The English Garden April 2021

THE

english

GARDEN APRIL 2021

For everyone who loves beautiful gardens

Time for

TULIPS

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Wisteria made easy

Spring’s brightest bulbs put on a show

How to grow this glamorous climber

Raymond Blanc’s top 10 vegetables to sow now

The beauty of April ●

RARE PLANTS at Cally Gardens

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How to divide PERENNIALS

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Guide to garden BUILDINGS

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Creative projects for EASTER

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CONTRIBUTORS

Jacky Hobbs Creative freelance writer, stylist and photographer Jacky has moved to the Cotswolds, working from her garden studio, which oversees a flower-filled garden.

She explains wisteria care on page 87.

Mimi Connolly Mimi is a photographer specialising in gardens, artists and makers.

Her interest spans digital and traditional techniques, and she is always seeking new gardens to photograph.

Her photos appear on pages 20 and 39.

Welcome T

hat tulips really need to be planted afresh every year for truly spectacular displays, puts these bulbs among the most theatrical of plants.

The stage is set anew each spring for a display that can be changed and tweaked, polished and perfected, while the colours and flower shapes allow annual experimentation and the garden’s supporting cast can be honed. Whether it’s an incredible show on a large scale like that at Arundel Castle or something more achievable at home – bulbs packed into pots or scattered through spring borders – colourful tulips really do take your mind off troubling times, and this issue has masses of them for inspiration.

Mind you, if it’s a theatrical display you want, April brings plenty of other candidates. Wisteria, that most glamorous and alluring of climbers, will be dripping with luxuriant racemes of flowers soon. And then there are flowering cherries, bursting into clouds of blossom, filling our parks and gardens with the colours of candy floss. Spring really does know how to put on a show, and this year I think we’ll appreciate it all the more for having come through a particularly dark winter. Here’s hoping the unfurling of so many cheerful and colourful flowers coincides with the arrival of more optimistic months ahead.

CLARE FOGGETT, EDITOR

IMAGES NEIL HEPWORTH

Michelle Garrett Michelle is an awardwinning photographer based in London. Her latest project was taking the photographs for Simon Lycett’s book, People of the Flower Market. Her images appear in features on pages 56 and 87.

ON THE COVER Blossom, box balls and blowsy tulips in the cleverly designed narrow town garden of Lancaster House in West Sussex.

Photographed

by Mimi Connolly.

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April 2021

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The English Garden subscription PAGE 19

Gardens 20 Arundel Castle While the world ground to a halt in 2020, this West Sussex garden’s tulip festival went ahead unseen, flowers bloomed and new projects continued apace.

30 Holme Hale Hall The former kitchen garden of an Elizabethan farmhouse in Norfolk is now an Arne Maynard-designed formal garden retaining links to its past.

39 Lancaster House Florist Matthew Spriggs has applied the formality and containment of gardens seen on buying trips to the Netherlands to his narrow Sussex garden.

46 Westbrooke House Joanne and Bryan Drew bought this Leicestershire property having fallen for its neglected Victorian walled garden, and their sensitive restoration has added a contemporary touch.

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56 Cotswold Garden A few considered adjustments and thoughtful plant introductions have enhanced and formalised Simon Gill’s Cotswold spring garden without diminishing its historic essence.

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Design 97 Garden Buildings Chosen wisely, a garden building can dramatically increase usable space for living and working, bringing an outdoor mood to a place of shelter.

107 Easter Crafts A bank holiday weekend beckons, so there’s no better time to pick up a new hobby or try a creative project.

115 IGPOTY This annual competition seeks the best images of plants, gardens and landscapes from around the world.

Plants 65 Top 10 Plants Anne-Marie Owen, head gardener at Oxford’s Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons selects vegetable varieties.

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71 Plant Focus Japanese flowering cherries work well in the garden all year round, says Matthew Hall of Batsford Arboretum.

79 Nurseries Kevin Hughes’ nursery, Cally Gardens in Dumfriesshire, combines rare plants with a rich array of garden wildlife.

87 Wisteria Jacky Hobbs guides would-be growers through variety selection and care of the glamorous climber everyone covets.

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17 Shopping Equipment for the perfect lawn, plus Constance Spry-inspired homeware.

121 The Reviewer April’s literary round-up, plus an interview with author Dave Goulson.

130 Last Word Katherine Swift muses on the pleasures and pitfalls of versatile hoggin.

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People to Meet

Introducing the gardeners and public figures we most admire in British horticulture

Neil Miller

RECOMMENDED

Neil’s favourite gardens

INTERVIEW PHOEBE JAYES IMAGES HEVER CASTLE

Hever Castle’s head gardener on how he combines gardening with volunteering, and his hopes for the season to come I started out as an insurance broker in the city. I was made redundant during the recession in the early 1990s, so I started doing gardening jobs for people. Before I knew it, I had a business. Only then did I take my qualifications by attending evening courses.

It’s always daunting when you lose your job, but it is possible to turn things around. Life is too short to ignore a passion if you’ve got one. I joined the team at Hever 18 years ago and working here is superb.

I volunteer at a garden in Jerusalem twice a year.

That’s taught me a lot about arid planting and has demonstrated what a tonic horticulture can be.

Despite the hostilities, this garden knocks down all the boundaries, creating a haven where everyone can mix peacefully. I also enjoy volunteering for Perennial, an amazing charity that provides support to those working in horticulture. I’ve abseiled down the Olympic Tower and participated in a naked calendar in their name!

We also host events to raise money for them at Hever.

During the first lockdown, when the gardens here were closed, I enjoyed the chance to get my hands dirty – much more so than is

The World Garden at Lullingstone Castle Kent Tom Hart-Dyke’s World Garden at Lullingstone Castle is a knockout, filled with diverse and wacky varieties from all over. It’s a really fun day out if you love exotic and tropical plants. Tel: 01322 862114; lullingstonecastle.co.uk

West Dean Gardens

usually possible for a head gardener – although I did miss the interaction with visitors and passing on knowledge to younger gardeners.

We have lots of exciting new attractions this spring. We are opening the Church Gill Walk, the path William Waldorf Astor took to the on-site church when he first designed the gardens. For 50 years it has been overgrown, but we discovered some stone steps when clearing in the area, and last year embarked on a big project with Kevock Garden

Plants and Bulbs to reinstate a lovely woodland garden.

Visitors can also look forward to self-guided tours that take in masses of spring bulbs. We planted 8,000 new daffodils this year with the help of Johnny Walkers of Taylors Bulbs, bringing our total to 50,000, as well as adding 25,000 tulips.

Roses are my passion and we prune them in the second week of March. You’ve got to be cruel to be kind: make sure each one gets a good prune. hevercastle.co.uk; 01732 865224

West Sussex Totally opposite, but equally impressive, is the Victorian walled kitchen garden at West Dean.

Everything from chillies to melons and Swiss chard is lined out immaculately and beautifully labelled – no weeds in sight. Tel: 01243 818210; westdean.org.uk

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 9

APRIL

Out & About

Unmissable events, news and the very best gardens to visit this month

Celebrate spring blossom Following the success of last year’s campaign, the National Trust is encouraging people to take a moment to enjoy nature and the fleeting beauty of blossom this spring. Alongside various nature-inspired activities in its gardens, the organisation urges everyone to share images of trees in bloom using the hashtag #BlossomWatch.

The concept was inspired by hanami, the traditional Japanese celebration of blossom. Research shows that just 20 minutes spent enjoying nature boosts our mood, whether it’s the earliest blackthorn flowers or the brightest cherry. nationaltrust.org.uk/blossom-watch

Plant Heritage adds 13 new National Plant Collections Horticultural conservation charity Plant Heritage has accredited 13 new National Plant Collections, including collections of Nerine and Ruscus (left) that were relocated after facing challenges caused by Covid-19. Others include the UK’s only collection of Abutilon, in Herefordshire, Rowden irises at RHS Rosemoor, and plants named after Sir Winston Churchill at Churchill College, Cambridge. plantheritage.org.uk

NGS Garden

April, online Treat yourself to an online course or lecture hosted by Cambridge University Botanic Garden this spring.

The garden has already arranged a line-up of virtual talks throughout the first half of the year, with April offering a two-day introduction to fruit and vegetable production, a beginners’ course on landscape painting with watercolours, and a talk on sex in the garden – from stamens and pistils to the amorous writings of pastoral poets.

