Glyndebourne These gardens must look

This page Flamboyant planting in the terrace borders, with persicaria and Salvia ‘Amistad’. Opposite The Urn Garden, its central feature filled with bacopa.

The gardens at Glyndebourne have to look good for the famous opera programme all year round, but thanks to inventive planting and plenty of colour, autumn here hits a particularly high note

WORDS JAMES ALEXANDER-SINCLAIR PHOTOGRAPHS MIMI CONNOLLY

Glyndebourne is known across the globe for its world-class opera and fabulous music. The idea came from John Christie and his wife, the noted soprano Audrey Mildmay. They built their first theatre in the house itself, a small 300-seat number that hosted the first festival in 1934. This building was enlarged piecemeal over the years and gave both Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti their big breaks. However, it eventually became so popular that it outgrew the space so, in 1994, an exquisitely designed new theatre was built to hold an audience of 1,200.

Since then, it has gone from strength to strength, welcoming around 150,000 people a year with more than 120 live performances. I have been to Glyndebourne but, embarrassingly, I cannot remember which opera I saw – although I do remember ending the evening in a bathing-suitoptional hot tub somewhere in Sussex accompanied by a large plate of oysters. This was all many, many years ago, I hasten to add – but I think it is probably sensible to draw a heavy red velvet curtain over that and move on to the gardens.

Performances at the festival have an extended 90-minute interval, which allows the audience (all dressed in full black tie and taeta) to picnic on the sweeping lawns and beside the lake, looking out onto parkland. The idea of a softly setting sun, a crustless sandwich, the last chords of La Nozze de Figaro (other operas are available) bouncing around your brain, a glass of something chilled and sparkly and the company of friends is pretty much irresistible, whether you are an opera bu or not.

Around the lawns and lake are a series of gardens planted so that they are in peak condition whenever there is a performance. The audience are given free rein before, during and after the performance, so the gardens have to look pretty darn good. The man responsible is head gardener Kevin Martin who arrived at Glyndebourne in 1993 – just before the new theatre opened – and has had his hand on the horticultural tiller ever since. “We have had help,” he explains. “The late Christopher Lloyd (of Great Dixter) assisted with some of the older gardens, then we had help from Lady Mary Keen. Fergus Garrett helped in the Urn Garden and John Hoyland has done great work in the Rose Garden.” He welcomes fresh pairs of eyes but the everyday work is mostly up to him and a team of five other gardeners.

The gardening crescendos are designed to coincide with the big Glyndebourne dates. The main festival programme is every day for about a month from the end of July and then the touring opera returns in October for more performances. In the interim there is a busy schedule of rehearsals and education programmes, not to mention dedicated garden tours. It is a late season, so all those classic English garden

Above The large leaves of vigorous climber Vitis coignetiae develop rich crimson and rust tones as autumn progresses. staples – bulbs in spring and the soft blowsiness of June – are long gone. The borders rely heavily for colour on reliable annuals and tender perennials.

Kevin and the other gardeners have an admirably democratic arrangement where they all contribute new planting ideas. “We are all pretty good plantspeople so it is a group eort: everything is grown, to organic principles, in the greenhouses here, either from cuttings or seed.” The carefully

Far left Arching flower stems of hardy annual, Persicaria orientalis. Left Ever-popular Dahlia ‘Bishop of Llanda
’ with its vivid scarlet blooms. Below Rusted metal pillars support thorny pyracantha and their heavy load of berries. Bottom right A clustered sedum flowerhead. Bottom left Nicotiana mutabilis ‘Marshmallow’.

There’s room for more than one star turn in these annual- and perennial-packed borders

Sow this unusual annual in late spring for easy, bright flowers in borders or vases.

One of Kevin favourites, ‘Torch’ is superb, with vibrant orange flowers.

Unlike other seed-raised cleome, this excellent variety is thornless.

The classic choice for adding height without bulk, thanks to its tall, slender stems topped with mauve flowers.

With its Award of Garden Merit from the RHS, this hardy geranium comes well qualified to fill gaps with blue flowers.

Plant this perennial in sun and welldrained soil for a succession of crimsonred blooms from midsummer onwards.

This dark and dusky cosmos species is known for its flowers’ chocolatey scent.

Easily grown from spring-sown seed for pink blooms with a darker central ring.

