas, while tunnels of beech both bookend and frame the garden from the borrowed Oxfordshire countryside beyond.

The walled garden’s perimeter borders deftly mix the prairie feel with bigger, bolder shrubs, bringing their own autumn magic. Oak-leaved Hydrangea quercifolia bears flower panicles and hand-sized foliage, which both blush as autumn advances.

Glaucous blue Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii adds a bulky, blue softness to borders, in contrast to the sharper, darker green of neatly clipped box and yew topiary. As time permits, Andrew’s team invisibly begin pruning and wiring in the garden’s evergreen framework. “You always need to be one season and one step ahead,” advises Andrew, who discreetly manages the garden to ensure it meets design expectations all year round. “There’s a huge amount of intricate work involved in the upkeep,” he explains. “Much of the work goes unnoticed or is unseen, but its effects are always ultimately evident.”

From the sharpened, paved edge of the Middle Terrace, Tom’s reinvention of the classical parterre comes to the fore. He has harmonised formal rigour with soft planting, by creating a sprawling, sinuous, low-lying box parterre, its irregular cavities iced with a sorbet of seasonal annuals. The actual design, a softly carved living triptych, is based on the 6,000-times magnified cells of oak, beech and sycamore tree leaves. Its broad fissures are planted seasonally. In winter they lie bare, silvered by frost, letting the garden team trim and maintain the organic silhouette – a task that takes up to 200 hours. Come spring, 4,000 brightly coloured tulips add heat to a largely spring-green garden palette.

Summer brings a cocktail of colourful bedding, which must flower from summer through to autumn, single-planted flower compartments deliberately juxtaposed to create a cacophony of colour.

Carpets of vibrant inky violet heliotrope butt against deep pink Verbena rigida ‘Santos Purple’, crimson-coloured snapdragons and golden Rudbeckia hirta ‘Prairie Sun’ shout out against the softer tones of Ageratum ‘High Tide’, Nicotiana x sanderae ‘Cuba Deep Lime’ and Helichrysum microphyllum ‘Silver Mist’. The rising star of the autumn parterre though, is bolting purple kale. A thick fringe of Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’ frames the

NOTEBOOK

Stuart-Smith style Tom Stuart-Smith’s design for the walled garden at Broughton Grange includes many of his trademark elements and favourite plants

1

2

3

In mid-autumn, tiered whorls of burnished phlomis and bleached metallic eryngium stars add interest

4

1 Topiarised beech stand proud above a sea of perennials and grasses,

anchoring the planting and maintaining structure throughout the year. 2 Grasses such as miscanthus, are vital in the planting mix: Tom recommends making a quarter of your scheme grasses. 3 Longflowering, reliable perennials such as persicaria, are stalwarts. 4 Trained trees often play a part, marking the axes of vistas or crossing paths.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 17

CREATE A PRAIRIE MEADOW

By Andrew Woodall Choose a variety of different grasses for autumn colour and thread them through with autumn flowering perennials, such as asters, echinacea, eupatorium, monarda and veronicastrum.

Plant blocks of the same variety, six plants per square metre.

Allow plants in the prairie to naturally self-seed to create an organic, relaxed effect, but thin or weed out thugs to maintain visual balance.

When necessary, introduce additional clumps of colour and architecture.

The majority of prairie plants thrive on free-draining soils, so avoid conditions where winter wet and damp prevails.

In autumn, mulch plants with composted bark to repress weeds, retain moisture, and keep the area looking neat and tidy.

Divide and split grasses from autumn onwards to reduce the size of larger clumps and create more plants overall.

Cut back grasses from late November when their seedheads are spent, although many can be left for frosted winter interest.

parterre edge before the garden slips away down a lawned slope dotted with comely yew, some arranged more formally, creating a walkway down to a grassy paddock. This area is under development. “A series of new stone focal points, a carved stone urn, tiered fountain and obelisk, have been installed to extend the sightline traditional, long herbaceous Top An avenue of yews leads the eye to a statue. of the western axis of the walled borders and geometric parterres Above left Colourful crab garden,” explains Andrew. The serve to heighten Tom’s departure apple, Malus ‘Evereste’. light woodland shrub and peat from the expected. They are Above right Tom’s borders to the west of this are being favourite, Calamagrostis gracious in their own way but ‘Karl Foerster’ with planted with masses of acers to do not evoke the excitement, Panicum ‘Shenandoah’. further augment autumn colour. emotion, and innovative beauty Tom Stuart-Smith’s of the inspirational ‘new’ walled contemporary take on Broughton Grange’s garden. Tom shows us alternative creative garden walled garden has earned it a place as one of design possibilities together with unconventional, three finalists in the European Garden Heritage uplifting planting that transcends seasons. ■ Network’s ‘Best restoration or development of a historic park or garden’ award. The walled Broughton Grange Gardens, Wykham Lane, garden’s design, its use of plants, the seasons Broughton, Banbury, Oxon OX15 5DS. and the way it fits into the existing gardens Open Wednesdays, May to September, 10am and landscape, impressed the judging panel. to 4pm. Open for group visits by appointment.

Broughton Grange’s adjoining, pre-existing, Tel: +44 (0)7791 747371; broughtongrange.com

18 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

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National Trust at Sissinghurst Castle Garden have partnered to offer International Garden Photographer of the Year (IGPOTY) and a new free-to-enter special award to celebrate the beauty of this National Trust at Sissinghurst Castle Garden have partnered to offer world-renowned garden. a new free-to-enter special award to celebrate the beauty of this world-renowned garden.

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OCTOBER /NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 19

Charcoal Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Dark Desire’, a Knoll Gardens introduction, lines a path below columnar hollies.

20 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

KNOLL GARDENS

Grassroots PHILOSOPHY Knoll Gardens is one of the country’s best-known specialist grass nurseries. Carole Drake speaks to owner Neil Lucas about the gardens there, and choosing grasses for autumn interest WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHS CAROLE DRAKE

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 21

W

HEN NEIL LUCAS BOUGHT

Knoll Gardens near Wimborne in Dorset in 1994 with his mother and step-father, Janet and John Flude, it was a struggling tourist attraction with an abandoned nursery attached. Nowadays the fouracre garden is a touchstone for the use of ornamental grasses, and smoulders in autumn with an intensity of colour emanating not just from trees and shrubs, but also from the grasses Neil has done so much to bring to UK gardeners over the past two decades.

Though a faint air of neglect hung over Knoll Gardens when it was up for sale, Neil could see its potential. “The garden had a lovely collection of trees planted by John and Enid May in the 1970s, and the sandy, free-draining soil appealed to me because it opened up a whole new world of plants,” he explains. Neil had learnt his horticulture on the clay soils of Devon, first at Torbay Parks Department and then Top Behind a goldenas Garden Manager for leaved birch is rusty-red the Devon Healthcare Zelkova serrata.

NHS Trust, directing Above left Neil Lucas, the planting of tens of Knoll Gardens’ owner.

Above right Bobbly pink thousands of plants flowers of Sanguisorba around new buildings.

‘Blackthorn’.

“I gained a huge amount Right A mixed bed of of experience in a very miscanthus, pennisetum and flowering perennials. short time,” he says, 22 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

“and it’s where I first learnt the long-term value of grasses in the landscape. We were using blowsy deciduous types like panicum and pennisetum, miscanthus and stipa. I was impressed by their shapes and presence, and the way they introduce movement into a planting scheme. By the time I got to Knoll I had 30 or 40 different varieties.”

The first few years at Knoll were spent reinstating the overgrown nursery and removing unwanted trees and shrubs from the garden, including several hundred young leylandii trees. When it dawned on Neil that they needed a specialism to make their nursery stand out from the crowd, grasses seemed to be the answer. “People like Piet Oudolf at Bury Court and Nigel Dunnett at Sheffield University were beginning to use ornamental grasses in interesting ways, and I’d become fascinated by them,” Neil explains.

“Grasses demand a different approach from the conventional garden. They cry out to be planted in naturalistic drifts” Above The central pond is surrounded by lush drifts of grasses including miscanthus, cortaderia, pennisetum and calamagrostis.

This decision began to shape the direction of the garden, since, according to Neil: “Grasses demand a different approach from the conventional garden of square beds edged with box. They cry out to be planted in naturalistic drifts.” Although the backbone of unusual trees and shrubs remains, the layout of the garden at Knoll has changed totally since Neil took it on, evolving from a rather conventional formal garden with hedged enclosures, into something naturalistic and informal. “We try to remove a hedge a year, replacing them with groups OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 23

of shrubs or large grasses that are more natural and interesting. They still provide shelter and screening but in a less regimented way than a green wall that has to be cut every year.

Others have been contoured into irregular, organic shapes.”

Once a formal garden with beds radiating from a circular central water feature, the Dragon Garden is now a large area of meadow-style planting with just a single pathway threading through it. Viewed from above, the layout dissolves into unbroken planting, the feathery flower plumes of miscanthus, cortaderia and pennisetum mingling with late-flowering perennials such as persicarias, sanguisorbas and verbenas, against a backdrop of taller trees and shrubs including big bamboos, giant Arundo donax, the reds and yellows of deciduous trees and dark evergreens. Neil loves “the seclusion and privacy that’s created by the trees and shrubs. In a large area of even-heighted planting I don’t like the feeling of being the tallest thing in the garden.” At Knoll, small portions of meadow sit snugly among woody plants of varying Top Panicum virgatum heights, giving visitors a ‘Northwind’ and molinia sense that they could fit feature in the Long Walk. something similar into Middle The fiery autumn their own gardens. leaves of Nandina domestica ‘Fire Power’.

The Long Walk Bottom A feathery mass shows how grasses can of cortaderia and be integrated into mixed miscanthus mixes with borders. Deciduous asters and helianthus.

24 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

grasses like molinia, panicum and pennisetum, turning shades of deep yellow and russet, are interspersed with shrubs including low-growing scarlet Nandina domestica ‘Fire Power’, clumps of flowering perennials such as persicaria, Verbena bonariensis and asters, with taller shrubs and trees behind including deep pinky crimson Euonymus hamiltonianus subsp. sieboldianus, one of many fine spindle trees in the garden that radiate fiery autumn tones. The variety of heights creates a dense three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle of shape, colour and texture, intensely tactile and responsive to the slightest breeze.

Areas of dense planting, including the Sunny Meadow and the Mediterranean gravel garden, demonstrate Neil’s belief that a garden should comprise communities of plants that suit the conditions, a philosophy that even influences the way the nursery markets its new introductions. “We don’t make a great fanfare when we launch a new plant because it gives the impression that everyone should have it, so we prefer to do what we call ‘soft launches’ instead. Stipa gigantea ‘Goldilocks’ was very successful for us, but it needs a sunny, dry, open spot and wouldn’t be happy in damp shade.”

For autumn effect Neil recommends airy molinias, the moor grasses: “Molinia caerulea and the taller M. caerulea subsp. arundinacea cultivars can be spectacular because the whole plant turns a warm butter yellow. It’s the peak time of interest for Miscanthus sinensis ‘Flamingo’ and ‘Ferner Osten’, too, as they flower in autumn just as the foliage starts to colour.” Neil’s grandfather Reg was a skilled grower of delphiniums who used to exhibit

ADVICE ON GRASS

By Neil Lucas Ornamental grasses can be divided into two groups: deciduous and evergreen.

Deciduous genera include miscanthus, pennisetum and panicum. Evergreens include carex, festuca and anemanthele.

Deciduous grasses renew themselves from the base each year. Through winter, their dead leaves provide a habitat for invertebrates and look glorious coated with frost. Cut to ground level in March or April when the worst of the frosts have passed.

Leave evergreen grasses alone unless they need tidying up, in which case cut them when they are in active growth in spring or early summer. Old foliage can be teased out by hand or with a rake, but if a plant looks very tired, cut the whole thing back by half to stimulate lots of new shoots.

Grasses vary in terms of longevity. Hordeum jubatum might only last for two or three years; Hakonechloa macra can live for 20.

Grasses prefer poor soil but a mulch of organic matter, gravel, bark or well-rotted stable manure will conserve moisture and suppress weeds.

at the RHS Halls in London, and while there are no delphiniums in Knoll Gardens, there is “probably a flower in bloom every single day of the year. We may be grass specialists, but flowers are very important to us, too, particularly for attracting garden wildlife.”

Late-flowering herbaceous plants that combine particularly well with the grasses at Knoll include: goldenrod Solidago californica, its slim wands of yellow flowers set among pennisetums including ‘Dark Desire’, a striking Knoll introduction that has deep charcoal flowerheads; Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’, a tall and cheerful sunflower that works beautifully with miscanthus; and the ubiquitous Verbena bonariensis, its robust, wiry stems and purple flowers a perfect mixer with mid-height grasses, such as Molinia caerulea

subsp. caerulea ‘Dauerstrahl’.

Although Neil has handed day-to-day maintenance of the garden over to Luke Al’Thor to concentrate on the nursery, he will be involved with the next big project: the transformation of a slightly tired area of lawn into a ‘modern meadow’ alongside a new classroom for lectures and workshops, topped off with a roof planted with... grasses. What else? ■

Top A swathe of Molinia caerulea ‘Dauerstrahl’ is backed by plumes of Cortaderia selloana ‘Sunningdale Silver’.

Above right Pennisetum ‘Hameln’ is illuminated by the autumn sunlight.

Above left Cheery yellow Solidago californica.

Knoll Gardens, Stapehill Road, Hampreston, Wimborne, Dorset BH21 7ND. Open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm. Closed 20 December 2019 to 4 February 2020. Tel: +44 (0)1202 873931; knollgardens.co.uk OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 25

26 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

HOLEHIRD

People POWER The beautiful gardens at Holehird in the Lake District have been cared for entirely by volunteers since being rescued from neglect and dereliction by the Lakeland Horticultural Society in the 1970s WORDS CAROL DAVIS PHOTOGRAPHS JOE WAINWRIGHT

Late colour abounds in the walled garden at Holehird, sheltered by the tall brick walls.

Helenium, dahlias and actaea form the backbone of this border, delivering colour well into autumn.

28 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

A

S THE LANE CLIMBS HIGH FROM

Windermere towards the Kirkstone Pass, and towering Lakeland peaks rise all around, verdant fields give way to the mauves, blues and delicate pinks of massed hydrangeas. They line the drive as visitors approach Holehird, the extraordinary Lake District garden that has been rescued and restored by generations of dedicated volunteers.