To book or find out about more talks, visit botanic.cam.ac.uk

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Pie Corner, Bedmond Hertfordshire Formal areas with lawns and a pool complement the architecture of the house at Pie Corner, which enjoys spectacular valley views.

The garden becomes more informal as it merges with woods filled with blossom, wild garlic, bluebells and rhododendrons in late spring. Pie Corner, Bedmond, Hertfordshire WD5 0SG. Open Sunday 25 April, 2pm-5pm. Adults: £5; children: free. Book online at ngs.org.uk

WORDS PHOEBE JAYES IMAGES TIM PYNE; PLANT HERITAGE; NGS; CAMBRIDGE BOTANIC

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APRIL

Things to Do Keep up to date in the garden with our monthly guide to key gardening tasks from Troy Scott Smith, head gardener at Iford Manor

Divide & CONQUER The Great Terrace at Iford, Harold Peto’s ‘Appian Way’ is a masterpiece of design.

Carved out of the hillside, the level terrace is lined with statues, sarcophagi and

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terracotta urns guarded by ancient junipers and cypress. The underplanting is deliberately Mediterranean, with emphasis given to texture, foliage, and scent.

These short-lived sub-shrubs and sun-loving perennials require continual analysis and reworking to maintain a harmonious balance of the component parts.

Unless I’m working on clay, which can be too cold and wet for the establishment of plants, I usually lift and divide perennials in autumn.

However, the Mediterranean planting on the Great Terrace, responds far better if this work is done in spring.

When working in the borders, try not to trample the soil: use wooden planks to spread your weight and avoid compaction. First, cut down and remove any top growth.

Next, work a fork all the way round the group, loosening the soil and teasing the roots away. When all the roots are free it should be possible to lift out the plant. Occasionally you will have to use a spade to slice congested plants into bite-sized clumps to get them out. I put the clumps in plastic trays, shaking off any loose soil and always remembering to label the various plants.

Once you have lifted the whole group, you can begin splitting. Sometimes it is possible to tear the clumps apart, but more often you will need to use two forks placed back-to-back to tease roots apart. With most perennials you want palm-sized pieces to put back. Leaving the delicate roots exposed can stress the plant, so get them planted back in the soil without delay, adding compost and fertiliser as needed.

Iford Manor, Iford, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire BA15 2BA. Tel: 01225 863146; ifordmanor. co.uk. Follow Troy on Instagram @troyscottsmith1

April checklist Plan long-lasting displays and sow annuals for cutting Don’t forget

Plan your planting The ebb and flow of plants emerging, flowering, and fading is key to a dynamic scheme. Flowering now is the white form of honesty, which followed Galanthus ikariae, with pulmonaria bridging the gap. Soon the lunaria can be removed; we’ll leave a few to set seed and add their ghostly white discs to the border. The galanthus can be lifted and divided and the pulmonaria cut down to come back with fresh foliage. I will sow Nicotiana sylvestris to plant in May to replace the lunaria.

l When the soil has warmed

up, hardy annuals can be sown directly into the soil where they’re to flower. l April is a good time to sow

lawn seed to repair any bare patches or thicken the grass. l Keep an eye on weeds this

month, hoeing off annual weeds as they appear. l Pot up dahlia tubers and

start them into growth in the warmth of the greenhouse.

Add spring colour

IMAGES ALUN CALLENDER; ALAMY; SHUTTERSTOCK; GAP/CAROLE DRAKE/NICOLA STOCKEN

Give trees a final ‘winter’ prune One of the delights of Iford is the juxtaposition between its different parts. From the Great Terrace, with its echoes of Rome, you walk six yards to the oriental woodland garden. This weekend I am taking the last chance to ‘winter’ prune the trees.

This will let pools of light filter through the summer canopy so I can add summer-flowering plants.

Bulbs are a must in the spring garden and are perfect for adding a splash of easy colour. My favourite of all spring bulbs is the tulip. This year at Iford I have used ‘Orange Emperor’, 30 bulbs to a 45cm terracotta pot, to give a dash of concentrated colour in the Patio Garden.

Elsewhere I have squeezed tulips of the richest velvet shades, including ‘Havran’, ‘Ronaldo’ and ‘Negrita’, in among permanent plantings of perennials and shrubs.

Bring the outside in Sow annuals that will be ready to cut and bring indoors within just 12 weeks. My current favourites for their ability to lift the spirits are Zinnia elegans, available in a range of colours. Before that I enjoy the scent and early colour of daffodils planted last September. As one variety fades, the next comes out, starting with ‘Avalanche’ forced for a January display through to the beautiful Narcissus poeticus, still to come.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 13

APRIL

Nature to Note

The wonder of wildlife in the garden and countryside this month

Dawn CHORUS The transition from winter to spring, as days lengthen, temperatures rise and food supplies increase, marks the start of breeding season for birds across the UK and the revival of the dawn chorus. From March to July, male songbirds begin singing about an hour before sunrise, to defend their territory and attract a mate. The season kicks off with a chorus of resident robins and great tits, later fortified by migrants like chiffchaffs and blackcaps.

Singing is hard work and uses up food and energy reserves, so the males who produce the strongest, most impressive song show off their healthy, robust genes and attract females. To enjoy the chorus, wrap up warm on a clear, windless day and head outside half an hour before sunrise.

How to identify it These conical trees reach 28m and have dark, fissured bark often covered in lichen. The female catkins, which look like cones, remain on the tree all year round, while flowers appear on both male and female catkins in early spring.

The racquet-shaped, leathery, green leaves have serrated edges.

Where to find it Native to England, Ireland, and most of Europe, it prefers moist ground near rivers, lakes, marshes and streams, but can also grow in drier areas. It enjoys nutrient-poor soils so thrives where other trees fail.

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Value to wildlife Alder roots are perfect nest sites for otters, and the wet conditions of alder woodland make it a good habitat for mosses and lichens, while the larvae of the alder kitten and pebble hook-tip moths feed on its foliage. The catkins offer early nectar and pollen for bees, and its seeds are eaten by birds.

Did you know? Green dye from alder flowers was used to camouflage the clothes of outlaws like Robin Hood, while much of Venice was built on alder piles, due to the durability of the wood in water.

Oh deer!

Unmanaged deer running wild Conservationists and professionals in the game industry have raised concerns that unmanaged wild deer herds could pose a threat to woodlands and important wildlife habitats in Britain. The increasing number of deer roaming in the wild is down to the national lockdowns and subsequent lack of demand for venison from restaurants and other businesses in the hospitality industry.

WORDS PHOEBE JAYES IMAGES SHUTTERSTOCK

COMMON ALDER (Alnus glutinosa)

WILDLIFE NEWS

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Silent SENTINEL

While the world ground to a halt in 2020, this West Sussex garden’s tulip festival went ahead unseen, flowers bloomed and new projects continued apace, all watched over by the imposing edifice of Arundel Castle WORDS HELEN YEMM PHOTOGRAPHS MIMI CONNOLLY

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This image Pots of tulip

‘Foxtrot’ are dotted through the Cut Flower garden for extra colour.

Opposite ‘Apeldoorn Elite’ tulips in the beds that border a pathway past the glasshouse.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 21

Above Italianate fountains bring a flamboyant touch to The Collector Earl’s Garden, with pots of tulip ‘Pink Impression’.

Right Head gardener Martin Duncan, with members of the Arundel Castle garden team.

T

he original 12th-century Norman castle, frequently battered, restored, and finally substantially rebuilt in the 19th century, has been the seat of one branch or other of the same family – that of the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk, the Fitzalan-Howards – for almost all of that time.

The castle enjoys a commanding position above the river Arun that gave its name to the castle and to the town that sits beneath its walls. In the 19th century, the picturesque town was further embellished with a gothic-revival cathedral. Between castle and cathedral, two grand and dominant edifices, a most intriguing garden consisting of some 40 acres has evolved, much of it developed since the succession to the title in 2005 of the current Duke and Duchess, who take a keen interest in it.