Simple, three-petalled flowers in striking sky-blue on this clump-forming hardy perennial that flowers in autumn.

planned scheme is then planted out in the various The gardens are all made for contrast beautifully with the Figaro Garden, which borders. This usually works well except for this year, when Bacchus Christie (fivepromenading, with wide paths and deep borders brimming with plants is a very quiet and simple confection of yew hedges and still water surrounding year-old son of the Executive a Henry Moore sculpture. Chairman, Gus Christie, The gardens are all made and his wife the soprano, Danielle de Niese) Above left Shepherd’s for promenading, with wide paths and deep borders rearranged the plant labels in the nursery when no crook-shaped lighting brimming with mounds of tobacco plants (especially one was looking, which has led to some unexpected, made of rusted steel. Top right A wine-red Nicotiana mutabilis, one of my absolute favourites), although not unpleasing, combinations! flowered salvia. Seek out salvias, dahlias, bright tangerine tithonias and tall

The main areas of the garden are laid out between Salvia ‘Nachtvlinder’ for and spindly, bobbly-flowered Persicaria orientalis the opera house and the view of the Sussex Downs. similar coloured blooms. – also known as kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate, There is the Wild Garden and then the Mary Above right Asters can always be relied upon for which has to be one of the best common names ever Christie Rose Garden, named after the wife of Sir late flowers. Try ‘Mönch’ coined. Lots of late-season loveliness that carries on George, who was responsible for the construction for lilac daisies like these. flowering until the autumn frosts. of the new theatre. From here you pass through the One garden path is adorned with rusted steel Urn Garden, the Mildmay Garden and the Bourne lights shaped like shepherd’s crooks – these do not Garden, all of which are stued with plants and just illuminate the garden but serve as emergency

Above Dahlia ‘Blue Bayou’ emerges from the silvery leaves of Plectranthus argentatus. Left Flu y-flowered ageratum is a superb tender bedding plant for the front of borders. Below Salvia elegans ‘Scarlet Pineapple’. lighting as well. Picking up the rusty steel theme are six round steel columns that were designed for roses, but have been repurposed by Kevin as supports for orange-berried pyracanthas. “They are positioned close to the wild garden and I wanted to plant something that was not only spectacular but good for birds and other wildlife,” he explains.

Operas are very like gardens. That is a rather sweeping statement, but allow me to try to explain. Both have adagios, arpeggios, andantes, cadenzas and glissandos. Both are a collaboration between composers (the designers) and performers (the gardeners). Both give us moments of peace, and powerful, whack-it-out-of-the-park, full-bodied crescendos. Operas can bring you to the edge of tears, raise you back up with a thigh-jangling punch of emotion and then swiftly reduce you to a quivering jelly of relief. Gardens do this too – we have all wandered through borders of breathless beauty, beneath the comfort of trees and been jolted into awe by a sudden vista or juxtaposition of plants.

In a garden that is so wrapped up in performance, “My prescription for stress is always everything perfect can be hard work,” says Kevin. one wonders what happens a walk down to the lake or a few “My prescription for stress when all the singers, musicians and, indeed, the moments sitting on a bench” is a walk down to the lake or a few moments sitting on a audience, has gone home. bench.” Like music, gardens The answer is that it is quite are an excellent way to a community: the gardens open for local people and Top left A late flush of unwind and at Glyndebourne you can enjoy the best there is an in-house horticultural show where sta flowers on Rosa ‘Bonica’ of both in one place. And you get to dress up and enter cakes, prize vegetables, children’s artwork and is always welcome. Above left Spikes of tiny, drink champagne. What’s not to love? Q all the things that you would expect to find at felty flowers on Salvia a village show. The main dierence is that the confertiflora . Glyndebourne, Lewes, East Sussex BN8 5UU. entries are judged by internationally famous singers Above right WhiteThe gardens are accessible to those attending rather than the chairman of the parish council. themed beds on the north end of the lawns performances and are also open for tours on “A lot of people work here and putting on six operas feature cosmos, dahlias specific dates throughout the year. each season, dealing with performers and making and alstroemerias. Tel: 01273 812321; glyndebourne.com

This page Echinaceas, tall eupatorium and agastache contribute to the immersive planting. Opposite Prairie-inspired: Sedum ‘Matrona’ with soft Stipa tenuissima .