Set to celebrate its 50th birthday next year, the Lakeland Horticultural Society has spent decades restoring the decaying gardens of a Victorian mansion once tended by 17 gardeners. When the Society leased two acres of the overgrown Rock Garden and orchard, their first task was to clear tangled undergrowth and saplings, while preserving mature trees and the heather banks that now form part of magnificent ericaceous borders.

“Back then it was a tangled mess of overgrown shrubs on rough, stony ground,” says volunteer Maggie Mees, who joined the Lakeland Horticultural Society when she retired nine years ago and is now its vice chair. “Holehird has its challenges because it’s a sloping site: it’s very windy with a thin, stony topsoil.”

Yet today, Holehird is home to four national collections, and houses the Lakeland Collection of hydrangeas, too. Surrounded by the Walled Garden’s sun-drenched brick, borders glow with autumn yellows and scarlets – and on grassy slopes, ericaceous beds shine gold, pink and purple.

The grounds here surround the former mansion of a Manchester

Surrounded by sun-drenched brick, borders glow with autumn yellows and scarlets

Clockwise from top

Eupatorium billows below vibrant Sorbus commixta; the garden showcases hydrangeas that thrive in the Lakes; Maggie Mees looks after the Gunnera Pool; persicaria and pernettya below acers.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 29

industrialist, who laid out formal gardens in 1885 and added the Walled Garden and heated greenhouses. Twelve years later, it was bought by the Groves family, who added a rock garden and water features, damming streams to form a tarn below the mansion where Beatrix Potter stayed occasionally.

Yet after the war, the gardens and mansion fell into disarray. In 1945, Henry Leigh Groves handed the estate to the county council, but while the mansion was turned into a Leonard Cheshire residential home, the gardens became increasingly overgrown, until the Society was formed in 1969 and started to take over. After tackling the Rock Garden and Orchard, they later took on the Walled Garden, which had become a tree nursery, clearing derelict glasshouses and creating herbaceous borders and island beds. More acres around the mansion followed, uniting the original Victorian gardens as volunteers created a Woodland Walk, Hydrangea Walk and restored the Victorian Cascade.

Visitors coming up from Windermere in autumn now pass the wonderful blues and pinks of the Hydrangea Walk, with sweeping views over yachts on Windermere and the peaks of Crinkle Crags and Scafell, before reaching the wonderful autumn foliage of Cercidiphyllum japonicum and newly planted acers providing brilliant splashes of bronze, scarlet and gold.

Inside the Walled Garden, the spectacular Acer palmatum ‘Sango-kaku’ provides an autumn blaze of orange and reds in the garden’s west border.

Protected from chilly autumn winds by the high brick walls, the borders and island beds are lit up by late-flowering scarlet dahlias, vibrant yellow rudbeckia and vivid pendulous fuchsia.

“We have around 60 volunteer gardeners here now, and many more volunteers who do other work,” says Maggie. “And because there is no head gardener here to tell us what to do, the gardens are continually evolving. So the wonderful east border, for example, is maintained by a local couple who develop it for seasonal interest, including a great display of tulips in spring. You’ll see that it’s very different from the west border, which is designed for interest all year round.”

New volunteers tend to work on different areas, depending on their interests and where there is a need, until they find one to settle in. Maggie’s own patch is the Gunnera Pool, where the bright stems of cornus, viburnum and dwarf acers add splashes of

The Hydrangea Walk has sweeping views over yachts on Windermere and the peaks of Crinkle Crags

30 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Holehird’s

LATE FLOWERS Perennials that offer plentiful autumn colour

RUDBECKIA FULGIDA

ECHINACEA PURPUREA

Obliging and easy-to-grow, this rudbeckia flowers from late summer into October and in mild Novembers.

A central rust-coloured cone remains after the pink petals fall in autumn, to supply ongoing structural interest.

DAHLIA ‘HOOTENANNY’

LOBELIA SPECIOSA

Keep deadheading for more flowers until the first frost, at which point tubers should be lifted and protected.

HELENIUM ‘SAHIN’S EARLY FLOWERER’ Yellow-orange flowers are held on stiffly upright stems from midsummer until late in the season.

Never underestimate these lobelias for providing a hit of colour late in the season.

Protect the crown of the plant with a dry mulch.

ACTAEA SIMPLEX The Atropurpurea Group of actaea boast purple-green leaves and stems, topped by scented bottle-brush flowers of pink-tinged white.

GROWING ADVICE Caring for hydrangeas

by Maggie Mees

Many varieties of hydrangeas do best in light dappled shade, since they are mainly woodland shrubs, although they can also thrive in full sun.

Avoid planting them in a frost pocket or in exposed, windy sites.

New plants should be put into the ground with good compost or leafmould, and top-dressed annually with a handful of Growmore or ammonium sulphate.

seasonal colour as the massive Gunnera manicata gracefully subsides.

The pool is fed by a gill that runs down from a neighbouring farm, appearing briefly in the south-east corner of the Walled Garden before being routed underground by Victorian waterworks: “We’re still discovering bits of the waterworks, which is fascinating,” says Maggie.

“But since the water comes from farmland and is nutrient-rich, clearing the weed is a nightmare – it has been particularly prolific this year.” The pool much rain and not enough sun,” says Maggie. drains into the Cascade, surrounded by Osmunda “But while hybrid tea roses don’t do well here, regalis ‘Cristata’, royal ferns, which are probably we have wonderful shrub roses and floribundas.” over 100 years old, before flowing into the tarn And as the autumn sun sinks behind the lake, and then ultimately into Windermere. ericaceous borders glow with the purples, golds Holehird is now home to national collections of and pinks of low-growing heather and daboecia. astilbe, daboecia, meconopsis and polystichum, On the slope above the roses, the leaves of the and once housed the National Collection of tulip tree Liriodendron tulipifera turn gold, hydrangeas, too. “We had a disastrous flood, close to the recently donated wedding cake tree, and the Hydrangea Walk and surrounding fields Cornus controversa. were flooded,” Maggie explains. “So in 2012 we “Autumn and winter walks here are a constant made it the Lakeland Collection of Hydrangeas, source of discovery, which is why we open since some hydrangeas, including mopheads, just every day all year round,” says Maggie. “The don’t thrive here. Instead we grow only those that Hydrangea Walk is a favourite in autumn, when grow well in Lakeland conditions. It makes sense, the colours begin to fade and the delicate textures because the aim of the Society and shapes become more visible.” ■ is to demonstrate the science, Top Heathers blooming practice and art of horticulture for Holehird Gardens, Patterdale in the rockery – one of the first areas to be conditions in the Lake District.”

Road, Windermere, Cumbria LA23 restored by the Society.

Beyond the Walled Garden, 1NP. Open daily, dawn till dusk.

Above The autumn the rose beds are a mass of ruddy Groups by appointment. Suggested leaves of Euonymus rosehips: “Some say you can’t grow donation, £5. Tel: +44 (0)15394 alatus are among the season’s brightest. roses here because we have too 46008; holehirdgardens.org.uk

Hydrangeas flower on the previous year’s wood, so cutting them back hard means no flowers the following season.

But if they aren’t pruned, the shrub becomes overgrown and straggly, with fewer, smaller blooms.

For the best display, cut a third of the old stems to the base and remove damaged shoots in February or March. On remaining stems, leave old flowerheads in place to protect buds from frost, cutting them off in April, down to the biggest lateral buds.

For H. serrata and H. macrophylla in particular, flower colour depends on soil pH. Reliable blues need lots of aluminium, which means an acidic pH below 7.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 31

Whitburgh House’s walled garden features a geometric layout, with bold blocks of planting and topiary, with productive areas, too.

32 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

WHITBURGH HOUSE

MODERN CLASSIC At Whitburgh House in Pathhead, Midlothian, owners Elizabeth and Alastair Salvesen have created an unexpectedly contemporary garden in a historic setting WORDS ANTOINETTE GALBRAITH PHOTOGRAPHS RAY COX

W

HITBURGH HOUSE SITS IN A RAISED

position overlooking Midlothian and East Lothian countryside, with magnificent southerly views over distant Soutra and the Lammermuirs.

Built in 1811 on the site of a smaller dwelling, the Classical mansion is reached by way of a drive flanked with mature trees. On arrival, the first indication that this garden might be a departure from the ordinary is the sight of Ariel, a scrapmetal cheetah made from parts of an Ariel motorbike, leaping from the grass. Bronze hares box in the unmown grass, which is filled with wild flowers – including orchids.

Alastair and Elizabeth Salvesen moved here in 1992, choosing Whitburgh for its proximity to Edinburgh, good farmland, mature trees and sporting facilities. The house was gloomy, inside and out, on account of being surrounded by trees, so a programme of thinning and replanting began. The one-acre walled garden, which became the focus, contained just “some hedges and a handful of shrubs”.

Having spent two years renovating the house and raising a family of young children, Elizabeth took on Oatridge College graduate, Vincent Dudley, who has now worked at Whitburgh for 25 years. Early on the pair implemented a traditional English country garden style, but soon decided it did not work for them. “Just when the tall herbaceous border plants were about to flower, along came the July winds and OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 33

Top The burgundy tones of the Prunus cerasifera ‘Pissardii’ hedge and arch are echoed by dark-hued heuchera.

Above Large containers of Argyranthemum ‘Jamaica Primrose’.

blew everything over,” explains Elizabeth. Seeking inspiration, they embarked upon a programme of garden visiting and research that led them first to England and Wales, and then further afield under the guidance of designer and plantsman Noel Kingsbury.

Under Kingsbury’s influence, the pair became interested in cutting-edge gardening that pushed the boundaries of accepted British design. “We visited gardens in Holland, Bavaria, Sweden, Berlin and as far away as Illinois, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware,” Elizabeth recalls.

“We met Piet Oudolf in Holland at his nursery, and some influential German horticulturists, and came to the conclusion that Germany was way ahead of Britain in terms of its ideas.” The disadvantage of looking at grand gardens, she found, “is that you get grand ideas”. These had to be adapted to fit into an acre of walled garden intended to peak in late August, September and October.

34 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Ideas that were deemed suitable for Whitburgh were noted, and slowly a plan emerged for a wildlifefriendly, year-round structural garden. The inclusion of sculpture throughout was influenced by the Salvesens’ love of contemporary art, and their wish list was eventually whittled down to a hedge on stilts, a reflecting pool and a fruit cage, while their list of plants included grasses, biennials and late perennials.

High-maintenance plants such as roses were avoided unless they were robust and disease-free, such as fragrant, pink Rosa ‘Celeste’. “We run the garden on natural, almost organic, lines, for the sake of the birds and bees, so spraying chemicals is not on the agenda,” Elizabeth confirms. Robust plants suitable for Scotland were sourced. “We avoid anything tender, since Whitburgh is 700 feet above sea level and on the windy east side of Scotland.”

Extra space was allocated to grow vegetables for the family. Incorporating this wish into the gently

Left The pleached beech hedge is underplanted with catmint for summer.

Below right Quiet and calm, the reflecting pool.

Below left Vegetables are grown in raised beds; fluffy Stipa tenuissima self-seeds into the surrounding gravel.

sloping site, a frost pocket in winter, required the help of a surveyor to measure the levels and find the right spot. “We kept going round and round in circles and the fruit cage always ended up in the coldest place,” Elizabeth recalls. “Eventually the eureka moment came and it all fell into place.”

Vegetables are grown in raised, dark-green stained, wooden-edged beds in the same style as the fruit cage. And, to the surprise of all, the raised beds nourished with green manure have produced just as many vegetables as you’d get from the traditional method. “There is no compaction so they don’t need double-digging, which means they’re easier to maintain,” Elizabeth explains. Vegetables are also used in some of the flowerbeds, but for ornamental purposes, balancing practicality with design.

The final plan was for a structural garden laid out with differently themed areas. Texture is as important as shape, and plants were chosen for the colour of their evergreen or deciduous foliage. Bright flashes of colour, such as orange tulip ‘Ballerina’ followed by Argyranthemum ‘Jamaica Primrose’, which flowers all summer, Lobelia richardii, Peltiphyllum peltatum and Arctotis x hybrida ‘Flame’ are planted in galvanised bins and troughs.

The constant movement of grasses in contrast to the static topiary shapes brings drama to the scheme.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 35

Top Bright perennials

in the ‘late summer bed’ include cannas and Lythrum virgatum.

Above Vincent Dudley has cared for the garden here for 24 years.

Left Whitburgh’s owner, Elizabeth Salvesen.

36 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

The scene is immediately set on entry, with wooden gates opening onto a wide grass path flanked with the hedges on stilts. The pleached beech hedge is underplanted with catmint, which draws the eye up to a gravel square softened with grasses and punctuated with galvanised bins that are filled in summer with yellow Argyranthemum ‘Jamaica Primrose’. In spring, ribbons of Erythronium ‘Pagoda’ flower under the hedge.

Turn left and you find the elegant, rectangular reflecting pool where three metal penguins made from motorbike fuel tanks stand poised to dive into its dark waters. Edged with contrasting white stone, the exterior pool wall is backed with cordons of old Scottish apples, chosen for their striking spring blossom and fruit colour. Varieties include ‘Discovery’ (“a child’s picture of a rosy red apple”), ‘James Grieve’, ‘Stirling Castle’ and ‘Tower of Glamis’. The water theme is reinforced by the indoor swimming pool sharing the fourth wall of the garden in front of which is a rectangular lawn enclosed with a low beech hedge laid out with two semicircles of tall Miscanthus ‘Flamingo’.

Sited next to the gravel, the dark-green-stained wooden fruit cage brings height to the scheme and is planted with red and whitecurrants, red and green gooseberries and cherries, all fan or goblet

GARDEN NOTES

By Elizabeth Salvesen Plant nepeta and easy-to-grow poached egg plant, Limnanthes douglasii to encourage bees and hoverflies.

Water in the garden helps the toads who work so hard to keep the slugs at bay.

Growing green manures in rotational beds, wherever space and time allow, will boost plant nutrition: try Phacelia tanacetifolia, crimson clover and Hungarian grazing rye. The latter two are also good weed suppressants.

Use nematodes to effectively control pests without harming wildlife. We also use natural potassium-rich seaweed fertilisers for general plant nutrition.

Wherever possible, we use leafmould to mulch the garden.