Since 2009, the head gardener has been Martin Duncan, a plantsman and garden designer who won the Kew Guild Medal in 2018. He works with a team of seven full-time gardeners and some vital volunteers and, over the past 12 years, between them they have planted 1.2 million bulbs in the light and chalky soil. They hosted the castle’s first

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Between castle and cathedral, two grand and dominant edifices, a most intriguing garden has evolved

The Potager’s mixed tulip display, with Narcissus ‘Thalia’ is surrounded by brightstemmed rainbow chard.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 23

Tulip Festival in 2015, an event that went from strength to strength – until last year. It was, of course, devastating that Arundel’s annual, monthlong celebration, one of the best in the country, was cancelled in 2020. But for the castle’s owners and the small gardening team led by Martin, the cancellation must have provided a privileged opportunity to enjoy the peace and tranquility of the garden’s spring flowers in abundance, the birdsong and the blossom, during a brief period when the sun seemed endlessly to shine on an increasingly frightened population holding its collective breath.

“The tulips were,” says Martin, “the best they have ever been – and nobody came.” For him, of course, future planning carried on as normal: last autumn he and his team planted 126,000 spring bulbs, 60,000 of which were tulips, in anticipation of the spectacular festival’s hoped-for return this year.

At the entrance to the castle gardens visitors are greeted by a joyous display of massed tulips in huge terracotta pots, a taste of a keenly anticipated floral colour-binge to come. Walking upwards and into what is essentially a 19th-century landscape, all grassy banks and precipitous castle walls, the ancient keep and barbican set to one side, a different picture begins to emerge. The wide gravel path is flanked by grass bejewelled with tulips, just one element of a long-season, informally planted melee of spring flowers augmented over the past few years: aconites, snowdrops and the earliest narcissus will have led the march out of winter, with fritillaries, primulas and first blue, then white camassias closely on their heels with later-flowering daffodils in attendance. Overlapping these come the early-flowering tulips, followed by hordes of alliums floating above clouds of cow parsley, with laterflowering tulips bringing up the rear.

The colours ebb and flow with every twist and turn of the path and, as the season progresses, the bulbs are overtaken by a spreading population of native perennial wildflowers. Whole areas that formerly sported undulating sheets of grass between trees are thus rendered colourful for weeks on end, with paths mown between the floral drifts enabling the visitor to explore further.

The gravelled path leads gently upwards. Not to be missed along the way is the small, walled White Garden, attached to the Fitzalan Chapel, where ‘White Triumphator’ tulips and ‘White Dame’ wallflowers, the essence of tranquility, combine beautifully in all-white borders of shrubs, roses, clematis and later perennials.

From here, a door leads into an extensive walled garden that was previously the castle’s vast

Above In a wide border buttressed by yew, alliums are just starting to raise their heads above tulip ‘Passionale’.

Right The dainty flowers of Tulipa ‘Little Beauty’.

Below Mixed woodland planting in the unusual Stumpery; the ancient stumps are from the Norfolk estate.

“The tulips were,” says Martin, “the best they have ever been – and nobody came.”

24 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

vegetable garden, into Above Circles of ‘Thalia’ daffodils with red tulip a theatrically formal ‘Apeldoorn’ and a few space, The Collector ‘Purple Dream’ form The Earl’s Garden, designed Labyrinth, with a view of

by Julian and Isabel the cathedral behind.

Left The Roundhouse Bannerman and opened is wrapped in a dreamy

by HRH Prince Charles meadow of ‘Passionale’ in 2008. A bubbling and ‘Paul Scherer’ tulips. fountain and rill here are flanked by enormous pots of ‘Pink Impression’ tulips underplanted with irises and forget-me-nots.

Beyond, and viewed through a massive hornbeamclad pergola, is the otherworldly Oberon’s Palace, both hefty structures hewn from green oak.

Together with deep and curvaceous foliage-rich tropical borders littered with huge rocks, they powerfully vie for attention with the lofty cathedral beyond. Three years ago, Martin transformed the square central lawn, creating a spectacular grass labyrinth planted with massed ‘Thalia’ daffodils and scarlet ‘Apeldoorn’ tulips. The whole grassy expanse is mown in June, when it becomes a green, open-air theatre auditorium.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 25

MO RT ON H AL L G A R D E N S

T U L I P F E S T I VA L 1 – 3 M AY 2 0 2 1 1 0 A M - 4 P M B L O M S T U L I P D I S P L AY A N D A D V I C E MARQUEE GARDEN CAFÉ

Image credit Clive Nichols

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Head TURNERS Arundel’s most colourful and flamboyant tulips and some equally eye-catching partners

DICENTRA SPECTABILIS

TULIPA ‘MICKEY MOUSE’

A wonderful partner for tulips, flowering in April and with fresh, feathery foliage.

Small flowers have massive impact thanks to their bright combination of colours.

PULMONARIA OFFICINALIS

TULIPA ‘FOXTROT’

Ideal for shadier borders, this bee-friendly early perennial grows in Arundel’s Stumpery.

Opulent double and lightly fragrant flowers open in a shade of rose pink that gets darker as the flowers age.

PULSATILLA VULGARIS

TULIPA ‘APELDOORN ELITE’

Grow this sun-lover in very well-drained soil; silky seedheads follow the flowers.

A Darwin hybrid with huge orange blooms, flushed red on the outside, in April and May.

Once-solid hedges have been sculpted to echo the shapes of the spires and buttresses of the cathedral And so, finally, still within the original old walls of the garden, to a series of more formally laid-out areas and a beautifully restored tropical glass house.

The traditional herbaceous borders here are studded with a range of tulips in gorgeous combinations.

Martin dislikes hard edges, and prefers borders that ‘spill’, but each of these borders (lofty, later, with cardoons, lupins and delphiniums) is separated from the next by once-solid hedges that have now been sculpted to echo the shapes of the spires and buttresses of the cathedral beyond.

The mildness of the garden’s microclimate (there is seldom a hard frost here) is nowhere so much in evidence as in the highly unusual Stumpery: here, smaller spring bulbs, including little, bright Turkish tulips, nestle between huge acid-green heads of euphorbias, the slowly unfurling fronds of Above Outside the Hunting Lodge in The the tree ferns and Collector Earl’s Garden numerous, magnificent, stand massed ranks of self-seeded echiums containers, filled with a reaching for the sky. mix of colourful tulips.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 27

Planting BULBS Practical advice from Arundel head gardener Martin Duncan In the grass, bulbs are laboriously planted by hand and foot. To make life easier, Martin has modified longhandled bulb planters, adding metal plates, welded on to each side of the hole-cutting cylinder, which can then be relatively easily trodden into the ground to remove plugs of soil (“tulips have to be planted at least four inches deep”, he insists), before plopping the bulbs into the resulting hole and replacing the soil plugs.

Bulbs are cast on the ground and planted where they land to ensure they look ‘natural’.

Left A gateway to the gardens, flanked by tulips ‘Apeldoorn’ and plum-purple ‘Passionale’.

Below Away from the Walled Garden, in the Castle’s wider grounds, a beautifully lumpy hedge is picked out by rays of early-morning sunshine.

Martin initially uses a turf cutter to remove the rough grass, replacing it after planting the bulbs with specially grown wildflower turf and subsequently using the seed-rich, late-summer mowings to spread the wildflower population around.

To lengthen the flowering period of the castle’s large pots, tulips are planted close together in a single layer, with up to four harmonious varieties per pot, with different heights and flowering times.

Bulbs in borders are left in situ and their numbers topped up annually. Big display beds are rotated to keep disease at bay: tulips one year, iris the next, then back to tulips and so on.

Familiar tulips such as the Apeldoorns and lily-flowered varieties usually last well from year to year. Doubles and the exotic ‘parrots’ do not and must be replaced each year.

28 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

And even in 2020 the work was quietly continuing here. A small, shady woodland border was created close to the Barbican with rustic benches to relieve the weary. The latest project, the restoration of the Stew Ponds, the castle’s mediaeval fish ponds, beyond a circular spinney of slim, charmingly wonky white birches and made accessible by wooden walkways, is now home to breeding swans, all

manner of wildlife and maturing water-garden plantings. Its scope and success has resulted in the project winning the Sussex Heritage Award for Landscapes and Gardens. n Arundel Castle, Arundel, West Sussex BN18 9AB. Tel: 01903 882173; arundelcastle.org.

The castle is due to reopen on 1 April, but check the website for the latest updates.