At Castle End House in Oxfordshire, Petra Hoyer Millar combines the best of autumn’s flowers with swishy grasses for a gloriously extended season of texture and colour

WORDS NAOMI SLADE PHOTOGRAPHS CLIVE NICHOLS

Old houses and their gardens tend to come with a history. On the one hand you might inherit delightful parterres, clipped topiary and elegant, mature planting; more chequered possibilities exist, however, and when Petra Hoyer Millar and her husband Luke moved into their Oxfordshire home nearly five years ago, they found themselves faced with almost an acre of unfortunate and untended space, and soil that was the pinnacle of mediocrity.

“It was rather sad,” she recalls. “When our predecessors were here, it was the wife who was the gardener, but she died shortly after they moved in and he didn’t really venture out after that. We had to go in with machetes: there were masses of Clematis montana tangled up in a seriously overgrown shrubbery. And it was only once we’d got that under control that we realised how bad the walls were.”

Having initiated an extensive programme of scrub clearance, their next challenge was the soil: alkaline clay, filled with building rubble. “I think that, several owners previously, part of the garden was a bowling green, and they had raised the level of it using stone, hardcore, and whatever else they could get their hands on,” says Petra.

While she sorted that out, she worked with what she had, and the once-conventional yew hedge to the front of the house underwent quite a transformation. “It was square and terribly boring, so I let it go to see what it would do,” she explains. “It is quite hard to cloud-prune to a design, so I left it for a year. By then I could see where it really wanted to grow into great loopy bumps and blimps, and where it was being shy, I cut back hard.” The result is a curvaceous and energetic confection, filled with interest and personality; a dramatic opening gambit, in an otherwise pared-back scheme with clipped lavender and a lawn, bordered by a charming ha-ha.

Top After its flowers fade, the seedheads of Agastache ‘Blue Fortune’ are just as impressive. Above A reliable choice for colourful flowers, Echinacea purpurea . Right Tall and robust, Eupatorium maculatum Atropurpureum Group with Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’.

To the rear of the house, the living space is visually connected to the garden, which can be seen from every window. The lawn and borders are slightly elevated in relation to house and terrace, so one is immersed in a rising tide of planting. There is now a young orchard and a substantial herb garden, with a wild and free planting scheme within a formal arrangement of triangles, designed to create eective paths and a usable space, a matter about which Petra is extremely decisive. “I think practical gardens are more beautiful,” she declares. “You don’t want to

mess around with silly paths that go around here and go around there just to get to the shed!”

The main part of the garden, meanwhile, comprises what Petra and Luke hope, will one day be a croquet lawn flanked by the existing borders. A chunky four metres deep at the outset, these expand to a magnificent six metres by the time they get to the far end of the garden. “They are fat, which is how I like them!” says Petra, laughing. “It is a lot of work, but it is a good eect.”

Petra’s love of a larger-than-life scale is evident in her planting. The colour scheme is loosely pink and purple and these colours are iterated in both flowers

and foliage, which includes black elder as well as monarda, with lashings of eupatorium, grasses and mauve hylotelephium (formerly known as sedum).

“It is kind of ‘prairie’ style with calamagrostis, molinia, phlox and asters, but there are a lot of roses too,” explains Petra. “It is a dicult style to describe. It was inspired by prairie planting but I have altered it: there are lots of trees that prairie gardens don’t usually have. But trees give it such richness, so there are crab apples and lots of elder – Sambucus nigra ‘Black Lace’ as well as ordinary S. nigra – and there are a number of hazels, including dark-leaved ones, which I coppice annually.”

Above Petra’s borders are six metres wide at their deepest point, with ample room for masses of plants that create a truly impressive display.

Following its outstanding performance in rigorous trials, the chic, new, yellow-flowered floribunda rose ‘Belle de Jour’ has won the prestigious title of Rose of the Year 2021

Clockwise from left ‘Belle de Jour’ puts on a lovely display when grown in a container; it works equally well when suƒusing borders with its warm glow; a profusion of blooms is produced all summer long.

Bred by Delbard of France, rose ‘Belle de Jour’ has densely petalled flowers with deep yellow centres blending to soft orange on the outer petals. The plentiful blooms are sweetly fragrant with a vanilla and apricot scent and are held on sturdy stems, complemented by mid-green foliage that has superb disease resistance.

Delbard, a member of the British

Association of Rose Breeders (BARB), is the first French breeder to receive the award. Roses UK introduces Rose of the Year 2021 on behalf of the rose trade. Plants of ‘Belle de Jour’ will be available to buy this autumn, from rose nurseries and garden centres.