Above A decked seating cardoons. The circle is completed trained for ease of picking, and area is almost engulfed along the south facing wall where also blackcurrant bushes, alpine by drifts of Verbena a two-part glasshouse with strawberries and summer and bonariensis and Stipa coldframes overlooks a silver-blue autumn raspberries. tenuissima, with pots of coral-coloured arctotis. section, the only circular area At the heart of the garden in the garden, which features is the central parterre – a yearplants such as Eryngium alpinum, Lavandula round feast of texture and colour screened angustifolia ‘Hidcote’, globe artichokes, by the maroon foliage of Prunus cerasifera perovskia and Dianthus ‘Mrs Sinkins’. There ‘Pissardii’, which is cut down annually at leaf is also a late-summer bed, with bright dahlias, fall. Herbaceous plants throughout the garden canna lilies, echinacea, tithonia and schizostylis. are allowed to stand until spring and are A seating area is surrounded with soft grasses, then chopped down and left lying as mulch: Dianthus carthusianorum and Iris ‘Florentina’ white phlox; asters; euphorbia; tall structural planted into the gravel. Dramatic canna lilies are Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Album’; beloved overwintered in the glasshouse where seeds and of bees, Actaea simplex; and bronze fennel. In young plants are started and grown on. The two spring there are plenty of white foxgloves, plus apricot trees on the back wall are wonderfully Allium ‘Mount Everest’. productive. But for the Salvesens, the most The north-facing wall proved the perfect place for a series of spaces devoted to exciting, precisely exciting parts are the 12 rotational beds which include calendula, various kales, purple leeks, clipped evergreen structure, with height coming perillas, runner beans, salvias, Verbena hastata from two tall yew pyramids alongside clusters of ‘Blue Spires’, parsley and peonies. box pruned into waves, curves and other shapes A gate in the west wall takes you to a spiral to create winter structure. path through a white birch grove towards a A generous 16ft deep border runs the length second arboretum. Here, trees such as ginkgo, of the west-facing wall. Always thinking of acers and Cercidiphyllum japonicum surround a wildlife the couple chose persicarias, Verbena pond planted with moisture-loving plants, with bonariensis, rusty red Hemerocallis ‘Stafford’, the path leading you back to the house with its phlomis, monkshood, Salvia ‘Nachtvlinder’, views over fields of Aberdeen Angus cattle. ■ S. guaranitica ‘Indigo Blue’, S. confertiflora and

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 37

Shrouded in mist at dawn on an autumn morning, the lake at Cholmondeley Castle.

Her Ladyship’s PASSION

The gardens and arboretum at Cheshire’s Cholmondeley Castle are a beautiful autumnal reminder of their enthusiastic creator, Lavinia, Marchioness of Cholmondeley, and include borders named in her honour WORDS JIM CABLE PHOTOGRAPHS JOE WAINWRIGHT

38 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

CHOLMONDELEY CASTLE

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 39

T

HERE ARE SIGNS THAT SOMETHING

very special lies ahead all along the modest driveway that leads you up to Cholmondeley Castle. A line of Sorbus thibetica ‘John Mitchell’ bear clusters of berries resembling tiny russet apples; there are flashes of yellow from a sweet gum, a tulip tree, and then mature Acer cappadocicum, all hinting at a landscape filled with autumn interest.

The Cholmondeley family have lived on this estate in south-west Cheshire since 1200. The present castle was built as a square villa between 1801 and 1804 by the 1st Marquess of Cholmondeley. In 1817 the architect Robert Smirk was commissioned to add turrets and castellations, which gave it the romantic theatrical air it has retained to this day.

The supremely ornate white screen gates at the entrance to the garden suggest an earlier heritage.

Head gardener, Barry Grain, explains they were made in 1722 by Robert Bakewell for the north entrance of the family’s previous residence, about a mile to the east, in what he describes as ‘a rather damp spot’. When fortunes allowed them to relocate and build the castle higher up on the end of a sandstone ridge, they brought the gates as a feature.

The creation of the 70-acre garden, on the freedraining, slightly acidic sand surrounding Above Borders in the the castle, began in the 1820s, but much Rose Garden feature of what can be seen today is the work of magenta penstemon.

Lady Lavinia, wife of the 6th Marquess, Right Blue aconitum flowers peep through who arrived in 1949 with no horticultural the fading blooms of knowledge but a desire to create a garden of Hydrangea paniculata. great romance. She died in 2015 at the age of Below The grand façade 94. Barry had taken up his post in 2013, and of Cholmondeley Castle.

speaks warmly of Lavinia. “She was in the garden most days with me. If she couldn’t come out, we would talk in the library.” Hers was an uncontrived style with ongoing tweaking and experimenting.

“We had two really good years,” he recalls fondly.

These days Barry discusses matters with Lavinia’s son, David, the 7th Marquess and Lord Great Chamberlain to Her Majesty, who is also hands on. David and his family divide their time between Cholmondeley and Houghton Hall in Norfolk.

In front of the south-facing aspect of the castle is a short rill leading to a lily pond. The sugar pink tones of Nerine bowdenii seem to defy the onset of wintry weather and vie for attention along with the occasional late blue flower and rich red foliage of Ceratostigma willmottianum reflected in the water’s 40 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Silver-grey Santolina chamaecyparissus and brachyglottis in borders next to the castle walls.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 41

The Temple Garden, with its statuesque trees, and calm lake reflecting the russet tones of Darmera peltata and fiery acers.

42 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

surface. Around the corner, framing an arched window, is Barry’s favourite climber for the autumn season. Celastrus orbiculatus copes with this windy spot in the Cheshire Gap, thriving on the east face of the castle. The large leaves turn a sunny yellow colour and set off orange seeds as the fruits of this vigorous vine split open.

Down the slope, near a pebble mosaic created by Maggy Howarth and dedicated to the 6th Marquess, are two beds displaying stipas, miscanthus, calamagrostis and festuca. These ornamental grasses are not cut down until spring and catch the low autumn light beneath the fiery spreading branches of Parrotia persica and Acer rubrum ‘October Glory’. Berries also abound in this area. Amber globules hang from a Sorbus ‘Joseph Rock’ and Sorbus pseudohupehensis ‘Pink Pagoda’ displays rosy clusters that turn pale as the days shorten.

“I love autumn colour,” Barry enthuses. “Lady Lavinia prized spring flowers and we have excellent collections of rhododendrons, magnolias and camellias, but at some point she realised she needed to balance that with autumn colour. A lot of magnolias colour well, so she did have a head start.”

This year has seen Barry and his team of three full-time gardeners and two students create a tribute to the late Marchioness in the form of the Lavinia Walk borders.

Punctuated by sturdy obelisks, for roses soon to be planted, and repeated specimens of Malus hupehensis, the border is a riot of hot colours in late summer from dahlias, cannas, salvias and the superb large-flowered apricot Crocosmia ‘Severn Sunrise’. In autumn, the mist cloaks the remains of the summer plants and, on the air, as diverting as any floral display, is the captivating scent of burnt toffee. The source is a group of katsuras, Cercidiphyllum japonicum planted along a nearby stream. The autumn colour of this small tree from Japan and China is particularly striking on acid soil, while the aroma is maltol, released by the yellowing

A statue of a gladiator, sheltered by a temple, creates a focal point in a world of soft reflections

Top The red leaves of ceratostigma frame the head of the Lily Pond.

Above This intricate pebblestone mosaic was commissioned by Lady Lavinia as a memorial to her late husband.

foliage – the same molecule generated by caramelising sugar.

At the end of the Lavinia Walk is an arched doorway through a stone façade into a small loggia. From here, in autumn, the panorama over the Temple Garden with its small lake and two islands quietly commands the visitor to stop. The landscape is a natural hollow of water that was enlarged during the castle build. At the same time, reusing and recycling elements of the old hall introduced classical and quirky elements.

Trees such as Acer rubrum and deciduous conifer Taxodium distichum, were planted in the distance to give a tapestry backdrop of scarlets, pinks and old gold at the end of each year. In the middle of one island a statue of a gladiator, sheltered by a temple, creates a focal point in a world of soft reflections. Two Prunus x yedoensis frame the foreground with their graceful arching branches. Prized for their abundance of almond-scented palest-of-pink flowers in spring, these Yoshino cherries perform in autumn too. Their end-of-year hues are enhanced at Cholmondeley through their positioning alongside Japanese maples such as Acer palmatum ‘Sango-kaku’ with its coralred branches and yellow autumn leaves.

A. palmatum ‘Inaba-shidare’ and Acer ‘Garnet’ both display finely dissected leaves near a bridge where two stylised sandstone whales appear to kiss. Each maple colours magnificently: crimson OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 43

NOTEBOOK

Autumn interest Planting for the autumn season has ensured Cholmondeley Castle stays colourful, with trees, perennials and bulbs all playing their part

1

and orange-scarlet respectively. Nearby is the strong purple of Berberis thunbergii f. atropurpurea ‘Rose Glow’. This has stood the test of time, with marbled foliage earlier in the year and red berries in autumn.

Lindera obtusiloba grows on the slope down to the lake, and is one of the first shrubs to flower in spring – mustard-yellow and honey-scented. In summer the foliage is a refreshing apple-green, and then in autumn it sports a final flourish of butter-yellow.

In the boggy ground surrounding the lake, the royal fern Osmunda regalis, a British native, thrives, and its fronds take on a lovely rusty hue before dying back for winter. Darmera peltata also enjoys this spot. Like miniature gunnera, its round scalloped leaves develop yellow and crimson tones, with the latter linking to the patches of sedums flowering in the drier soil further up the bank. In an island bed a group of Euonymus alatus, a shrub of medium proportions, offer excitement late in the season. The leaves glow brilliant red in the weak autumn sun and purple pods burst open to reveal bright orange fruits.

Barring the oldest trees, the Temple Garden is mostly Lady Lavinia’s planting, including a purple beech and that most beautiful of conifers, Brewer’s weeping spruce. Barry recalls: “Even at 94 if something died in the garden she would be down in the dumps for a day or so. But then we’d get the call, ‘Right what are we going to replace it with?’ and the garden would evolve from there.” ■

Above Warm autumn leaf colour from Prunus yedoensis, framing the foreground of the Temple Garden.

Cholmondeley Castle, Malpas, Cheshire SY14 8AH. Opens Wednesdays, Thursdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays. Tel: +44 (0)1829 720383; cholmondeleycastle.com 44 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

2

3

4

1 A large clump of pink nerines thrives in the south-facing border at the front of the castle. 2 Moisture-loving Darmera peltata is ideal for pool or streamside planting and has good autumn foliage tints too.

3 Acer rubrum ‘October Glory’ is renowned for its striking autumn leaf colour. 4 The leaves of Acer palmatum ‘Sango-kaku’ turn bronze and orange before falling to reveal the outlines of graceful branches.

Discover

Marwood Hill Gardens

Discover the stunning views at Marwood Hill Gardens, 20 acres of private gardens with lakes in North Devon.

The gardens are a wonderful haven in which to relax and enjoy the impressive collections of plants, shrubs and trees and experience the views and peaceful atmosphere.

Award-Winning Tea Room & Gift Shop Our award-winning Garden Tea Room & Gift Shop offers seasonal menus of homemade, locally-sourced and gluten-free delights.

Specialist Plant Sales At Marwood, we aim to provide something a little bit different, something which you can take home.

Tel: 01271 342528 | www.marwoodhillgarden.co.uk | Marwood Hill Gardens, North Devon EX31 4EA OCTOBER /NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 45

The garden at Ramster is planted amid ancient oak woodland, giving a sense of calm and restful permanence.

46 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

RAMSTER

A FAMILY AFFAIR

NGS chief executive George Plumptre enjoys the glorious autumn colour at Ramster in Surrey, which, under the care of generations of one family, has opened to visitors for the Scheme’s entire 92 years WORDS GEORGE PLUMPTRE PHOTOGRAPHS MATTHEW BRUCE

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 47

B

RILLIANT FLASHES OF INTENSE, FLAME-

shaded foliage within the cool setting of ancient oak woodland is a beguiling proposition. At the garden of Ramster, hidden away in beautiful countryside on the edge of the Surrey Hills, such scenes have been nurtured by successive generations to produce a woodland garden that reaches an autumnal crescendo nearly as dramatic as its flowering peak in May and early June.

Autumn garden visits are all about having the time for a relaxing walk, taking in the seasonal changes that are going on around you – always with the awareness that as the days start to grow shorter, time for such enjoyment is limited and precious. The 20 acres of Ramster, with paths winding seemingly at random from one area to another, up and down slopes, from open lawn to secret shrubberies, with occasional views out across the woodland pond, is the perfect destination.

In particular it illustrates how the onset of autumn in natural woodland can be perfectly complemented by the planting of a garden within such a setting.

48 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Above Paths meander through the woodland, where acers create a colourful Japanese feel.

Below Glistening, autumn toadstools spring up from the turf.

As well as discovering all the visual delights on offer, you will soon become aware of Ramster’s other most significant factor. This is a family garden, which has been nurtured and loved by successive generations of the same family. The sense of continuity this brings is evident everywhere, in the trees and shrubs of different ages and in the sense that the garden has grown up steadily through a period of more than a century.

It all began in 1890, when the businessman Sir Harry Waechter bought the property, which included a large area of natural oak woodland that thrived on the Wealden clay scattered with pockets of lighter, sandy soil. Sir Harry employed the local Chiddingfold firm of landscapers, Gauntletts, who were great exponents of all things Japanese.

This was highly fashionable at the time, and much of their work remains today.

They were responsible for what is now the show-stopper of the autumn season, the avenue of Japanese maples, Acer palmatum ‘Dissectum’. These trees are now 120 years old and have achieved proportions of rare stateliness. For a

Clockwise from top left

A late, blue hydrangea; Japanese maples are a backdrop to Eastern sculpture; vivid Acer palmatum ‘Ōsakazuki’; ferns throng around mossy statuary; Christine Charlesworth’s bronze ornament represents Miranda Gunn’s grandchildren.

Above A red painted

Japanese bridge crosses the bog garden, which peaks in spring.

Left Woodland fungi colonise an old trunk.

Below Charming woven-willow deer graze among the fallen autumn leaves.

50 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

few weeks each year, they form a long tunnel of glowing shades of red and orange foliage: a truly unforgettable sight.

Ramster’s family connection begins in 1922 when it was bought by Sir Henry Norman. His wife, Fay, was the daughter of Lord Aberconway and she had been brought up at that family’s famous North Wales garden, Bodnant, begun by her grandfather and built up by successive generations. She was an avid gardener and at Ramster she took on a woodland garden similar in style to her childhood home. Over the decades she built up the outstanding rhododendron collection, including a number of plants grown from seeds brought back from the Himalayas by collectors such as George Forrest.