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A Matter of TIME Starting out as the kitchen garden of an Elizabethan farmhouse, the grounds of Norfolk’s Holme Hale Hall are now fine Arne Maynard-designed formal gardens, yet remnants of the past, from mature trees to an ancient wisteria, create timeless appeal WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHS ANNIE GREEN-ARMYTAGE

This image Tulips and

silvery artemisia in the walled garden.

Opposite Arches of trained apples covered in blossom lead to a snail-shell fountain by Thomason Cudworth.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 31

F

rom a 130-year-old wisteria to a kitchen garden replanted in 2016, Holme Hale Hall in Norfolk spans the centuries with its mix of established trees and shrubs and new plantings of perennials and bulbs. As the spring sun rises, the early sunlight filters through surrounding trees, across the southfacing house and into the walled garden, warming its weathered brickwork. The coppery tones of beech, Fagus sylvatica (Atropurpurea Group) contrast with the creamy Tulipa ‘Spring Green’ and fresh shoots of perennial honesty, Lunaria rediviva, while the lilac hue of the venerable wisteria (W. sinensis) is echoed by tulips on the terrace. Everywhere there is a sense of ancient presence alongside new life.

This is Holme Hale Hall, home to the Broke family for generations. “It was created in its current form at the turn of the 19th century,” says Simon Broke. “The owner, Robert Farrand, studied 32 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Above In this quiet garden, cloud-pruned box is the focal point, with yew pyramids and box balls creating a contemplative space.

architecture in Florence and when he returned, he turned what had been a fairly simple Elizabethan farmhouse into an Italianate villa. He also attached the kitchen garden to the house, which is a very rare feature. Most kitchen gardens are 200 yards away, because Victorian ladies didn’t want to see, hear or smell anything concerning the garden!”

Simon’s great-grandfather bought the house in 1867, and Simon and his wife Delia took up the reins from Simon’s parents in 1985. With her gardening background, Delia realised that she wanted to “do something” with the outside space, but with two young sons, priorities were conflicting. “We had a bed of asparagus, and some raspberries, otherwise it was mostly used as a football pitch, or for cricket, or pitch and putt,” Simon recalls, laughing.

Enter renowned garden designer Arne Maynard.

“There was a tiny article in one of the Sunday magazines,” Delia remembers. “It spoke of a person

Top Tulip ‘Paul Scherer’

with pink ‘Barcelona’ and ‘Aveyron’ in large pots.

Top right Holme Hale Hall’s owners, Simon and Delia Broke, in the shade of an old quince tree.

Middle A Japanese cherry in full, glorious bloom, frames the house.

Bottom Chris Marchand, Holme Hale Hall’s full-time gardener.

named Arne Maynard who enjoyed renovating kitchen gardens. I knew nothing about him, but I had a rush of blood to the head, sent him a picture of the garden, which was in a terrible state, and asked would he ever be interested to come and look? And he came!” This was November 1999, and by the spring of 2000 the first planting was completed.

“We were up to our knees in mud in February,” Delia recalls. “Later that same year, Arne and Piet Oudolf won Best Show Garden at Chelsea.”

Before putting pen to paper, Arne set about discovering the personality of the family: likes and dislikes and how they lived their lives. The football pitch was shifted out of the walled part of the garden, and formal structures – clipped yew (Taxus baccata), pleached lime (Tilia x europaea) and whitebeam (Sorbus aria ‘Lutescens’), along with hornbeam hedging (Carpinus betulus) – were installed to create distinct areas and conceal the swimming pool and tennis court. The formality, says Delia, reflects her upbringing, while the free-form, meadow-style planting in the borders is indicative of her creative side – she paints in her spare time.

Full-time gardener Chris Marchand joined the team in 2016 to undertake the second wave of planting. This replaced the original scheme, which had focused on cut flowers, with a more balanced mixture of perennials and shrubs. He and Delia now work together to manage not just the appearance of the garden but also its ecosystem.

“We are trying to be more conscious of our environment,” Chris explains. “The aim is to have a beautiful garden full of flowers all year round, which is perfect for pollinating insects and also pest predators. I’ve watched ladybirds completely annihilate a population of aphids on the fruit tree arches, which previously I might have sprayed.”

Out in the parkland, spring bulbs and early native wildflowers, including camassias (Camassia leichtlinii) and cowslips (Primula veris), are now actively managed to naturalise and proliferate.

“Establishing the yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor), which is parasitic on grass, was essential,” says Chris. He also cuts the grass very short early on APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 33

Tulip FEVER An excellent selection of reliable and high-performing tulips from Holme Hale Hall

‘LASTING LOVE’

‘BLUE DIAMOND’

This is a lovely lily-flowered variety, with deep red petals and darker tones. It flowers during April and May.

Starting out purple and fading to lavender and mauve, this robust variety blooms from April to May.

‘PAUL SCHERER’

‘BALLERINA’

One of the classic choices for dark, dramatic blooms, with goblet-shaped flowers appearing from April to May.

Brilliant for injecting a border with bright, vivid orange, when it bears its elegant flowers from April to May.

‘CHATO’

‘SPRING GREEN’

An early-flowering double, producing these sumptuous, almost peony-like pink blooms from March to April.

The freshest flowers with ivory petals streaked with green on the outside. Blooms will appear from April to May.

34 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

to let the wildflowers emerge, and removes the clippings after cutting to deplete nutrients, allowing the flowers to hold their own against hungry competitors.

Some aspects of the garden remain unchanged, most notably an early-flowering Banksia rose (Rosa banksiae ‘Lutea’) planted by Simon’s grandmother, and the spectacular wisteria that covers the south face of the house. This was planted some time around 1890, and tradition demands that it is pruned by the male head of household. Simon prunes twice each year, once just after flowering and again at the end of summer, to keep it in bounds.

The wisteria has become the inspiration for the spring colour scheme, which has a soft pastel feel.

Now fully garden-addicted, Delia liaises closely with Arne and Chris on any changes to the planting. “It is a beautifully restrained scheme,” she says, “based on complementary colours: mauve and purple against cream and yellow. Our mission is to retain the original scheme, and whenever we have considered changes these have always been done in consultation with Arne. Within that, I tend to go with the sort of palette of colours I use when I paint, but with thought given to the context, so in this case it means keeping in tune with the wisteria.”

Tulips feature in pots close to the house, elegant triumph types teaming with blowsy, peony-flowered varieties, including dark and handsome ‘Paul Scherer’ and sumptuous ‘Blue Diamond’. In the walled garden, the colour scheme is expanded with graceful lily-flowered ‘Spring Green’ and ‘Sarah Raven’ in contrasting tones of cream and dark purple, with an occasional pop of colour delivered by the ever-popular ‘Ballerina’.

Adding a more permanent dimension to the planting, long-established trees, including flowering Above The wonderfully early-flowering rambling rose, Rosa banksiae ‘Lutea’, is a classic choice for a sheltered wall.

This image Mounds

of perennial honesty and ‘Spring Green’ tulips give this curving border a fresh look.

Below right The facade of the house, adorned with its graceful, 130-year-old wisteria.

Below left Magnolia kobus from Japan.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 35

This image The 1890-

planted Wisteria sinensis, dripping with its pendent purple flowers.

Top right A view of the greenhouse, flanked by apple arches and box.

Right Gnarled boughs of an old quince, with its large white blooms.

cherry (prunus species) and Magnolia kobus, have been joined by blossom trees in the walled garden: an apple arbour provides flowers in spring, followed by an abundance of eating, while archways of intermingling fresh green hornbeam and flowering crab apples create a tapestry of interwoven foliage and blossom at this time of year.

For Simon, the garden remains important for its social aspect. “It’s very nice to be able to share what we have created with other people,” he says. “We normally hold two open days for charity [despite the pandemic they still managed two pre-booked days last year], and several group visits each year. It’s really fun to share what we’ve done here with them.

We all appreciate what the garden is about and hopefully we all learn something from it as well.” n Holme Hale Hall, Swaffham, Norfolk IP25 7ED opens for the National Garden Scheme on Sunday 27 June and Sunday 5 September, 12-4pm. Visits can be pre-booked online, although this currently isn’t essential. See ngs.org.uk for updates on opening and further visitor information.

36 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

PLANTING Tulip Pots Chris Marchand shares the tips and tricks he uses when planting tulips for container displays A ‘bulb lasagne’ is the technique Chris uses when potting up tulips. “We layer the bulbs,” he explains. “Rather than aiming for a succession of flowering we want them all to bloom at the same time, so the earlier-flowering cultivars go in deepest, with the mid-flowering varieties in the middle and the later-flowering ones on top. That way they catch each other up and all flower more or less together.