About Rose of the Year Roses UK manages the Rose of the Year competition, which has been running since 1982, on behalf of BARB. British rose breeders and UK agents of international breeders enter promising new varieties into the trial. Each trial lasts two years and begins six years before the commercial introduction of a winning rose. Form, colour, scent, floriferousness, health and ease of maintenance are all essential characteristics of a Rose of the Year.

Above Dark foliage of With robust planting sedum and elder sets and a backdrop of high o the largely pink-andpurple colour scheme, and the paler biscuit walls and trees, this is a garden that is now colours of the grasses’ private, immersive and flowerheads. plant-led. And since it is visible from every angle, it is essential that the interest runs for as long as possible. “I like my plants to be happy and to grow fat and chubby – but they have to be tough,” says Petra. “I stake when I have to, but I hate it.”

Early in the season, the garden’s good looks are assured by liberal deployment of alliums and Stipa tenuissima but Petra likes to create structure with plants that flower later, too. “Asters are such undervalued plants,” she enthuses. “They get up early and produce lots of voluminous, green, spring foliage, and then the flowers provide an amazing show of brilliant autumn colour.”

And plant selection is just one aspect of the garden’s staying power. Petra has worked hard on the unprepossessing soil, clearing out the stones and mulching with as much compost as she can get her hands on, while making her own from a handy local supply of nettles and comfrey. “I focus on specific areas each year,” she says. “I’d much rather mulch a few areas really well than just sprinkle it around,

Choose easy-going, low-maintenance perennials to make large borders less work

Soft pink flowers wave in the breeze above vigorous plants that never need staking.

One of the best echinaceas for white blooms, forming bushy clumps at 90cm tall.

Looking like a beefier version of cow parsley, selinum wins high praise for its late flowers.

This 1m tall aster bears sprays of small, soft-pink flowers in autumn, on bushy plants that stay upright without staking.

Wand-like spires of scented white flowers in autumn.

Bright pink, double flowers on a sturdy 1m tall plant, best grown in a spot in full sun.

Right Fennel and so I have a rota system. Verbena bonariensis in No one ever has enough large beds navigated by gravel paths. compost, but if you Below The yew hedge in want plants like asters the front garden was to remain vigorous and given its head; once its vibrant, then good soil natural shape was revealed, it was cloudquality is key.” pruned to suit its form. The other technique, rather surprisingly, involves leaving the garden to get on with doing what it wants. Weeding is kept to a minimum, so as not to damage the plants and, when necessary, watering takes place at soil level, rather than from above. “Borders are planted densely and look after themselves during the season. After that it is all down to the soil,” says Petra. “I keep the seedheads and cut out stu that is getting tired and lazy, but basically I aim to interfere as little as possible.”

The mellow 500-year-old house is now enveloped in a magnifi cent and delightfully modern planting scheme; bold and decisive, yet soft and with the sort of a relaxed quality that comes with having confi dence in making –and breaking –one’s own rules at will. In this relatively short time the garden has come together beautifully, but Petra is not quite done with it yet.

“What I’d really like is a hardwood greenhouse. With these old walls nothing is straight, so it will have to be bespoke, but it would really fi nish it o ,” she says. “I also plan to tweak the drive, as it is still boring and square, and I want to fatten up that cloud-pruned hedge some more!” Q

Castle End House, Deddington, Oxfordshire, opens occasionally for the National Garden Scheme. See ngs.org.uk for details and updates.

Mix favourite roses with hard-working perennials

A combination of bold fl owers, strong foliage and an innate airiness holds this planting scheme together, and Petra is a fan of a structural seedhead too.

“I use loads of Eupatorium maculatum Atropurpureum Group, which is stonking from beginning to end, and sedums (hylotelephium), which are fantastic all year round. Asters are just priceless – they have good early foliage, pretty fl owers and fabulous seedheads. I especially like the tiny-fl owered ones that merge into the surrounding planting in a haze.” Grasses are a repeating feature, particularly Calamagrostis x acutifl ora ‘Karl Foerster’, while Thalictrum ‘Elin’ has both fantastic foliage and delicate seedheads. Petra favours roses such as moss rose ‘Chapeau de Napoléon’, and ‘Charles de Mills’, together with ‘Jacques Cartier’, ‘Comte de Chambord’ and ‘De Rescht’.

“I like roses with nice hips and attractive foliage,” explains Petra. “I don’t mind roses that fl ower once and go a bit loopy. I also like them later, when they are thinner and just the odd rose shows through.”

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