By the mid-20th century, the Ramster woodland garden had become impressively mature, with the exotic ornamental plants introduced from overseas settled among ancient oaks and other native trees.

From 1980 there was another injection of expert enthusiasm by Lady Norman’s granddaughter, Miranda Gunn, who inherited with her husband and brought a new strand of personal preferences.

She rescued many of the hybrid rhododendrons that had been raised by her grandmother but had disappeared, and actually registered one named ‘Fay Norman’ in her grandmother’s honour.

As Miranda Gunn prepared to pass on the Ramster garden to her daughter Rosie, she could well reflect on the social changes that it had seen through her family’s occupation. She recalled that in

Six top autumncolour trees

By George Plumptre Acer palmatum. The huge family of Japanese maples all produce a spectacular range of autumn hues. There are cultivars suitable for any size of garden.

Acer campestre. In contrast to its Japanese cousin, the field maple has been a feature of the English landscape for centuries. In autumn its shovel-shaped leaves turn a gorgeous buttery yellow.

her grandmother’s pre-war heyday, Above Fiery red leaves, a tree that she prizes most is a backlit by autumn sun, there were 40 staff who worked in Katsura tree, Cercidiphyllum turn this Japanese the gardens. Other than the head japonicum, planted by her maple, Acer palmatum gardener, who wore a bowler hat, mother. In autumn it is a beacon into a magnificent they all wore the same uniform, of rich, buttery-yellow, toffeeseasonal spectacle. which included a jacket. In hot scented foliage. weather they were permitted to take off their It’s impossible to write about Ramster without jackets, but they had to hang them on a spade mentioning its other very rare distinction. When or fork so that Lady Norman could easily find the National Garden Scheme was first founded them for a discussion about whatever job they in 1927 to raise money for district nurses, Lady were doing. In 2005, when Rosie took over with Norman was one of the 600 people who agreed her husband, Malcolm Glaister, there were just to open their gardens for a day. Each charged two gardeners. entry of one shilling, raising a total of £8,000.

The family continuity is also celebrated in a Ninety years later in 2017, more than 3,500 number of the garden’s ornaments. One, by the gardens opened for the Scheme – Ramster still sculptor Christine Charlesworth gives the most among them – raising a grand total of £3.7 pleasure. It is a bronze group of five boys and million. A number of the ‘founder’ gardens that girls playing ‘ring-a-ring-a-roses’ and represents opened in 1927 continue to open in aid of the Miranda and Paul Gunn’s grandchildren – one National Garden Scheme but only two, Ramster from each of their five children. and the Queen’s Sandringham Gardens, have Rosie Glaister says she is intensely aware and opened for every single one of the Scheme’s proud of this sense of continuity, and feels that 92 years. Ramster even remained open right her work in the garden is a balance between through World War II and continues to give ensuring it continues to develop and evolve, pleasure to thousands of visitors who come to with respect for looking after the best features enjoy the seasonal delights – not least autumn’s introduced by her mother and grandmother. brilliant foliage colour. ■ Among the trees that show off autumn foliage her favourite are the numerous liquidambars.

Ramster, Petworth Road, Chiddingfold, She particularly enjoys their variety, in terms of Godalming, Surrey GU8 4SN, opens for age and size, which are living proof of how the autumn colour 1 October to 3 November. garden has evolved. But for sentimental reasons, Tel: +44 (0)1428 654167; ramsterevents.com

Liquidambar styraciflua.

Introduced from the United States in the 17th century, these elegant trees produce spectacular autumn colour, often with the richness of old claret.

Cercidiphyllum japonicum. Distinctly rounded leaves turn in autumn to shades of brilliant yellow with occasional pink tints.

Parrotia persica. Often overlooked as an autumn star, the parrotias, which originate from Iran as their name suggests, are described by Hillier’s Manual as ‘one of the finest small trees for autumn colour’. Praise indeed.

Malus trilobata. A rarity in this huge family, in that it is actually more like an acer, and grows slowly into a small tree. Its unusual leaves turn amazing shades of crimson and maroon. Hard to find but worth pursuing.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 51

Above Long borders

of soft purple nepeta at Kellie Castle.

Opposite Mount Stuart’s symmetrical formal vegetable garden.

52 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

BORDERS GARDENS

Border PATROL Embark upon a voyage of discovery, travelling by train in relaxed comfort to visit some of the many splendid gardens that open to visitors on either side of the Anglo-Scottish Border WORDS VANESSA BERRIDGE

‘L

IMAGES ALAMY; ANDREA JONES

et the train take the strain’ exhorted the 1980s advertising slogan. Certainly, travelling by rail is the most relaxing way to explore any country. On a recent tour, I visited several fine gardens no more than a hundred miles from the English/Scottish border, and none too far from a railway station. Their fascinating histories reflect many periods of British garden history.

In England

The rich and unusual planting at Howick Hall, near Alnwick, creates year-round enchantment from delicate bulbs in spring to an arboretum ablaze with colour in autumn. In the early 19th century, Howick Hall was home to Charles, 2nd Earl Grey, British Prime Minister from 1830-1834 and architect of the Great

Reform Act, for whom the bergamot-flavoured tea was blended.

In the early 20th century, Charles, 5th Earl Grey, and his wife, Mabel, restructured and replanted the gardens, favouring William Robinson’s naturalistic style over Victorian formality. In their woodland garden, species rhododendrons, azaleas and magnolias flourish beneath mature oaks and Scots pines.

The Greys’ dedication inspired both their daughter, Lady Mary Howick, and her son Charles, 2nd Lord Howick of Glendale. Since 1980, Lord Howick has collected trees and shrubs on expeditions to China, Korea and Japan. Over 12,000 trees and shrubs represent 1,800 species through the arboretum and the Long Walk, which stretches a mile and a half from house to sea. Planting is systematic and scientific, arranged by geographical region, and surplus seedlings are shared with botanic gardens.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 53

east to west, flanked by lawns and other herbaceous borders in yew compartments. Planting is a dreamy swirl of salvias, roses, Clematis ‘Perle d’Azur’, nepetas, nicotiana, campanulas and astrantias.

Apple trees, some dating back to the 19th century, appear as candelabras, in right-angled cordons at the corners, and in espaliers, along with pears and quince, all around the red brick walls.

Hutton-in-the-Forest, Penrith, Cumbria CA11 9TH. Tel: +44 (0)1768 484449; hutton-in-the-forest.co.uk (nearest station, Penrith).

In Scotland

The castle at Hutton-in-the-Forest, near Penrith, has grown up around a pele (or fortified) tower dating from about 1350, and has been owned by the same family for over 400 years. The tower was converted into a country house in the 17th century, and extended in 1850 in the medieval style so popular with the Victorians.

The craggy grey stone castle sits comfortably within its gardens, which counter formality with looser planting. Along terraces to the south and west of the house runs extensive 1890s yew topiary. By contrast, the Low Garden below it has been cleared of rhododendrons and, over the past ten years, has been transformed into a wild flower meadow.

In an early 18th-century garden framed by walls and yew hedging, double mixed borders run from 54 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Above Perennial-filled borders to the front of Howick Hall, once the home of former British Prime Minister, Charles 2nd Earl Grey.

There is something ineffably romantic about the walled Arts & Crafts garden at Kellie Castle in Fife, within sight of the Firth of Forth. A venerable ‘Monarch’ apple tree, girded by a seat, stands on the central lawn, from which grass and gravel paths radiate, bordered by lichen-covered fruit trees and beds of flowers and vegetables. Structure is provided by box edging, yew enclosing a carved stone bowl, cordons of pears and fan-trained apples, and by kiwis, figs and peaches on south-facing terrace walls.

Roses proliferate in the rich, fertile soil of this fragrant, colourful garden, cultivated for centuries.

A pure white ‘Blanche Double de Coubert’ reflowers all summer; silvery-pink shrub ‘Madame Lauriol de Barny’ stands above early summer planting of hardy geraniums, aquilegia, phormiums and Lychnis coronaria; and swags of soft pastel ‘Aimée Vibert’, ‘Gloire de Dijon’, ‘Dorothy Perkins’, ‘Albertine’, ‘Albéric Barbier’ and ‘Blush Noisette’, with accents

IMAGES ALAMY; ANDREA JONES; DAVID NOTON

The Wild Origin Garden features groves of Chinese, Korean and Japanese birches. The bog garden, created by accident when a blocked drain flooded the area, has been planted with seeds collected by Lord Howick and his head gardener.

New for 2018 was a sensory garden, designed for the National Autistic Society with the National Garden Scheme. This garden, which is set between a brook and the kitchen garden wall, focuses on different textures. Highly scented, colourful planting includes lavender, crab apples, asters, salvias, nepeta, achilleas, grasses, scabious and sedums.

Howick Hall Gardens, Alnwick, Northumberland, NE66 3LB. Tel: +44 (0)1665 577191/577285; howickhallgardens.org (nearest station, Alnmouth).

The two-and-a-half-acre walled garden at Cambo in the East Neuk of Fife is charmingly secret, with snaking paths and concealed benches. A burn rushes towards the sea over waterfalls and beneath the Georgian, rose-clad, wrought-iron bridges predating the early 1800s garden. House and garden are separated by an expanse of woodland, which is carpeted in February by a national collection of some 350 snowdrop cultivars. Current owner Catherine Erskine has introduced relaxed and naturalistic planting, combining the very best of modern design with an underlying sense of tradition in the walled garden.

Blowsy herbaceous borders triumph from July to October. Grasses are threaded through echinacea, echinops, Japanese anemones, Michaelmas daisies, eupatorium and schizostylis. A further colourful blast comes from sedums, monardas, nerines, cimicifuga and asters in another border. Unique to Scotland is the Prairie Garden, with North American species grown at Cambo from seed.

Cambo Estate, Kingsbarns, St Andrews, Fife KY16 8QD. Tel: +44 (0)1333 450054; cambogardens.org.uk (nearest station, Leuchers, with a connecting bus to St Andrews).

Above Belmond’s Royal Scotsman cuts a civilised dash through a brooding Scottish landscape.

Right The craggy castle at Hutton-in-the-Forest surrounded by alliums.

Bottom right A colourful hot border at Cambo near St Andrews.

Below left The vegetable garden at Kellie Castle.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 55

Above & opposite

Drumlanrig Castle is surrounded by 40 acres of formal gardens.

Right & below left The Snake Mound and the DNA Garden are striking landscape features at the Garden of Cosmic Speculation.

Bottom right Mount Stuart dates back to the 18th century and features extensive pleasure gardens.

56 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

of dark red ‘Gruss an Teplitz’, hang beside paths and borders. A summer bed mixes colour and texture with Salvia sclarea var. turkestanica, Astrantia maxima, Eupatorium purpureum, sedums, buddleia-type clusters of American pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) and Echinops ritro.

Kellie Castle, Pittenweem, Fife KY10 2RF. Tel: +44 (0)844 493 2184; nts.org.uk (nearest station, Leuchers, with a connecting bus to St Andrews).

Mount Stuart, the ancestral home of the Bute family,

IMAGES ALAMY; ANDREA JONES

stands on the Isle of Bute, its 18th-century landscape garden and Lime Tree Avenue sloping down to the Clyde. At the centre of its pleasure gardens stands a memorial to Augusta, Princess of Wales, mother of George III, by John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, with whom Augusta established Kew Gardens in the mid-18th century. The Pinetum dates from the 1800s when British explorers sent seed back from their expeditions around the world. The Wee Garden, a large, enclosed decorative space, dates from the 1820s, while the Rock Garden and its waterfalls are the work of Arts & Crafts architect and writer Thomas Mawson in the 1890s.

The 1870s kitchen garden’s south-facing wall has trained plums and damsons above a border of lavenders and sage. It is enclosed on the other three sides by beech hedges, green walls sheltering orchards, fruit cages, beds of herbs and David Austin roses, along with a simple grass labyrinth.

Mount Stuart, Rothesay, Isle of Bute PA20 9LR. Tel: +44 (0)1700 503877; mountstuart.com (nearest station, Wemyss Bay, then a ferry across the Clyde).

The 30-acre Garden of Cosmic Speculation, near Dumfries, has been created over the last three decades by landscape architect and theorist, Charles Jencks. A garden of ideas in the 18th-century sense, it aims to express the beauty of abstract scientific concepts to non-scientists, with each sculpture and installation telling its own story.

Landforms featured here include the Black Hole terrace, which represents a star collapsing in on itself; it is surrounded by cypresses signifying different universes. The Symmetry Break Terrace shows how molecules in ice break out of their symmetrical pattern above freezing point, while the fence surrounding the Snake Mound symbolises the laboratory at Cern, Geneva, where scientists work to uncover the origins of the universe. Two connected bridges evoke fractal geometry, while the DNA Garden is apparently a conventional knot garden, with interplanted box hedging, although each compartment contains a different DNA sculpture representing the five senses.

Set amid a rolling, tree-fringed landscape, this strange and fascinating garden has a tranquil and engaging atmosphere.

All aboard Vanessa Berridge visited Howick Hall, Hutton-in-theForest, the Garden of Cosmic Speculation and Drumlanrig Castle during a tour aboard the Belmond Royal Scotsman, while Mount Stuart currently features on several of Belmond’s train tours. Cambo and Kellie Castle gardens are within reach of railway stations (although buses or taxis will be needed to complete the journey). A tour on the Belmond Royal Scotsman offers matchless luxury, with lavishly equipped cabins, fine dining, excellent wines and exemplary service.

On each return to the train, tartan-clad staff welcome guests with trays of drinks, such as sloe gin punch or cranberry and apple juice. Before gourmet dinners, there are savoury canapés and 20 different gins to choose from.

Garden of Cosmic Speculation, Portrack House, Holywood, Dumfries & Galloway DG2 0RW. Opens once a year in May under Scotland’s Garden Scheme: gardenofcosmicspeculation.com and scotlandsgardens.org (nearest station, Dumfries).

The late 17th-century, pink stone Drumlanrig Castle, near Dumfries, is home to an impressive collection of over 700 paintings, including works by old masters such as Holbein, Rembrandt, Brueghel, Teniers and Van Dyck. Equally impressive, however, are the 40 acres of formal gardens and designed hillside, with vistas and focal points peeping through the trees. The south parterre is planted with bold blocks of season-extending perennials such as paler ‘Autumn Joy’ and dark red ‘Matrona’ sedums, stachys, rudbeckias, heleniums, phlox and nepetas.

In a more recently created parterre, grasses have been used instead of the more customary annuals.