Once the flowers have faded, the tulips are replaced with our summer display.”

Chris uses SylvaGrow peat-free compost, which is endorsed by the RHS, with some John Innes No. 2 mix added for additional nutrients.

Watering is done as needed, in line with the weather. As the pots are against the south facade of the house this is usually quite frequent.

Tulip cultivars to try according to Chris, include: triumph-type ‘Paul Scherer’; peony-flowered ‘Blue Diamond’ and ‘Chato’; flamboyant ‘Cerise Parrot’; ‘Spring Green’; and lily-flowered ‘Ballerina’ and ‘Green Star’.

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In spring, Prunus ‘Royal Burgundy’ trees are a highlight of Matthew Spriggs’ garden in Petworth.

Going DUTCH Florist Matthew Spriggs has applied the formality and containment of gardens seen on buying trips to the Netherlands to his narrow garden at Lancaster House in Sussex, with triumphant results and lots of bold tulips WORDS VIVIENNE HAMBLY PHOTOGRAPHS MIMI CONNOLLY

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 39

M

atthew Spriggs’ walled town garden in Petworth, West Sussex, is made for spring. The compact, space is only 5.5m wide, but Matthew’s clever use of its 40m length means it is far more than the sum of its parts.

And when spring finally comes around here, it brings with it a thoroughly celebratory array of candy-pink cherry blossom and jewel-bright tulips.

Colour is so important for Matthew, who, with his sister Samantha, runs Petworth’s Spriggs Florist, a business that has been in the family since 1980. The shop on Golden Square was part of a townhouse that had been divided up with the shop on the ground floor. “Although there were windows and French

40 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Above A long gravel and basket-weave brick path creates an important vertical axis down the length of the garden.

doors going out into the garden, we couldn’t see any of that because there was a leylandii hedge obscuring the view,” Matthew recalls. “It wasn’t until the year 2000 that the property upstairs became available, and I moved in here the following year. I practically got rid of the hedge on the day I moved in!”

There wasn’t much else in the garden besides the hedge, a scrappy lawn and too-narrow borders on either side of the garden. “There were a few shrubs, including one Hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris, which I’ve kept, along with a rather nice yew tree at the end of the garden,” Matthew explains.

As the creative director of Spriggs, Matthew has a keen eye for design. He began work on the garden by establishing a strong vertical axis and fashioning

Left Fresh green fern fronds unfurl at the beginning of spring.

Below Hyacinths, hostas, auriculas and narcissus are part of a spring tableau Matthew likes to use to ring in the season.

Bottom Purple tulips are accented with a hit of lime-green euphorbia.

two large borders off a long central path that he laid himself. “I used brick I found in the garden and gravel from a local quarry to fill the gaps,” he recalls.

The bricks are laid in a basket-weave style: “I wasn’t confident enough to do herringbone pattern, but a basketweave is a nice easy one.”

The property faces south but is bounded on all sides by garden walls and buildings that cast shade.

Even at the height of summer the garden catches the sun only from mid-morning to late-afternoon, meaning a lawn would have been difficult to keep in good condition. “I started with a lot of annuals in the borders because they were inexpensive to grow – sunflowers, cleomes, tobacco plants – but I was really finding my style,” Matthew observes.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 41

Joys of SPRING The new season brings a confection of colour to Matthew Spriggs’ West Sussex garden

FRITILLARIA IMPERIALIS

NARCISSUS ‘THALIA’

Glamorous crown imperials make a bold statement with their striking 1m tall flowers.

This graceful, creamy-white, multi-headed daffodil blooms from March to April.

CENTAUREA MONTANA

TULIPA ‘DESIGN IMPRESSION’

A tough perennial that thrives in sun or semi-shade and flowers from May onwards.

These bright carmine-pink tulips make an impact in Matthew’s containers.

PRUNUS ‘ROYAL BURGUNDY’

MYOSOTIS SYLVATICA

With its striking upright habit and year-round interest, this cherry is ideal for small plots.

Cheery forget-me-nots selfseed to fill nooks and crannies in Matthew’s garden.

42 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Buying trips to the Netherlands instilled in Matthew a passion for traditional Dutch planting styles, with their blend of formality, clipped forms and general containment. It’s a discourse that lends itself well to his own garden and so, with that on his mind, he introduced four large yew hedges to establish a horizontal axis. Resembling buttresses holding up the garden walls, they add drama and scale and contribute to the sense of enclosure here.

They allude to much grander gardens, but this is the trick with small gardens: to create a sense of space, it always pays to be bold. “I love Great Dixter, of course. It’s stunning with the topiary and hedges and Christopher Lloyd’s planting style and what’s been going on there more recently,” Matthew enthuses.

Box balls came in, too, and there are now 37 of them in all, with 12 positioned along the garden path and others planted close to the house and terrace.

Then, about 15 years ago, as the style settled in, Matthew enhanced the garden’s layers with four Prunus ‘Royal Burgundy’. “I adore the trees and I knew I wanted to get more height into the garden,” he admits. “I chose these because they have a very upright growth habit and don’t cast too much shade.

When they’re in bloom it is blossom heaven, it really is. There is the anticipation of watching the little flower buds swelling, the few days of perfection, and then gradually the confetti starts: you’ll stand near the trees and be aware of the odd petal falling down. They also provide fabulous colour in autumn when the leaves turn bright red.”

An important element of the garden is a terrace by the house that Matthew decorates with seasonal displays. In spring he brings it to life with an assortment of auriculas and small bulbs such as muscari, Iris reticulata, hyacinths and dwarf narcissus. “I buy these through the shop, already potted and growing. It’s a really nice thing to ring the changes and more spontaneous than the rest of the garden,” he notes. In summer, a fig tree shades a table on the terrace, its broad, deep green leaves and nutty, honeyed scent filling this enclosed space.

Tulips are essential to the spring garden and with more time at home last autumn, Matthew added bulbs to his borders. He is increasingly using tulips

inclined to be perennial, such as ‘Purple Dream’, ‘Design Impression’, ‘Black Hero’ and ‘Queen of Night’.

“I’m a bit tied to the colour of the cherry trees, which flower at the same time, but my taste has definitely got richer and richer over the years, rather than trying to be too tasteful with green and white.

Lately I’ve ramped up the colour, but I have to restrict myself to buying just one or two varieties and that’s really difficult when you’re a tulipaholic.”

By May and June there are alliums here, not least Allium cristophii, which bob along the borders above the box balls. By summer, herbaceous plants have come to the fore and provide a fresh, green backdrop to summer life in the garden. They include Solomon’s seal, ferns, hostas and, according to Matthew, “clumps of obligatory Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’, which I love”. Euphorbias, so distinctive in their structure and acidic colour, are a counterpoint here to more solid forms elsewhere.

With the sun not hitting the garden until latemorning in summer and gone from most of the

“My taste has got richer and richer over the years, rather than trying to be too tasteful with green and white” Top left Matthew likes to use Muehlenbeckia complexa in his floristry.

Above left Spanish bluebells, Hyacinthoides hispanica; Matthew is trying to replace them with native English ones.

Above Layers of texture, form and colour make this garden more than the sum of its parts.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 43

garden by 5pm, Matthew has set up a seating area in a spot at the far end of the garden that catches the last rays. There is a small stumpery beneath the old yew tree and, visible from the length of the garden, a terracotta pedestal and urn found in an antiques shop in Petworth, which makes a focal point.

Matthew regularly opens his garden as part of a local Petworth charity event, and has the garden maintenance down to a fine art. Faced with clipping all the box balls and yew hedges, many people would be tempted to call in a specialist garden service, but, with his exacting eye, this is the last thing Matthew would outsource. “I’m far too much of a control freak to allow anyone else to do it,” he says, laughing. He takes a measured approach to the process, though, clipping two balls a day, for instance, or, under duress before an opening, clipping every other box ball in the name of it being a design technique. “I do all the clipping by eye because of the old stone walls – working straight to 44 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Above left Petworth’s

many antiques shops are an excellent place to source gardenalia, including old containers.

Top right The unusual honey-scented flowers of Euphorbia mellifera.