Beyond this are plantings of over 500 different rhododendrons and azaleas. The Victorian rose garden on the castle’s west side features shrub roses, underplanted by perennials, including echinops, nepeta and hardy geraniums.

The walled Duchess’s Garden has double borders of ligularia, peonies, Japanese anemones and many different hydrangeas. In the wooded area are the largest weeping beech (Fagus sylvatica ‘Pendula’) in the UK, which was planted in 1800; a red oak (Quercus rubra) planted in 1972 by the American astronaut Neil Armstrong; and the first Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) to be planted in Britain.

There are also restored Victorian glasshouses, the 183m Long Terrace Walk, and a bog garden, planted with astilbes, primulas and gunneras.

Drumlanrig Castle and Gardens, Thornhill, Dumfries & Galloway DG3 4AQ. Tel: +44 (0)1848 331555; drumlanrigcastle.co.uk (nearest station, Dumfries). ■ OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 57

DESIGN GUIDE | SURREY

58 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Path of Least Resistance Helen Elks-Smith remodels a Surrey garden, with unusual looping paths and an emphasis on relaxation WORDS DARRYL MOORE PHOTOGRAPHS RICHARD BLOOM

W

hen Alison and Karl Murphy bought their house in Epsom in 2005, the 50m-long rear garden was the feature that sold them on the property.

“It was the pièce de résistance,” Karl recalls.

However, the previous owners’ traditional borders and plethora of planted chimney pots were not to their liking, so after using the garden as a functional family space for a number of years, the Murphys resolved to engage a designer to transform it into something more sophisticated and to their tastes.

Fortunately they knew exactly who to turn to: Helen Elks-Smith had designed the garden at their previous home in the New Forest, and the couple were very happy with her work. Helen was also satisfied with the arrangement: “It was the second property we had done for them, so we knew them quite well and they knew us, which is always good,” she explains, recognising that trust and respect are essential to the designer-client relationship.

Helen remembers the couple asking her to “come and tweak some of the areas that don’t work”. But the tweaks developed into a full-blown redesign that also took in a new front garden and neglected side passage. The brief was to create something quite natural, not too manicured. “The clients don’t like OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 59

DESIGN GUIDE | SURREY

formality; they are really relaxed and wanted it soft and flowing,� says Helen. The planting reflects this with a generous mix of structural and ephemeral plants. Evergreen shrubs create a solid backbone to the garden and give an enclosed sense of privacy, framing perennial beds. The use of deciduous trees plays an important role in defining the character of the garden; autumn is Alison’s favourite time of year, so the changing colours and falling leaves provide a joyous celebration of the season. Helen also wanted to relate the materials in the garden to the Arts & Crafts style of the house, so careful consideration was given to the selection of materials and detailing of the hardscape.

To ensure maximum use of the garden, Helen created specific zones with places to sit, taking advantage of the light and warmth at different times of the day and throughout the year, as well as creating different vistas across the plot. The garden is divided into two halves, 60 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Above An existing acer

now makes a statement emerging from a sea of golden hakonechloa.

Below The blue autumn berries of evergreen shrub Viburnum davidii.

defined by an old country fence that was already on site, allowing the part nearest the house to be more formal for social activities, while the rear half is given over to wilder planting. Rather than trying to disguise the traditional style of the fence, Helen chose to highlight it as a feature to contrast with the more contemporary aspects of the design.

When she first visited the property, Helen was impressed by the path enthusiastically traced by the family dog running around the garden in a figure of eight circuit, and incorporated the motion into the paths around the garden. Tackling levels was a major concern, since the garden not only sloped lengthways towards the house but also across its width. Rather than trying to unify everything, Helen levelled an area for a terrace, but retained the other undulations to keep a naturalistic character. The grass path around the

Fact file Garden design Elks-Smith. Tel: +44 (0)23 8178 2660; elks-smith.co.uk Construction & maintenance Bowles & Wyer Contracts. Tel: +44 (0)1296 662439; bowleswyer-contracts.co.uk Yorkstone All Green. Tel: +44 (0)1935 415560; allgreengroup.co.uk Bricks Van De Moortel.

Tel: +44 (0)20 3633 2422; vandemoortel-bricksandpavers.com Pizza oven Four Grand Mere. Tel: +33 (0)329 652053; fourgrandmere.com Dry stone Richard Clegg. Tel: +44 (0)7904 860135; richardclegg.co.uk Table and chairs Barlow Tyrie Equinox. Various suppliers.

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Above left The vivid autumn foliage of Prunus ‘Shōgetsu’.

Above right Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Inverleith’.

Below In the front garden, curved stone steps, with inlaid pebble detail, reflect the Arts & Crafts style of the house.

garden was “quite a deliberate decision to go with the slope rather than straightening and flattening it out,” she explains.

Near the house, everything was removed with the exception of a lone acer that Alison and Karl liked, so Helen framed it within a central bed underplanted with Anemone x hybrida ‘Honorine Jobert’ and Hakonechloa macra, creating a Japanese feel. An adjacent curving water feature separates a circular lawn from a Yorkstone terrace with seating, dining furniture and a pizza oven, all housed within a partially covered pergola surrounded by massed perennial beds.

The back of the garden proved to be troublesome due to a perimeter of Cupressus x leylandii hedging and a few large Pinus sylvestris trees sucking all the moisture from the ground and making planting difficult. In order to address this, Helen kept things quite simple, with a loose scheme of grasses such as Anemanthele lessoniana and Sesleria autumnalis, and ferns including Polystichum setiferum and Asplenium scolopendrium.

Unfortunately the build didn’t quite go to plan when the local contractor took twice as long as his estimated schedule, testing everyone’s patience.

Matters came to a head when he wound up his business before the snagging was completed. Helen acted swiftly, calling in Bowles & Wyer to finish the job, and worked to see her design vision through to completion and all-round satisfaction. “It’s stress free and we’re very happy with it,” enthuses Alison.

Since completion in 2014, a sense of maturity has developed and the garden now feels very private and secluded, benefitting from the borrowed landscape of the large gardens either side. Helen has continued to keep a check on its progress, co-ordinating any additions and alterations with the maintenance team and watching it grow – along with Alison and Karl’s obvious enjoyment of it.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 61

DESIGN GUIDE | SURREY

Design details PLANTING

Close to the house, cooler hues of blues, pinks, purples and white are emphasised with Echinacea purpurea ‘Rubinglow’, Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’, Geranium phaeum and Persicaria amplexicaulis. Recurring structural plants, such as acer and hydrangea, provide coherence and a sense of journey through the garden. The rear of the garden has a looser and more naturalistic feel, transitioning from prairie style planting of Veronicastrum virginicum and Echinops ritro to shady areas under the trees with grasses and ferns.

PAVING

A sensitive selection of materials links the garden to the house, creating a harmonious composition.

Dutch bricks, laid stretcher bond with a soldier edge course, form the pathway meandering through planting from the house to the terrace, which is laid in bespoke Yorkstone paving.

FRONT GARDEN

A small new garden in front of the house was made where the drive formerly came right up to the house, to give the building a more suitable setting. Flanking the curved steps and the pathway to the entrance, terraced planting beds feature Taxus baccata domes and Euphorbia characias, while climbing roses around the door soften the architecture of the house.

SIDE PASSAGE

The narrow side passage beside the house was neglected and invaded by the neighbour’s bamboo.

Helen determined to “make it a nice space to pass through; interesting rather than something you scuttle through”. It’s now a pleasant conduit for

friends to take to the rear garden on arrival.

Within the shady area a selection of clematis clothe the fence, repeated Osmanthus heterophyllus ‘Goshiki’ suggest a sense of direction, while soft mounds of Hakonechloa macra fill out the space.

PERGOLA AND PIZZA OVEN

Helen set the central terrace a reasonable distance from the house to make it feel immersed within the planting, without being too far from the kitchen. A Western Red Cedar pergola frames the space, partially covered with a green roof. Lighting and an outdoor heater enable extended use of the area.

In order to enjoy eating in the garden, the dining area provides ample space for a large table. The pizza oven is a real feature with its dry-stone housing, crafted by stonemason Richard Clegg.

WATER FEATURE

Helen situated the water feature next to the terrace so the tranquil sound of running water can best be enjoyed. Its long narrow form creates a boundary between the terrace and lawn.

The construction of rough boulders, many found in the garden during the build, neatly contrasts with the smoother paving, reinforcing the idea of interplay between the wild and the controlled. ■ 62 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Above Neat box balls and hakonechloa lead the way to the terrace.

Below Lighting under the pergola ensures the stone pizza oven gets plenty of use after dark.

Below left With its mossy stones, the water feature gives the terrace area a slightly Japanese feel.

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PLANT FOCUS

Think Pink

Stars of the autumn firework display, euonymus are prized as much for their strikingly vivid pink fruits as for their flaming foliage. Andy McIndoe explores the many colourful options PHOTOGRAPHS DIANNA JAZWINSKI

Euonymus hamiltonianus hails from East Asia and is grown primarily for its profusion of vivid fruits.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 65

PLANT FOCUS

A

utumn is often the most colourful season in the garden, and one of the longest as foliage tints and fruits develop over the course of many weeks. There are many trees and shrubs that are renowned for their autumn displays: liquidambar and acer for foliage colour; sorbus and pyracantha for berries – to name but a few. But it’s euonymus that really catch the eye, both for their unusual leaf colour and for their fascinating fruits.

Perhaps because we tend to think of them simply as useful evergreens for hedging and groundcover, euonymus may not be an automatic first choice when selecting shrubs specifically for autumn.

The variegated forms of Euonymus fortunei and

66 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Above E. europaeus

‘Red Cascade’ is a splendid cultivar of our native spindle, with vibrant red leaves and showy magenta fruits.

Euonymus japonicus are so widely planted that they are always the members of the genus that spring to mind. Yet it’s the deciduous varieties that provide the greatest autumn interest. These are good transitional shrubs that sit well in country gardens, mixed beds and borders, adding seasonal interest among evergreens and an additional season alongside spring and summer flowering plants. They range in size from the easily accommodated Euonymus alatus ‘Compactus’ to E. europaeus and E. hamiltonianus, which can make small trees. They are also very versatile, growing on most soils and positively thriving on chalk.

For much of the year the British native Euonymus europaeus, better known as spindle, goes unnoticed in hedgerows and on forest edges. A large, deciduous shrub with ordinary mid-green leaves and small greenish flowers, it’s attractive only to insects in search of pollen and nectar. But then autumn arrives and the foliage blushes crimson-pink, while the triangular seed capsules ripen to magenta, splitting open to reveal bright-orange seeds. Individual plants vary in terms of their intensity, but in sunny situations on chalk soil the display can be spectacular.

The common name of ‘spindle’ is derived from the original usage of the hard, straight stems, which can be sharpened and used as spindles for spinning wool. Another use was as butchers’ skewers; indeed, some still refer to the shrub as skewer wood.

A hardy shrub that is easy to grow on poor soil, spindle has earned its place in the garden. The cultivar Euonymus europaeus ‘Red Cascade’ is the best one to grow for reliably vibrant crimson autumn leaf colour and a fine crop of showy fruits. It is never at its best on acid soil or in shade, but lends itself to naturalistic planting schemes with hawthorn, guelder rose and common dogwood. Grow it along a pathway where the fruits will be visible at close quarters as they dangle from the arching branches.

Euonymus velutinus from Northern Iran is related to Euonymus europaeus. It was introduced to the UK in the early 1970s by Mrs Ala and Roy Lancaster, then the curator of The Hillier Arboretum in Hampshire. It offers up small, pinktinged summer flowers, which develop into showy,

Top left The tangerine fruits and leathery green leaves of slow-growing Euonymus myrianthus.

Top right The thick leaves of E. grandiflorus change colour to deepest winered before falling.

Below right Euonymus hamiltonianus subsp. sieboldianus ‘Coral Charm’.

Below left Euonymus alatus, the burning bush.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 67

PLANT FOCUS deep-pink fruits as the foliage turns pink in autumn.

It’s a more subtle display than several others.

Often mistaken for the common spindle, Euonymus hamiltonianus is another close relative from Eastern Asia. Like Euonymus europaeus it is variable and there are many named forms.

The quality of their fruit tends to surpass their autumn foliage colour. Euonymus hamiltonianus ‘Pink Delight’ has abundant, plump seed capsules, which split to reveal orange-red seeds, while the foliage softens to apricot and pink before falling. Its rounded seed capsules are typical of the species.

By contrast, Euonymus cornutus produces the most intriguing fruits of all. The spindly stems and narrow green leaves are unimpressive, but the hanging angular capsules that resemble jesters’ hats are a delight. When they split, the orange seeds hang down like miniature mobiles suspended from the branches. This is a good shrub to plant among lowgrowing evergreens or even herbaceous perennials where it provides light height and an eye-catching autumn display. It looks stunning amid a late-season haze of Verbena bonariensis.

When it comes to autumn foliage colour, though, nothing can compete with Euonymus alatus, commonly known as the burning bush in the US, where it is regarded as an invasive species. With its horizontal winged branches and soft green foliage it is a useful structure shrub. Grow it with Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’ and it lends welcome support. Grow it with evergreens such

68 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

GROWING ADVICE

Cultivating euonymus These colourful shrubs need very little care, but be sure to get them off to a good start Plant euonymus for autumn interest as good-quality, three-litre, container-grown plants. Larger specimens of slow-growing varieties, such as Euonymus alatus ‘Compactus’, are a worthwhile investment.

Although they grow happily in most soils, the addition of plenty of organic compost and slowrelease fertiliser at the time of planting will aid establishment.

Below E. cornutus bears flamboyant, dangling pink seedpods that resemble jesters’ caps when they open.

Watering before and after planting is essential.

Protect newly planted euonymus from deer and rabbits – they are prone to damage.

Euonymus require little pruning if any. Pruning to control shape and size should be done in winter as soon as the fruits have disappeared, but avoid pruning in summer since this reduces fruiting potential.

as Choisya ternata and it will add gentle texture and create an amazing autumn display when those innocent green leaves turn a flaming crimson. There are reddish fruits with orange seeds, but these often go unnoticed among the leaves. Euonymus alatus ‘Compactus’ is a compact cultivar raised in the US. It is perfect for small gardens and every bit as spectacular as the full-size variety.

Most evergreen euonymus produce fruit capsules in autumn, but their subtle colour means they hide among the leaves.

Euonymus myrianthus, introduced from China by Ernest Wilson in 1904, is an exception. This slow-growing shrub has leathery, green leaves and clusters of greenish flowers; abundant tangerine fruits follow, which split to reveal orange seeds.

Euonymus grandiflorus looks like an evergreen with its thick elliptic leaves, but these change to a deep wine-red before they fall. This species is often confused with the similar Euonymus carnosus, of which the cultivar ‘Red Wine’ is famed for its intense autumn colour as the name implies.

Some of these lovely shrubs may take some seeking out, since few show their potential in a pot, especially in the peak spring selling season at garden centres.

However, when you see single specimens of Euonymus latifolius growing in a paddock or orchard, or a group of Euonymus alatus beneath the light, dappled shade of silver birch, their enormous value in the latter part of the year is immediately apparent. ■

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NATURALISTIC BULBS

The Natural Look Staged to mimic nature itself, naturalised drifts of spring bulbs are easy to achieve and a beautiful way to make the most of underused areas of the garden. Jacky Hobbs asks the experts how to do it PHOTOGRAPHS CLIVE NICHOLS

A carpet of Crocus tommasinianus enlivens the grass around the base of a sycamore tree.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 71

NATURALISTIC BULBS

Above left Daffodils,

fritillaries and Anemone blanda make a cheerful, informal meadow mix.

Above right Chequered Fritillaria meleagris.

Below right A sea of vivid-blue Scilla siberica.

Below left Golden cups of winter aconite, Eranthis hyemalis.

72 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

U

plifting, and somehow always surprising, are the myriad bulbs that erupt to smother lawn, orchard, meadow, woodland glade or hedgerow in spring.

Carpets of golden aconites, drifts of snowdrops and dazzling pools of bright blue scilla bring instant springtime joy. Daffodils dance around orchard trees, crocuses squawk from lawns, while snake’s head fritillaries nod their chequered Tiffany lamp-like heads, lighting up meadow grassland.

Naturalised drifts of bulbs can be brilliantly staged to mimic nature itself.

This is relatively easy to achieve if you plant the bulbs now, in autumn. Such drifts are almost always self-sufficient, reliable, pollinator-friendly and they will usually thrive in more under-used or difficult areas of the garden.

The best results can be achieved simply by mirroring nature and choosing the types of bulbs that are best suited to your garden’s grass or woodland conditions. Species bulbs will look more natural, establish more quickly and naturalise better than most cultivars, while drifts of single specimens are aesthetically preferred to mixed. “Successional flowering is a key consideration,” insists Ursula Cholmeley, who plants a miniature 3m x 3m meadow with a succession of early crocus, snowdrops, late crocus, scilla, chionodoxa, muscari, small early narcissi, anemone, species tulips and late narcissi at Easton Walled Gardens near Grantham, Lincolnshire.

In woodland, early-season Februaryflowering snowdrops tend to naturalise well below deciduous trees, hedges and shaded grassy banks. Arthur Cole, the head gardener at Colesbourne Park, which is renowned for its snowdrop displays, explains: “They enjoy moist but well-drained, humus-rich, alkaline soil, in part shade, with a cool summer root-run.” Snowdrop expert Joe Sharman, of Monksilver Nursery, recommends planting Galanthus nivalis and double Galanthus nivalis f. pleniflorus ‘Flore Pleno’ in March when they are ‘in the green’, or as bulbs planted in August in groups of five to seven plants. Lift and divide G. nivalis every two to three years to increase its numbers: Arthur marks congested clumps in March so that he knows which ones to lift and divide in July when the bulbs are dormant.

Above Eranthis hyemalis and mauve Crocus tommasinianus will selfseed into natural drifts – just hold off mowing until seed has set.

Joe and Arthur both agree that January-flowering winter aconites (Eranthis hyemalis) can initially be somewhat temperamental to establish, “but once they find suitable conditions, deciduous shade and cool, dry summers, they readily create expansive naturalised golden carpets,” enthuses Joe. “Scatter their abundant seed in autumn, but be sure to choose areas where it will survive. They can form fantastic flower rings around trees, preferring the higher, drier conditions.” Alternatively, you can plant winter aconite corms in autumn: Joe recommends soaking them overnight in warm water to which a dash of washing-up liquid has been added.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 73

NATURALISTIC BULBS Hardy cyclamen enjoy the same woodland conditions as snowdrops, producing assorted pink and white blooms from January to April.

Nurseryman John Massey, of Ashwood Nurseries in the West Midlands, recommends autumn-flowering Cyclamen hederifolium, followed by springflowering Cyclamen coum for naturalising, but warns against planting them in close proximity since C. hederifolium is faster-growing and can take over – although it is also more resilient and can be tucked between tree roots and under hedges. C. repandum is also brilliant for naturalising. “September is the best time to scatter seed on the grass or soil where you want it to grow,” John says. “To encourage selfseeding, mow after the plants have dispersed their seed.” For quicker results, where good drainage is essential, John suggests planting potted corms at any time of the year, as long as the soil is not frozen.

Resist planting up any grassed areas if you are not prepared to let bulbs die back, often untidily, for up to six weeks after flowering. This period is essential to ensure the next year’s bulb and flower generation.

Scattering bulbs towards the lawn’s margins or encircling trees facilitates some earlier mowing.

Crocuses bring colour, often mixed, to shorter, grassy areas that receive full or part sun. Flowering commences in January, even through snow, with fast-spreading, lilac Crocus tommasinianus, and its endless varieties. John Massey warns that C. tommasinianus can become invasive if grown in a small garden but, conversely, impressive clumps of tri-coloured C. sieberi may need frequent replenishment. February brings long-lived, multicoloured Crocus chrysanthus. Joe Sharman also recommends Crocus vernus, the ‘Dutch’ crocuses, which quickly clump up, even in thicker grass.

74 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Above Chionodoxa luciliae flowers early, hence its common name: glory of the snow.

Below Snowdrops are best planted in spring, when ‘in the green’.

Good hybrids for successional colour include: in January, purple ‘Vanguard’; white ‘Jeanne d’Arc’ for February and March; and striped ‘Pickwick’ and golden ‘Yellow Mammoth’. Plant the bulbs in September or October in naturalistic drifts, 10cm deep under rugs of turf to detract hungry mice, who will easily pluck bulbs from planting holes.

Dainty species tulips are the preferred choice for naturalising: T. humilis, T. clusiana, T. tarda, and lacquer-red T. sprengeri flower between March and June. “Tulipa sprengeri is a wonderful, Mayflowering, self-seeding naturaliser which also has beautiful seedpods. These species tulips can be grown from bulbs planted in late autumn or seed sown in pans or scattered in situ from July to September,” instructs John, who also suggests tulip cultivars, “especially graceful T. fosteriana and chunky Darwin types. These can be naturalised in free-draining soil if planted 15cm deep, and they will come back year after year. Species tend to naturalise quicker, but some cultivars are excellent.”

Many autumn-planted species bulbs naturalise by self-seeding. Scilla bifolia and S. bithynica are prolific – more so than Scilla siberica. “They become a March mainstay, plugging the gap between snowdrops and narcissi,” enthuses Ursula. Most species of chionodoxa make good naturalisers, too, bringing a sea of blue flowers to lightly shaded wood

Bright Cyclamen coum and snowdrops, mingling happily at Colesbourne Park

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 75

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PLANTING ADVICE

How to naturalise bulbs Plant in autumn for beautiful spring displays Plant healthy, disease-free bulbs. Generally, the bigger the bulb the better the flower and subsequent lifespan.

Randomly hand-scatter bulbs and plant them where they fall, if well-placed, avoiding rows, straight lines and overcrowding, which will reduce flowering potential. Mow the grass before planting so the bulbs are more obviously visible once scattered.

Single plant bigger bulbs, such as daffodil and tulip cultivars, with a bulb planter. Remove a core of earth, insert the bulb nose-up, crumble the base of the plug and reinsert and firm to level it with surrounding grass.

Smaller bulbs such as crocus, scilla and snowdrops can be planted together in larger holes, multiple fork holes or rugs of turf cut with a spade, lifted and peeled back before randomly sprinkling the bulbs. Loosen the soil lid before replacing.

Add a sprinkling of grit to heavy soils but do not fertilise, since

competing grasses will benefit the most from this.

Top up bulb plantings the following season if necessary, but allow time and space for the bulbs to self-naturalise.

Mow only after six weeks of die-back to give bulbs time to regenerate. To allow bulbs to increase by self-seeding, mow only after the flowers have dispersed their seed.

Only mature clumps should be lifted and divided, after a minimum of 2-3 years, to increase distribution. Replant individual bulbs approximately 15-20cm apart. Uncongested clumps can be left undisturbed.

Direct sow seed from July to September in situ. Scarify the lawn surface a little first.

Cull weeds with a selective weed killer, after the bulbs have died down or before they come up, otherwise they will increase and compete with your bulbs.

76 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Above Expert Joe or thin grassland.

Sharman’s Dutch crocus Joe recommends recommendations white-eyed classics include bright striped Crocus ‘Pickwick’.

Chionodoxa forbesii and C. luciliae, but covets sapphire-eyed C. sardensis. “Avoid larger, stiffer hybrids from the Gigantea Group, which don’t seed or spread as much,” he warns.

Species narcissus offer the most authentic, naturalistic look, although bolder cultivars are ideal for rougher, taller orchard grasses or for encircling trees. Plant successional species for months of blooms. The wild daffodil, Narcissus lobularis and N. pallidiflorus, along with N. obvallaris, (the Tenby daffodil), flower from March to April, and can be followed in May by long-flowering, fragrant N. poeticus var. recurvus (the pheasant’s eye daffodil). Joe Sharman recommends Narcissus cyclamineus, for moist acidic soils, and tougher cultivars that resemble species such as ‘Jack Snipe’ and ‘Bowles’s Early Sulphur’. Other hybrids perfect for naturalising include early-flowering ‘Navarre’ and ‘February Gold’ followed by ‘Thalia’, ‘Rip Van Winkle’ and, John Massey’s favourite, ‘Trena’. Ursula recommends softer-hued ‘W. P. Milner’ if you can’t cope with the bright yellow of infallible ‘Tête-àtête’, which does naturalise brilliantly, and multiheaded ‘Hawera’. Plant single bulbs in autumn.

Fritillary expert Laurence Hill recommends early autumn planting of native April-May flowering Fritillaria meleagris, the snake’s head fritillary, for naturalising in grassy areas with summer moisture. Mow the grass from late July or early August and then leave it a few days before removing cuttings. ■

MULBERRIES

IMAGE NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES/ANDREW BUTLER

An avenue of mulberry trees at the National Trust’s Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire.

The Royal Fruit Mulberry trees produce one of the most sought-after and delicious fruits, seldom available commercially. Sandra Lawrence investigates the fascinating history of these ancient trees OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 77

MULBERRIES

I

n 1609, James I wrote to his Lord Lieutenants offering mulberry saplings at “three farthings a plant, or six shillings the hundred”. The plan was to establish giant plantations to support a new British silk industry. Everyone knows what happened next: silly old James had imported Morus nigra, the black mulberry, which silkworms refuse to touch, instead of the daintier white Morus alba, the only food the fussy little critters will eat. The British silk industry failed; its sole legacy the multitude of ancient mulberries in gardens up and down the land.

Except that’s not quite the full story. According to Peter Coles, principle researcher on the Morus Londinium project, James had done his homework.

While silkworms certainly prefer the tender leaves of Morus alba, they will eat the rougher, thicker but,

78 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Left Hidden below all-importantly, hardier Morus nigra. James had, handsome, heart-shaped leaves, mulberry fruit in fact, chosen the trees ripens from red through most likely to survive to a deep, juicy black.

Below James I, famed the British climate. for importing the ‘wrong’ Any fault lay with mulberry to Britain. his courtiers’ lack of silkworm husbandry.

“It was the new pastime for the rich,” says Coles, “but they didn’t know how to farm them. Silkworms are fragile and need a constant supply of dry mulberry leaves. Britain was going through a mini ice age. The worms may have died from the cold or because the leaves were wet, but not because of the variety of mulberry.” When instant results were unforthcoming, wealthy landowners moved on to new enthusiasms. The trees, however, remained.

People liked the berries, and they became notable features of pleasure gardens, mentioned by both Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn.

James was not the first importer of mulberries; the fruit had been cultivated in Britain for a thousand years before. They are virtually never available commercially because they travel so badly – anyone who’s ever eaten one will know how easily they squash, staining everything in their path. Oddly, this is what helps us date their arrival in Britain. Morus pips discovered in ancient Roman cesspits can’t have been imported; they must have come from trees planted in the first or second centuries.

For the same reason, mulberries have always been fruits of the wealthy. Unavailable at markets, fruit served at a medieval or Tudor banqueting table proved aristocrats had enough land to sustain their own, space-hungry trees. Medieval monasteries also grew mulberries. They were nutritious, pestresistant, sweet and hardy, perfect for syrups, juices, pies and wine, and were reputed to have medicinal value. Henry VIII ordered a mulberry for his palace at Chelsea; Thomas More loved the tree’s heartshaped leaves and the Latin pun with his own name.

The oldest morus in Britain is thought to be a black mulberry in Syon Park, west London, planted in 1548 by Dr William Turner. So old that it has lost its centre, it looks more like a ring of trees.

But it still has some way to go before it beats the ancient mulberries of Izu Island, off the coast of Japan, which are around 1,000 years old. In Japan, mulberry wood is prized as much as its fruit.

A craze for mulberry wood began here, too, in the 18th century. A tree rumoured to have been planted by William Shakespeare at New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, was chopped down in the 1750s by its then owner, one Reverend Francis Gastrell, apparently furious at the constant stream of gawping tourists in his garden. The ensuing public outrage, led by James Boswell, who described the act as ‘Gothick barbary,’ resulted in the unpopular

IMAGES GAP PHOTOS/HOWARD RICE; ALAMY; SHUTTERSTOCK

Fruit facts

always directly to blame – Chelsea Physic Gastrell, (who also demolished the entire house in a further fit of pique), having to leave Garden uprooted its mulberry to make way town. New Place still holds 63 of the hundreds for a bomb shelter). Today’s threats are more likely to be through development. of hastily-fashioned souvenirs ‘made from’ Morus Londinium’s delightful mulberry the deceased mulberry’s wood. Alongside walks are occasionally led by experts, or the real/fake nick-knacks roared a thriving market in live plantlets supposedly propagated you can take a self-guided tour of some of London’s mulberry trees via an app. from the same tree. Many gardens still lay Greenwich and Charlton have several ancient claim to a Shakespeare’s mulberry, including Morus nigra and a whole row of Morus one at New Place itself, which, of course, has alba in the grounds of the Old Royal Naval more reason for hope than most.