Above right Tulipa ‘Design Impression’ with T. ‘Purple Dream’ behind.

the spirit level would look wonky. I also do it all by hand because you get a much crisper finish than with electric hedge trimmers – and it lasts longer, too.”

No matter how much colour or structure there is in a garden, it remains only half-finished without wildlife. “It’s lovely having a garden to look at, but birds and butterflies animate it,” Matthew agrees.

During the first lockdown of 2020, when the shop closed for weeks, he fed garden birds: “We’d have up to six blackbirds coming into the garden from neighbouring territories, followed by blackbird punch-ups… and then amazing singing all around.”

Spring is probably the busiest time of year on Golden Square, but it’s never overwhelming. “The garden is of a size where there’s just enough there for me to do for it to be a pleasure,” Matthew insists. n Spriggs Florist, Lancaster House, Golden Square, High Street, Petworth, West Sussex GU28 0AP. Tel: 01798 343372; spriggsflorist.co.uk

English Garden Revised_bullets final?_English Garden UK 1/28/21 2:52 PM Page 1

Spectacular Spring Beauties

PERGOLAS & ARCHES

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APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 45

46 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

A large, locally forged arbour makes a fitting centrepiece for the Victorian walled garden at Westbrooke House.

Modern ANTIQUITY Joanne and Bryan Drew bought Westbrooke House in Leicestershire having fallen for its neglected Victorian walled garden. Their sensitive restoration has added a contemporary touch WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHS NICOLA STOCKEN APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 47

A formal arrangement of beds radiates from a central arbour, brimming with tulips, honesty and euphorbia, offset by hefty yew columns.

48 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

F

south-facing walled garden was part of six acres ew spectacles in the gardening that surround Westbrooke House, a late Victorian calendar are as dramatic as the sight of property built in 1887 on the outskirts of Market myriad tulips caressed by the slanting Harborough, and backing onto undulating arable sunbeams that pierce the crisp first land. “After lengthy discussions with the previous light of a spring dawn. It is a dazzling owners, we purchased the house – but primarily for vision that unfolds annually in the walled garden at the walled garden,” she explains.

Westbrooke House, when thousands of shimmering The walled garden had long been a grass tennis tulips stand proud in colour-themed beds amid blue court, but over time the lawn had worn out and camassias, pink honesty and acid-green euphorbia. attempts at putting in box hedging and planting “Planning our annual tulip display is my favourite borders were not very successful. The Drews task of the year,” explains owner Joanne Drew. determined to restore it as a Victorian-style cut“Every August, I spend a day sifting through a flower garden, with beds contained in period ropebulb catalogue, envisaging the different colour twist edging or low box hedges. “I wanted a design combinations.” Planting the bulbs throughout the that was in sympathy with the era of the house,” 30 beds and borders that comprise the walled Joanne maintains. Local garden designer Rebecca garden’s flower parterre lasts from November’s first Winship suggested a formal arrangement focused frosts until nigh-on Christmas Day. “With such a on a circular arbour at the centre, which delighted high-maintenance garden as ours, you settle into Joanne: “I loved the idea of a big circle in the middle, a reassuring rhythm of doing the routine tasks for surrounded by curving paths and beds,” she says. each season,” says Joanne.

By spring 2014, the intricate tracery of beds was One of those tasks involves sorting the 9,000 bulbs marked out on the ground and the beds dug and into labelled baskets – one per bed according to her filled with imported top soil and compost. A metal ground plan – ready to plant out. “In each bed we arbour was commissioned from a local blacksmith, plant between four to six different, mid- to lateGeorge James & Sons, and placed in the centre. “It flowering varieties that will blend well together,” was very exciting going out each day, and seeing how Joanne explains. “The display is intended to peak it was evolving,” Joanne recalls. “For permanent for our NGS opening; we love sharing the garden.” structure, there are eight great yew It falls to Joanne and her part-time Below Bryan and Joanne columns. They were bought at this gardener, Juliet Douglas, to then work Drew in the walled size, and it took two men to inch each systematically, one bed at a time, garden they’ve restored one into position.” lifting, dividing and moving perennials over a decade at their Hundreds of knee-high box plants where necessary, in preparation for Leicestershire home. were positioned along planting the tulips. “We the perimeter of the make a good team. Juliet beds and borders, while digs the holes, and I Bourbon and Gallica follow, dropping in the roses were established bulbs,” adds Joanne. among perennials such Faced with spring’s as monarda, achillea, fabulous array, it is astrantia, thalictrum, hard to picture the sea hollies, delphiniums scene almost a decade and phlox. Finally, in late ago when Joanne and autumn, the tulips were her husband Bryan, planted. “I love the depth a property developer, of colour that you find first set eyes on the with tulips. Even when three-quarters-of-anthey are in bud, there are acre walled Victorian still tinges of colour,” garden. “It was for sale notes Joanne. as a building plot with The tulips’ companion planning permission, planting is key, providing but it had such a special fresh new growth for feel that we fell in love a textured backdrop. with it as a garden,” “I find honesty is most recalls Joanne, a dance useful as it self-seeds teacher and examiner everywhere, and simply who increasingly juggles pops up between the her career with her tulips,” says Joanne. love of gardening. The APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 49

Rope-twist edging is perfectly in keeping with the property’s era, while low hedges of box bring a fitting formality.

50 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Mediterranean spurge is another wondrous plant, forming great outcrops at key axes between the borders. “Last year, I cut back 200 spent flowerheads from one plant,” she marvels. Drifts of tulips negotiate mounds of herbaceous peonies, angelica and shrub roses, while perennials such as aquilegias, geums and centaurea flower in tandem.

Inside the main doorway are four square beds with obelisks for clematis in which clumps of blue camassias and nectaroscordum mingle among tulips such as dusky ‘Ronaldo’, pinkish ‘Blushing Girl’ and ‘Shirley’.

Joanne not only combines the colours, but also the different tulip forms, such as parrots with singles, or multi-flowered with doubles.

“Pink ‘Cummins’ with deep-plum ‘Gorilla’, both fringed tulips, works rather well,” she muses.

In the first year the bulbs were left in the ground, but some rotted away while those remaining were smaller and not so prolific. “Now we always lift the bulbs, planting some out in the meadow, and last

Top To the east of the

house, a contemporary garden takes its turn to supply colour in summer.

Above Lunaria annua or purple honesty, makes a superb tulip partner.

Right Joanne ties in clematis with part-time gardener Juliet Douglas.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 51

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year we donated them to our local gold club for a border behind the putting green.” Once the tulips are lifted, dahlias take their place, and any gaps in the planting are filled with perennials and annuals that Joanne grows from seed: “Seeing the greenhouses packed with seeds and seedlings is a great joy to me – it puts a smile on my face.”

A doorway on the northern wall leads to a fruit and vegetable parterre laid out in a series of square raised beds overlooked by a greenhouse. In the central area are large, oak-framed cloches, built by a local cabinet maker, for brassicas and salads, plus a broad strawberry bed and a fruit cage. “It’s very productive and functional,” points out Joanne.

From the kitchen garden, a doorway leads to a natural lily pond, edged with hostas, ferns and Japanese maples. Nearby stands a huge weeping willow, dawn redwood, Ginkgo biloba and, under the kitchen window, an Acer davidii. “We are blessed with some magnificent mature trees – those near the house have tree preservation orders,” Joanne observes. The drive is flanked by giant

Top Next to the entrance,

four square beds feature obelisks for clematis, and camassias with the tulips.

Above A euphorbiaflanked doorway frames the fruit and vegetable parterre beyond.

Left Limes and giant redwoods line the drive.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 53

NOTEBOOK

Old & New

Timeless accessories are carefully chosen to match this Victorian walled garden’s heritage and to complement its beautiful planting

1

redwoods alternating with lime trees.

It is no surprise to learn that Joanne’s parents were keen gardeners. “My dad focused on vegetables, while my mum loved flowers.” Previously, she and Bryan had a half-acre garden, but even there Joanne ran a greenhouse and developed a love of propagating which, with so many beds now to fill, is invaluable. “I’ve learned as I’ve gone along – you can’t beat hands-on experience.”

While she masterminds the planting, it is Bryan who cares for the lawns, maintains the water features and prunes countless metres of box hedging. “Then Juliet prunes all the rose bushes and fruit trees,” says Joanne. “She has been involved from the outset, and we’ve worked together on every project.”