College. The City of London boasts many The trees became fashionable again in Victorian times, often in royal parks. In recent fine specimens. Charterhouse alone has seven 170-year-old mulberries, carefully pruned so years there has even been some progress in as not to stain passers-by when the drupes containing the mulberry’s gangling spread.

Last year’s RHS Plant of the Year was a dwarf drop. Each year the Lord Mayor of London is presented with a platter of berries… and, variety, ‘Charlotte Russe’. presumably, a finger-bowl.

Mulberries are some of our most tracked While it is nigh-on impossible to market and recorded trees. The Morus Londinium fresh mulberries commercially, one brave project saw London’s mulberries mapped company sells the fruit as a preserve. Wilkin for posterity, 100 saplings planted in school & Sons have been farming grounds and advice given to Above Mulberries were at Tiptree in Essex for 300 people with threatened trees. In often grown by monks; years and growing fruit for the past, mulberries have been this ancient tree grows the past 150. “We produce lost to the Great Fire and the Blitz beside the ruins of 20-odd types of fruit, but (although the Luftwaffe wasn’t Lesnes Abbey, London.

The National Collection of morus at Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace and Marlborough House, holds 34 named varieties. They vary in size and shape, from dwarf to weeping, also in leaf shape, size, colour and texture. The descriptions ‘white’ and ‘black’ refer to the buds, not the fruit, which, even in Morus alba can be pink or dark purple.

Most agree the best-flavoured fruit of all comes from Morus nigra.

Male and female flowers are produced on the same Morus nigra tree. Despite their name, mulberries do not bear true berries but ‘drupes’ – clusters of fruits pollinated individually from each flower on a female catkin. Male catkins catapult their pollenload into the wind in the fastest recorded mechanical movement of any plant species, which can be a serious problem for hay-fever Morus alba sufferers.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 79

MULBERRIES mulberries are the oldest Left A mulberry tree in the orchard at Tiptree, by a country mile,” says Essex, which contains Chris Newenham, joint some trees that were managing director. The planted 120 years ago.

Tiptree orchard of 24 mulberry trees was established 120 years ago; 12 more have been planted in the last ten years.

Wilkin & Sons Mulberry Jelly is one of their more expensive preserves. “It’s the most difficult fruit to harvest,” explains Newenham. “The guys each get a white ‘space-suit’; at the end of the day they look like axe-murderers, covered in red juice from head to toe.

Young trees take up to 25 years to fruit, mulberries are erratic croppers and we don’t get a huge volume from each tree, so it’s a very special product.”

Ancient mulberry care calls for minimal intervention. Pruning and mulching may revive ailing trees, but unnecessary ‘help’ can reduce vitality. Young trees need light to develop a balanced crown; older trees sometimes benefit from limbpropping. Regular inspections will reveal potential problems: watch for soil cracking or lifting, overextended branches, cracks in the tree, or changes in the number, size, spread and colour of the leaves.

The mulberries at Tiptree live in a well-sheltered, grassy field and are largely left to their own devices.

“Occasionally we give them a trim, but they don’t like having their hair cut,” says Chris Newenham.

“They tend to bleed profusely. Where branches have broken, as long as there’s still sap flowing and they have the potential to carry a crop, so precious are the fruits that we’ll leave the limbs attached to the tree to carry on fruiting. We view them as old friends. They predate all of us and will post-date us, too.” ■

ENGLAND’S HISTORIC MULBERRY TREES

Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, Suffolk Dating back to the early 1600s, this venerable tree was already old when portrait and landscape painter Thomas Gainsborough was born in 1727.

Charlton House, London Probably as old as the Jacobean mansion in whose grounds it stands, which was built between 1607 and 1612, this mulberry is one of the oldest trees in London.

80 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Down House, Kent Charles Darwin used his grounds at Down House as an outdoor laboratory and would have spent many hours contemplating this 250-year-old Morus nigra.

Milton’s Mulberry, Christ’s College, Cambridge Planted in 1608, the year of John Milton’s birth, the tree reputedly shaded the poet while he wrote, after he was admitted to the college in 1625.

IMAGES GAP PHOTOS/ZARA NAPIER; ALAMY

Enduring mulberries live on and fruit, despite leaning and toppling as they age

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CRAFTSPEOPLE

A Creative Life

Lucy Goffin and Graham Gough explain how their individual crafts are entwined with the soft landscape of their Sussex home

WORDS VIVIENNE HAMBLY

PHOTOGRAPHS MIMI CONNOLLY

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 83

CRAFTSPEOPLE

I

n gardening circles, partners Lucy Goffin and Graham Gough are perhaps best known as the owners of Marchants Hardy Plants, a nursery specialising in the kind of herbaceous perennials and ornamental grasses that are at the forefront of the New Perennial movement.

Friendly with John Coke and Suzanne Lemieux at Bury Court, Hampshire, where gardens have been designed by Piet Oudolf and Christopher BradleyHole, the couple grow all their own stock and, in addition to the nursery, have created a garden that speaks to its South Downs location near Lewes in East Sussex. “Graham has come up with a garden that merges into the nature of the landscape,” says Lucy. “His sensitivity to that was very much at the beginning of us being here.”

Lucy and Graham arrived at Marchants after many long months of searching for the perfect location, and are now in their 20th year here.

Graham had originally embarked on a singing career, but changed tack following an introduction to plants and gardening from Pam Schwerdt and Sibylle Kreutzberger, head gardeners at Sissinghurst.

There followed a spell working with Elizabeth Strangman, erstwhile hellebore breeder at Washfield Nursery, in Kent, before Graham realised he wanted to run a nursery of his own. “Lucy and I bought 84 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Above Autumn brings a change of pace to the garden of grasses and perennials at Marchants.

Below right Lucy and Graham at their Sussex home, where they work and pursue their crafts.

Below left Miscanthus sinensis contrasts with rosehips at Marchants.

a farm labourer’s cottage and two acres of land, but the land was really a wild field. We started the nursery together and have worked together ever since.” The business and complementing garden are the result of dogged enterprise: clay soil, a prevailing wind that whistles across the hills, and changing seasonal patterns, evidenced in the recent hot summer that tested even the most robust plants, are all regular challenges that must be met.

It is little surprise that Marchants demands the couple’s complete attention during the growing season. In addition to assisting visitors to the garden and nursery, there are orders to satisfy from their catalogue, which contains some 400 different grasses and perennials. There is also planting advice to be given, and Graham often helps to position the plants he sells. But when autumn settles into winter, the pace of life changes. The coach parties head elsewhere; the grasses fade to muted shades of taupe; skeletal seedheads offer their own sculptural qualities to the garden; and Lucy and Graham are able to exchange gardening forks for the tools of their respective indoor crafts.

Lucy, who works part-time at the nursery, also enjoys a career as a respected textile artist. Having trained in ceramics at Harrow School of Art, she worked as a theatrical costumier using sewing skills learnt from her mother, before progressing to creative stitching. Today her work is held at the V&A Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago.

She has had a professional association with the Indian textile company Anokhi since 1987, and in 2000 she was the Arts Council-funded artistin-residence at Great Dixter. “I’ve worked in a lot of different spheres but it is handwork that I do specifically,” she explains. “Anything to do with embroidery, stitching and printing – the hands-on decorative work.”

Indigo, the ancient, treasured dye derived from the plant indigofera has been of particular interest to Lucy over the years, and she has previously collaborated with Jenny Balfour-Paul, lecturer and author of Deeper Than Indigo (Medina, 2015) on the subject. In Stroud, Polly Lyster, a fabric colourist working with vegetable dyes, passed on her handdyed offcuts, which Lucy worked on to turn into Japanese-style boro work.

Lucy has most recently been working with the designer Barbara Kennington to deliver a range of

Top left Recently Lucy’s

interest has shifted to creating wearable art.

Top right A needle and thimble are key tools of Lucy’s trade.

Above The shapes and colours at Marchants inspire Lucy’s craft.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 85

CRAFTSPEOPLE important,” she says, explaining that it gave them the free year Graham needed to set up the nursery.

“When you live and work in the garden you imbibe so much over the course of daily life. As the years have gone by, I feel I’ve taken in so much that is important to where my work is developing now.

Something creative is always ongoing and that includes making the garden as well,” Lucy says.

For Graham, it is hard to imagine living and working anywhere else: those years training as a singer at the Guildhall in London are now a distant memory. “I was born on the South Downs and spent my early years here. The curves are always soft here, the landscape has beautiful feminine lines, and that has affected and shaped what I do,” he says. ■ Marchants Hardy Plants, 2 Marchants Cottages, Mill Lane, Laughton, Lewes, East Sussex BN8 6AJ. Tel: +44 (0)1323 811737; marchantshardyplants. co.uk. For more on Lucy’s textile work, visit lucygoffintextiles.co.uk wearable art, including waistcoats and kimonos, in a collaboration called Material Being. The pair were two of 16 artists to exhibit at the crafts show Praktis, which took place at Bury Court in October last year.

Graham, meanwhile, has discovered an aptitude for knife-making, a consequence of ordering a small selection of Finnish blades online one January evening while Lucy was in India. “Within two weeks I’d given myself the nastiest knife cuts,” he recalls.

“But I’ve always loved wood, and English wood has been something of an education. Bur oak is very rough in the hand; box is silky, but so hard your knife will barely go through it. Apple is one of the easiest to work with, but yew is a blighter because it can run in different directions,” he explains. “It is a craft: you have two sides, a top and a bottom, and you’ve got to get it right in the balance. It is something I really enjoy doing.” Graham’s knives can be bought from the nursery and, in November, will be on show at the Garden Museum in London.

For both Lucy and Graham, the colours, shapes and textures of their location, and the plants they grow, are intrinsic to their crafts, and it is possible that one would not exist without the other, literally. Soon after arriving at Marchants, Lucy was invited to create a set of vestments for Winchester Cathedral. “That commission was really 86 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Top Graham works with different English woods when making the handles for his knives.

Middle “The curves are always soft here and that has affected and shaped what I do,” says Graham.

Bottom The handle of each knife is unique.

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ARTISTS’ GARDENS

Statesman’s Solace Winston Churchill was a true polymath – as well as running the country during World War II, he was a keen painter, writer and gardener, his home at Chartwell in Kent being the perfect retreat to indulge these passions

IMAGE NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES/DAVID SELLMAN; ALAMY

WORDS AMANDA HODGES

Traditional lavender and roses flank a path leading towards the red-brick edifice of Churchill’s Chartwell.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 89

90 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Above The Golden Rose Walk commemorates the Churchills’ golden wedding anniversary.

Yet Chartwell, for all its strain upon the Churchills’ purse strings, would prove a happy home, easily accessible from Westminster yet nestling in idyllic countryside that offered a welcome respite from political life. Mary, the Churchills’ youngest daughter and the only child born during this period, recalled the extensive grounds and parkland as a veritable “garden of Eden, full of laughter, activity and high spirits”. Chartwell gave Churchill much scope for his indefatigable energies: there was a croquet lawn, a kitchen garden and then to the east below the house lay the valley, plus lakes that he personally landscaped.

Despite his political fame, the instability of Churchill’s profession meant that it was actually writing – principally non-fiction, although he also wrote a novel, Savrola – that formed the backbone of his income. He spent many productive hours in Chartwell’s study, often fortified by a favourite tipple. The garden, however, was a place of respite.

IMAGES NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES/CLAIRE TAKACS/ANDREW BUTLER/DAVID SELLMAN; ALAMY

“A

day away from Chartwell is a day wasted,” declared Winston Churchill, of a place that is still indelibly associated with this great British statesman and orator. In late 1921, Churchill first glimpsed the house and was immediately smitten by its location, perched on a hill near Westerham, and beguiled by phenomenal views from the garden, stretching far across the Weald of Kent. It would come to be a source of great solace.

Born at Blenheim Palace in 1874 into the landed aristocracy, Churchill yearned for a majestic country retreat. As he drily admitted, “I’m easily satisfied with the very best,” and Chartwell represented this.

“The site is the most beautiful and charming I have ever seen,” he said, such heady enthusiasm leading him to purchase it without first consulting his wife, Clementine. She was understandably aggrieved, any initial delight cooling in the wake of the high expenses that she rightly suspected would follow.

Mary emphasised that “politics came first – there lay Churchill’s destiny; yet he found time to enjoy himself, to be brilliant, convivial company; to reorganise the landscape at Chartwell and to paint.”

For a man as prodigiously active as him, it was an essential retreat: somewhere to work, book after book issuing from his prolific pen, or to wander at leisure, sitting by one of the many garden ponds.

Chartwell did not become his permanent home, however, until 1924, since bad weather had temporarily halted early renovations. Churchill had engaged architect Philip Tilden to remodel the rather gloomy house, replacing the west front’s Victorian façade with the smooth, clear lines that can be seen today. “We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us,” Churchill once noted, with customary perception. Being a polymath, in later years he carried out works here himself, laying part of the brick wall in the kitchen garden from which the house derived much of its fresh fruit and vegetables, and building a miniature cottage, ‘The Marycot’, for young Mary. He was also a butterfly devotee, once turning a summerhouse into a butterfly refuge, and planting buddleia along a nearby pathway.

Churchill was passionately attached to every aspect of country life, even briefly keeping pigs. And while he always retained a London base, he would return to Kent to seek respite and rejuvenation. He discovered that one of the best ways to keep ‘the black dog’ (as he labelled his bouts of depression) at bay was to paint here, first indoors and then latterly in a building situated in the garden.

It was a hobby begun by chance in 1915, but one that subsequently became integral to his wellbeing, buoying him up psychologically whenever life went awry, such as during the 1930s wilderness years. His

Top Perched on a hill, 650 feet above sea level, Chartwell takes in views over the Weald of Kent.

Above Churchill in the garden with his youngest daughter, Mary.

Below right The fishpond that inspired some of Churchill’s paintings.

Below left At work in the study at Chartwell.

only abstinence was during the intense demands of World War II. In his essay, Painting as a Pastime, he wrote “I have never found anything like it to take one’s mind for a spell off grave matters.”

In 1915 Churchill encountered defeat. His part in the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign, meant he was demoted from his role of First Lord of the Admiralty.