Once the walled garden was established, Joanne and Bryan looked at the lower garden, wedged between the house and a small river that marks the boundary. Twin perennial borders are inspired by the Great Broad Walk at Kew, and beyond them lie modern features such as a slate water feature and rill. “Although the borders were planted in 2016, they’ve filled out surprisingly quickly,” notes Joanne.

These features add a very different dimension to this traditional garden, bringing it firmly into the 21st century. And, a project that started out simply as a yearning to restore a Victorian walled garden has taken on a life of its own. “The garden is now so important to us,” says Joanne. “I’m out there most days. In fact, I plan more what’s happening in the garden than in the house, but then it was the garden that brought us here in the first place.” ■ Above Bespoke oak cloches protect crops in the kitchen garden with a Victorian-style greenhouse from Alitex and espaliered fruit.

Westbrooke House, 52 Scotland Road, Little Bowden, Market Harborough, Leicestershire LE16 8AX. Opens for the National Garden Scheme on 25 April and 20 June (10.30am to 5pm) by prior booking, but check ngs.org.uk for updates.

54 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

2

3

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1 The hand-forged central arbour in the walled garden incorporates designs copied from pargeting on the house, with additional motifs such as English roses and twisting clematis. 2 A cistern panel lead fountain

by Redfields English Leadwork adds the soothing sound of water.

3 Nicknamed ‘Sid the Stag’, this life-sized, bronze-finish sculpture stands in the shade of a mature copper beech. 4 Height is added in the walled garden with a screen of pleached crab apples, Malus ‘Evereste’.

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APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 55

At One With

THE LAND

A few considered adjustments and thoughtful plant introductions have enhanced and formalised Simon Gill’s Cotswold spring garden without diminishing its historic essence WORDS JACKY HOBBS PHOTOGRAPHS JACKY HOBBS & MICHELLE GARRETT

This image In a font

from Haddonstone, ‘Angélique’ tulips complement Prunus ‘Kanzan’ blossom.

Opposite ‘Uncle Tom’ tulips in a parterre by the thatched barn.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 57

T

he Cotswolds are renowned for their rolling countryside, glorious gardens and quaint, stone-clad villages. On the outskirts of Burford, part way up a single-track lane, with views across adjoining meadows to the picturesque village church, this 17th-century former farmhouse and its one-acre garden seem to single-handedly encapsulate the springtime spirit of the Cotswolds. “The character and location of the property were irresistible – almost part-and-parcel of the landscape,” explains its owner, Simon Gill.

In spring, the garden’s skyline is fringed with clouds of blossom from mature, ornamental cherries, their boughs thick with candy-floss-pink or snow-white flowers.

Neighbouring lilacs perfume the garden’s air and masses of naturalised bulbs enjoy the free-draining, stony soil and spread 58 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Above Prunus sargentii in the orchard, where swathes of daffodils are naturalised in the grass.

Below Ribes sanguineum, the flowering currant, is a classic spring shrub.

thickly through the garden. Daffodils dominate the rough grass of the orchard, while wild garlic, grape hyacinths and bluebells fringe the parterres and stony pathways of the main garden. Tulips adorn urns, fonts and box-edged parterres and bring an early flush of colour to awakening beds and borders.

None of this was apparent, however, when Simon moved to the property in December 2006.

It was midwinter and the appeal of the house, with its exposed beams and open hearths, overshadowed the merits of the south-facing garden, which merely provided an appropriate setting. Simon had noted the swathes of lawn, orchard grass and the trees along the boundaries that afforded some privacy and a barrier to noise. “I was drawn to the house, the thatched barn and outbuildings, but I knew very little about gardens and plants,” he confesses.

Fortunately, he inherited an expert: Tony Davies, the gardener who had tended the plot here for over two decades and understood it almost as well as his own. Tony has continued to dig, prune, train, tie in, pull out, nurse, weed and feed the garden, advise Simon on new introductions and keep everything looking better than it should.

The bare bones of the garden, essentially the same stone landscaping that is intrinsic to this part of the Cotswolds, lay fully exposed in winter: a stone-clad terrace and several dry stone walls, some in a state of poor repair. Two rectangular, low-walled garden rooms were also visible, the remnants of ancient barns no longer standing. “My neighbour and longterm resident, Joan Smith, who is 101, has a painting that indicates how the barns once looked,” Simon reveals. Later on, he keenly embraced this historical anecdote and, after waiting a year to see what actually grew in the garden, he designed and planted

Top A craggy old lilac,

in full, perfumed bloom.

Middle Ruffled, plumpurple tulip ‘Uncle Tom’ has peony-like flowers.

Bottom Grape hyacinths, Muscari armeniacum.

Above right Box-edged parterre beds are full of peony foliage, plus drifts of bluebells and their pink and white forms.

flower-filled box parterres in the area incorporating the former barns’ footprints.

“My predecessors had created a peony garden in one partition; the other was overrun with Japanese anemones that were cleared to make way for the box-edged parterre,” Simon explains. “Directly opposite, in the elbow of two outbuildings, was a neglected, gravel-filled, south-facing corner, used for drying washing.” He removed the whirligig washing line, brought in a small digger and carved out a second, matching parterre. The mirror-image gardens were planted with herbs – rosemary, thyme and purple-leaved sage, Salvia officinalis ‘Purpurascens’ – interspersed with tulips in spring, followed by ‘Princess Alexandra of Kent’ roses in summer. “We chose deep raspberry-pink, peonyflowered tulip ‘Uncle Tom’ to complement the preexisting, pink-flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum and to reference the colour and form of the adjacent APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 59

Beautiful BULBS A selection of pretty spring flowers for formal areas of the garden or for naturalising

TULIPA ‘YONINA’ This lily-flowered variety with elegantly reflexed, deep pink petals flowers from late April, on 45cm tall stems.

NARCISSUS POETICUS One of the last to flower in May, pheasant’s eye daffodils are delightfully fragrant.

peony garden,” adds Simon, who is now experimenting with inter-planting tulips in the peony bed itself to give the illusion of peonies a month before their due date.

In keeping with the garden’s stone infrastructure, Simon positioned an aged stone font between the two parterres. This is planted with pink and white tulip ‘Angélique’ to mimic the furze of pink and white cherry blossom in the sightline behind.

Billowing with blossom, the pink cherry, Prunus ‘Kanzan’, was planted by Tony over 20 years ago.

The garden’s former owner regularly returned from garden visits with new, must-have plants and this cherry was one of them. “Design didn’t really come into it. My task was to find the most suitable planting spot in the garden,” Tony recounts. Then a whippy, five-foot specimen, the cherry has matured to a fulsome six metres. “Its Barbara Cartland pink blossom is a bit messy,” confides Tony. “It’s like confetti at a wedding.” A second, pink ornamental cherry, Prunus sargentii, was already in the orchard.

“It’s one of my favourite trees,” says Tony. “It cheers you as you walk along the lane, waving its blossom in spring, illuminating the garden with foliage in autumn.” He admits that the twisted old medlar at the back of the garden comes a close second.

The original stone terrace flanking the house has been sympathetically extended to accommodate Above Beyond clumps of daffodils in the orchard, the pleasing, old, dry stone walls that divide sections of the garden can be seen.

TULIPA ‘WHITE TRIUMPHATOR’

HYACINTHUS ‘BLUE JACKET’

This 50cm tall tulip’s flowers have a purity that belies their strong and sturdy nature.

A very heavily scented hyacinth, with dense flower spikes of deep Prussian blue.

HYACINTHOIDES HISPANICA

ALLIUM URSINUM

Both common bluebells and the Spanish kind (above) can pop up in pink or white forms.

60 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Be warned that wild garlic is quite invasive, but if you have room to let it romp, expect carpets of spring flowers.

an outdoor dining table and chairs. Two square, boxedged parterres are stuffed with incredibly fragrant, bright-blue hyacinths ‘Delft Blue’ and ‘Blue Jacket’. “Their perfume wafts right into the house,” says Simon. These are shot through with white, lilyflowered tulip ‘Triumphator’ to complement the fragrant white flowers of Mexican orange blossom, or choisya, that are moulded to the house.

Two weathered stone planters, bought at auction, stand either side of the main entrance; a third sits in the left-hand parterre. “We are looking for a fourth,” acknowledges Simon, glancing at the mismatch.