“The change from intense executive activities of work at the Admiralty to narrowly measured duties of a Chancellorship left me gasping,” he recalled

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 91

WRITERS’ GARDENS The roses depicted were grown by Churchill in the walled garden at Chartwell, overseen by Clementine’s cousin Venetia. She’d created a formal rose garden filled with perennials, including catmint, peonies and fuchsias, favourites of Clementine who loved flowers in the house, preferably in soft colours.

A beautiful avenue of golden roses was planted here in 1958, a golden wedding anniversary gift from the Churchill children. Clementine’s predictions about Chartwell’s unsustainable costs materialised by the mid-1940s but fortunately wealthy friends intervened, buying it for the National Trust on the understanding that the Churchills would remain there for the rest of their lives.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts,” was a favourite Churchill aphorism, and Chartwell, with its beauty and enveloping peace, unquestionably supplied a replenishing source of the courage that made Churchill such an extraordinary man: a leader who rallied a nation through the sheer power of his conviction and inspirational leadership. ■

92 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

Chartwell, Mapleton Road, Westerham, Kent TN16 1PS. Tel: +44 (0)1732 868381; nationaltrust.org.uk/chartwell

IMAGES NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES/DAVID SELLMAN/JULIET D’COSTA; ALAMY

Above Flowerbeds later. Adrift, “like a sea feature Clementine’s beast fished up from the favoured soft colours. depths” it was “then that Right Feeding goldfish the Muse of Painting in Chartwell’s pond.

Below The kitchen came to my rescue”. garden supplied the Encouraged by his house with much of its sister-in-law, he’d fruit and vegetables. casually taken up a brush and found himself unexpectedly enthralled.

“I know of nothing which, without exhausting the body, more entirely absorbs the mind. Whatever the worries of the hour or the threats of the future, once the picture has begun to flow along, there is no room for them... All one’s mental light, such as it is, becomes concentrated on the task.”

He painted principally in oils, and generally chose landscapes, although still life also appealed.

Chartwell once took first prize in an exhibition for amateur artists, when Churchill anonymously submitted a painting of it, Winter Sunshine, and in 2017, the last picture he painted at Chartwell, The Goldfish Pool, sold at auction for £357,000.

Churchill never sold his paintings during his lifetime, but he freely gave them away. One recipient was his friend, the actress Vivien Leigh. That Hamilton Woman, a film in which she starred as Lady Hamilton, became Churchill’s favourite, and one he frequently viewed in his private cinema at Chartwell. Leigh had admired his picture Roses in a Glass Vase on a visit to Chartwell and was astonished to later receive the painting as a gift, telling Churchill: “The arrival of your lovely picture was the greatest excitement!”

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8

BOOKS

The Reviewer

WORDS VIVIENNE HAMBLY; VANESSA LONGWORTH

A selection of the best writing on the shelves this month

Temperate Garden Plant Families

A Modern Herbal

by Peter Goldblatt and John C Manning Timber Press, £34.99

by Alys Fowler Michael Joseph, £20

It is all too easy to become fixated on particular fashionable plants as musthave additions to the garden. Stipa tenuissima, Salvia x sylvestris, Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’ and achillea are all popular at the moment, but to focus on plants only as individuals is to miss out on the great and complex variety of the families to which these specimens belong.

In Temperate Garden Plant Families Peter Goldblatt and John C. Manning have set out to show amateur gardeners how to identify plant families the better to grow select species in the garden.

Developments in DNA analysis have altered botanical taxonomy, too, so previous categorisations need updating.

Although this book is academic in tone and wide-ranging, it doesn’t claim to be fully comprehensive. It is, however, a wonderful resource for veteran gardeners wishing to expand their botanical knowledge. While the type size is small – reading glasses may be required – pages are clearly laid out and information is easy to access. Full colour images and a clear writing tone keep this work from dessication.

Field Guide to the Orchids of Europe and the Mediterranean

In a reflection perhaps of current zeitgeist, concerns over antibiotic resistance and the profits of large pharmaceutical companies, a number of books about the medicinal and culinary properties of herbs have recently been released. The latest, from Alys Fowler, is one of the most comprehensive, offering a potted history of herbalism followed by instructions for their use and a well-researched directory of common Western herbs and their place in modern life.

There has been no shortage of writing on this subject over the decades and there will be herbalists with near encyclopaedic knowledge of their craft, but Alys brings a distinctive, supportive voice to the topic, starting with her own initial encounters with herbalism before outlining its place in society, from the Egyptians to champions such as Hilda Leyel, founder of the Herb Society, of which Alys is president.

The directory is clear and engaging, pointing to the many, mostly overlooked ways these plants can benefit us. But it is also pragmatic: ‘If your cut/wound/ scrape isn’t healing from the plant mash, stop using it’.

by Rolf Kuehn, Henrik Æ Pederson and Phillip Cribb Kew, £30

With their intricate and often astonishing forms and a reputation for reproductive skulduggery, no other wildflower inspires intrigue like the orchid. British orchids are having a moment right now, with a plethora of books recently written on the subject inspiring excitable twitchers to set about ticking off our 50-plus native species.

Excellent UK field guides are already available, but this new offering from Kew widens the net to include species from across Europe and the Mediterranean. Descriptions are concise and scientific, aimed clearly at the hardcore enthusiast, while distribution maps are a little hard to make out.

Where this book excels, however, is in its comprehensive, close-up photography, impressively covering the mind-boggling variance across single species and varieties, which anyone who has agonised over marsh orchid identification will appreciate. There’s an invaluable section on untangling hybrids, and an integrated ruler on the front flap is a nice touch. One for the holidaying orchidophile’s suitcase.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 95

BOOKS

The Extraordinary Story of the Apple

by Barrie E Juniper and David J Mabberley Kew Publishing, £40

The humble apple, ostensibly the most English of fruits, is actually nothing of the sort. This fascinating tome from Kew considers the fruit’s origins in the wild Tian Shan mountains of Central Asia, and then traces its spread across Europe, the Americas and Australia to worldwide ubiquity.

As the authors note, the secret behind the apple’s charm offensive is the fact that, unlike many other fruits, it stores brilliantly, making it an important source of nutrients over harsh winters. It also travels well, making it a food source for horses travelling the Silk Road, which furthered its dispersal.

This is a long and thoughtful book by renowned botanical experts, which considers both the geographical history of the apple and its influence on human civilisation through the eras. There is also insight into its culinary uses, the development of grafting and the fruit’s many appearances in folklore. Richly illustrated throughout, this is a comprehensive and thoughtful tome, which will delight anyone who enjoys the more in-depth approach.

96 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

A Year in My Garden

The Pig

by Jacqueline van der Kloet Hélène Lesger Books £35

by Robin Hutson Mitchell Beazley, £30

Dutch designer and plant specialist Jacqueline van der Kloet may not be so very well known on these shores – but perhaps she should be. A contemporary of Piet Oudolf, whose own influence on contemporary English planting cannot be underestimated, she is part of the great tradition of Dutch gardening which has been at the forefront of local practice since the time of the Dutch East India Company and William and Mary.

Four years in the making, A Year in My Garden tells the tale of her garden, De Theetuin in Weesp, over 12 months. Instead of a pedestrian diary format, this is an inspiring gathering of experiences woven together with the kind of plant knowledge that can be accumulated only through years of work. Thoughts on working with Keukenhof, Martha Stewart and Disneyland are balanced by the passing of the seasons in the garden, highlighted most effectively in 12 sets of garden scenes photographed across the year.

This work is packed with specialist insight delivered in a supportive and engaging way, while a clear layout and judicious use of large images help make this an absorbing read.

Beginning with one property in 2011, hotelier Robin Hutson’s The Pig group now consists of a portfolio of six hotels, with associated kitchen and market gardens producing around 17 tonnes of fruit and vegetables a year. This output forms the basis of The Pig’s fork-to-fork ethos: what grows in the gardens soon appears on restaurant tables.

The Pig: Tales and Recipes from the Kitchen Garden and Beyond celebrates this way of growing and eating. Part cook book, part guide to The Pig way of life, it offers a warm and energising look at all outwardfacing aspects of the hotel chain, but for anyone who has grown a courgette or two, it is the gardens that are of most interest here.

Head gardener Ollie Hutson, who regularly features in The English Garden, offers advice on subjects such as using polytunnels, crop rotation and growing herbs. From the chefs there are many recipes, all of which have their roots in the hotel’s productive gardens and what can be foraged nearby.

For serious gardening advice, you might prefer to look elsewhere, but for a jolly romp and an escape from daily life, this could be just the ticket.

Q&A In Stourhead, Stephen Anderton celebrates the legendary landscape gardens of this Wiltshire estate and explores how the National Trust preserves its creators’ legacy You collaborated with head gardener Alan Power on the book. How did the pair of you work together to make it happen?

I wanted to tell the story of the garden and the house, which inevitably also meant the story of its creators – their lives, their ambitions. And what a treat it was to write about the house as well. Alan has been at Stourhead for decades and his role was to add hands-on immediacy to the book, to give the sense of a living garden, right now – through tree planting, tree felling, the wildlife and those amazing colours.

Henry Hoare is credited with shaping the gardens at Stourhead into something magnificent. Briefly, what did he do?

What impresses you most about Stourhead?

So many of the great 18th-century landscape parks focus on the owner’s mansion, and so does the greater estate at Stourhead, but the landscape around the lake, with its temples and grottoes, is a separate and sunken world. You descend into the hidden leafy valley like Aeneas travelling into the Underworld, a myth that may well have been part of the garden’s inspiration. The garden tells a story, through architecture, words and statuary.

INTERVIEW VIVIENNE HAMBLY

In your opinion, what is Stourhead’s contribution to the English garden canon?

The vista across the lake to the Pantheon at Stourhead is probably the most familiar garden view in the world and the inspiration for gardens on every continent even today. We take that image for granted – it is the stuff even of tea-towels and biscuit tins – and yet in its day it must have been truly shocking to descend from the dirty, pre-anaesthetic and pre-penicillin world of the 18th century into this dazzling, clean, idyllic landscape of allusion where everything is perfect. What a change from the formal style that preceded it: this was cutting edge.

Henry amalgamated several springs at the head of a valley to make a lake, around which he built a series of temples, bridges and eye-catchers in many architectural styles – Classical, Gothic, Medieval, Palladian – so that wherever you are on the path around the lake there are always beautifully composed views, both backwards and forwards over the water. It’s a cat’s cradle of interlocking vistas.

How have the gardens changed over time?

Henry’s garden was composed only of water, green trees and temples set around the shining water. It was spacious. But all his successors, especially his nephew, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, took this cool blueprint as a chance to plant ever more colourful and newly introduced trees and shrubs, reducing the open space but turning it into a glorious plantsman’s garden. Today it’s famous for its autumn colour.

What is the National Trust’s current approach to managing the grounds in a sensitive way?

Gardens are never static. Things come and go, through gales, floods and diseases. As far as is possible, the National Trust (which has actually owned Stourhead longer than any private owner) aims to make a historical compromise, gradually, as trees come to the ends of their lives, letting the most ‘Henry Hoare’ parts return to spacious green simplicity and the most ‘Colt Hoare’ parts continue to be planted with colour. It’s the best of both worlds – it sounds easy, but it’s not. ■

Stourhead

by Stephen Anderton, Pavilion, £16.99

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 97

LAST WORD

Summer Saviours Weird and wonderful squashes in every shape and hue, brighten the plot and gladden the heart of Katherine Swift after a long, dry, thirsty summer

I

“

Colours are orange, yellow or sober bluegrey, flecked with red, or splashed with stripes”

vigorous trailers they make useful weed-suppressing groundcover, with masses of large hairy leaves – take advantage of this by growing them beneath sweetcorn, for instance. As climbers, they will scale six feet or more. We grow them here over a pair of stout rustic tunnels spanning a path, so that the flowers and fruit dangle down at eye level.

The arrival on our tables of C. pepo – courgettes (the French name) or zucchini, as they are known in Italy and America – dates from Elizabeth David’s pioneering food writing of the 1950s and ’60s. Before then, unforgivably, they were allowed to develop into ‘vegetable marrows’, monsters fit only for horticultural shows. But courgettes are notorious for over-producing. So as not to be overwhelmed by the summer glut, practise vegetable birth control: deep-fry the flowers in a light batter, and eat them for lunch (the flowers last only a day) with a squeeze of lemon juice and a scattering of sea salt.

Now, in late September, I am harvesting the squashes. Winter squashes are not the same as pumpkins: they develop a hard skin, have sweet, concentrated flesh, and store for many months. They are a better size for one- or two-person households (especially the little, dark-green ‘acorn’ squashes, which, halved, make individual servings). Wild squash have bitter flesh, so it may have been for their seeds that these fruits were first collected. So if you are underwhelmed by squash flesh, or tired of its abundance, toast the seeds instead: salted, they make a tasty snack with a nice glass of sauvignon.

Decorative, weed-suppressant, edible. Courgettes and squashes have much to recommend them. But for me, it will always be the flowers that are the point. Reasons to be cheerful, indeed. ■ ILLUSTRATION JULIA RIGBY PORTRAIT BEVERLEY FRY

have always found the transition from June to July particularly trying. When the dewy freshness of foxgloves and roses starts to evaporate in the late-summer heat, I find it hard to stay positive: I have too many roses (almost all of them only once-flowering), and there’s a long gap before the agapanthus come to rescue me from the blues. I used to joke that this was when I had my annual nervous breakdown – and this year the transition was like falling off a cliff. But as the drought deepened, the mercury stuck at 29°C, the veronicastrum drooped and the michaelmas daisies dried to a crisp, salvation came from a curious quarter: it was the vegetable garden that saved me.

Specifically, the winter squashes and courgettes, with their gorgeous deep-throated yellow flowers, all ruffled and fluted and crimped, as showy as a datura or brugmansia, each one as big as your hand; with huge, lobed leaves as architectural as any acanthus, and fruits (for technically they are fruits rather than vegetables) of inexhaustible – and humorous – variety: squat or round, or long as a trombone; crook-necked or double-deckered and bulging like a sultan’s turban; carbuncled like some ancient relic dredged from the sea, or ribbed like an oldfashioned cooking apple; their colours are shades of orange, yellow or sober blue-grey, flecked with red, or splashed with dazzling green-and-white stripes.

They lit up the garden and raised my spirits.

Marrows, pumpkins and squashes are derived from three main species, all members of the genus Cucurbita: C. pepo, C. maxima and C. moschata, originating in North, Central and South America.

They arrived in Europe in the 16th century and come in both bush and trailing or climbing forms. As

98 THE ENGLISH GARDEN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019

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