The stone vessels contain an accidental cocktail of tulips, “by virtue of placing late bulb orders,” he confesses. “We were too late to secure enough of our preferred pink ‘Angélique’, so we substituted similar but shorter ‘Foxtrot’ and combined it with a complete newcomer to us, lily-flowered bi-colour ‘Yonina’.” It was a resounding success.

The handful of ‘Angélique’ bulbs Simon did manage to procure were planted in beds by the house, refreshing those already interred. “We only lift potted tulips; the rest stay in the ground and many successfully reappear the following year,”

Top right Old stone fonts

are planted with tiers of tulips – ‘Yonina’ and the shorter, peony-flowered variety ‘Foxtrot’.

Above An inherited ancient flowering cherry, with confetti-like white double flowers.

explains Simon. They are engulfed with an eruption of baby blue forget-me-nots, which complement the pastel pink of the tulips. In the main rose border, battalions of tall single tulips bring colour to otherwise leaf-green beds. Bold, raspberry-plum ‘Pretty Princess’, huge-headed, rose-pink Darwin hybrid ‘Mystic van Eijk’ and glowing goblets of dark pinky-orange ‘Avignon’ add jolts of colour and pick out the reddish hues of emergent rose foliage.

These more formal alterations and introductions, geometric parterres, architectural stone planters, clipped box hedging and precisely planted tulips bring gentle order to an otherwise largely relaxed and sprawling garden that has evolved over time.

There’s an ever-increasing colony of over 20 different narcissus in the orchard including swathes of pheasant’s eye daffodil, Narcissus poeticus var. recurvus and the late 19th-century introduction, golden-flowered ‘King Alfred’. “I’m pleased to have some of the older varieties, none of which we have planted – they are just part of this Cotswolds garden’s vernacular,” says Simon. Like the authentic stone framework, they are intrinsic and in keeping with the overall sentiment of this lovely garden. n APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 61

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A FAMILY AFFAIR Janssens Greenhouses and Garden Rooms, distributed in the UK by Vitavia, are made in Belgium by a family firm that has been passionate about quality design for over 70 years

Y

ou may not be familiar with Janssens Greenhouses and Garden Rooms, but this Belgian greenhouse specialist has a history dating back to 1946, when Constant Janssens set up his carpentry and construction business. His traditional wooden and laminated aches were used mainly to build sports and factory halls but before long the firm’s carpentry skills were adapted to making greenhouses.

Constant’s son, René, took over in the 1970s, replacing the traditional wood with long-lasting aluminium, and now his son, Peter Janssens, runs the business, which sells greenhouses, verandas, orangeries, conservatories and much more across the UK, Europe and the USA. “My father strengthened the business in the 1970s and switched from wood to aluminium as professional greenhouses became the main business, says Peter.

“At the same time there was a growing demand for hobby greenhouses in people’s back gardens. Developing an extensive range of hobby greenhouses became his main motivation.”

62 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Clockwise from top left Ample space

in the freestanding Eos T-Model; tailormake your greenhouse with decorative additions; the Eos Royal in white with a brick base; the Helios Victorian is ideally sized for smaller gardens yet roomy within.

In the Belgian town of Lier, southeast of Antwerp, Janssens’ 37,000m2 workshop produces 30 greenhouses and four conservatories a day, most of which are exported to other European countries, Scandinavia and America.

Their middle and high-end products mean everyone can find a greenhouse to suit their space and budget, without compromising on quality or style.

Over the years, Janssens has earned a reputation for high-quality design and innovation. Its products and special features are developed in-house, with a keen eye on gardeners’ needs. Janssens’ special aluminium profiles are among the most sturdy and solid on the greenhouse market, which means greenhouses can be bigger and higher without the need for additional supports inside. Their bases and ridges are equally well made, while all models come with gutters, condensation channels and downpipes as standard.

Strong, 4mm toughened glass, which is far less likely to break than the 3mm glass many other greenhouses are usually

Left The Eos Royal greenhouse, built onto an attractive stone base; this well-sized model measures just under 4m x 4m.

hobby greenhouses. When it comes to developments, we will always start from a certain ‘need’ or ‘demand’ for a product and we then try to provide the best possible technical solution. We are very proud of what we have developed over the years: the company itself, but also the relationship of trust we have built with our customers.”

IMAGES SHUTTERSTOCK

For more information on Janssens Greenhouses and Garden Buildings and the complete range from Vitavia Greenhouses, please visit vitavia.co.uk

supplied with, is held in place by rubber strips for a snug interior; polycarbonate glazing is offered on some models. All the fittings, nuts and bolts are stainless steel and the aluminium frame itself is covered by a 13-year warranty.

Once you have decided on a greenhouse – choose between Helios and Eos, in various sizes and styles such as traditional ‘Victorian’ with a decorative ridge or the crisp, clean finish of the ‘Urban’ model – kit it out from the vast selection of optional extras and finishes.

These include sliding or opening doors, decorative base panels, benches and shelving for growing and various window, ventilation and shading permutations.

Janssens supplies lean-to greenhouses as well as freestanding ones, along with a range of stylish orangeries.

When he finished school and began working for the family business, Peter started out in a role supporting the sales team, but soon afterwards moved over to the technical department. “For 12 years I was responsible for production, preparation, drawings and technical developments,” he explains. “I’m a technical person, so everything to do with that side of things fascinates me.

“Where Janssens distinguishes itself compared to other companies, in my opinion, is in terms of quality and trust. We try to offer ‘better’

Growing under glass Make the most of a Janssens greenhouse this spring Buy small plug plants for summer containers and baskets and use the protection of your greenhouse to grow them on, before planting up the containers under glass and letting these establish. After the risk of frost has passed, move them into the garden.

Grow half-hardy annuals under glass.

This group of plants includes some of the most beautiful cut flowers such as zinnias, cleome, nicotiana, cosmos and amaranthus. Once they’ve germinated prick them out and grow them on before planting them out into their final positions when the frosts are over.

Start off tender vegetables in pots and trays in the greenhouse, then plant out into your kitchen garden when the risk of frost has passed. Tender

vegetables include runner and French beans, sweetcorn, tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, cucumbers and squashes such as courgettes and pumpkins.

Pot up dahlia tubers so they can sprout and get growing in the warmth of the greenhouse before you plant them outside. This is often more reliable than planting tubers straight into cold soil.

Grow summer-flowering bulbs such as freesias, gladioli, begonias and gloxinia, all of which should be potted up in the warmth of a greenhouse in late spring.

Exploit the warmth inside your greenhouse and force plants into earlier bloom. Dig up a clump of lilyof-the-valley and pot it up – inside the greenhouse it will bloom more quickly, filling it with fragrance.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 63

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TOP 10 PLANTS

Green Cuisine

A

Grow delicious vegetable varieties fit for a feast, from this selection by Anne-Marie Owen, head gardener at Oxford’s Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons

WORDS VIVIENNE HAMBLY IMAGE GAP/NOVA PHOTO GRAPHIK

highlight of the grounds of Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons near Oxford is the potager where talented head gardener Anne-Marie Owen grows fine vegetables for the two-Michelin-starred restaurant. Anne-Marie has worked at Raymond Blanc’s renowned hotel for over 30 years, becoming head gardener at the age of just 24. Here she selects ten of the best vegetable

varieties she grows at the hotel for taste and good looks, with her main piece of advice being to sow little and often to avoid gluts.

Simply Raymond, a new series featuring homespun recipes inspired by Raymond Blanc’s mother, can be watched on ITV. Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Church Road, Great Milton, Oxford OX44 7PD. Tel: 01844 278 881; belmond.com

1 French bean ‘Eva’ “These are so fresh and crisp, and they have a sharp snap,” enthuses Anne-Marie. ‘Eva’ is an early climbing French bean that develops slender pods about 25cm long. Its Award of Garden Merit points to its prolific cropping and disease resistance, and it will grow as well in a greenhouse as it does outdoors.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 65

TOP 10 PLANTS

2 Onion ‘Rose de Roscoff’

3 Runner bean ‘Czar’

This heirloom variety from Brittany, once sold here by Breton ‘Onion Johnnies’, also goes by the name of ‘Keravel Pink’. Sets can be hard to find, although Pennard Plants sells seed. “They are worth hunting down because of their amazing character and flavour,” says Anne-Marie. “We use them for French onion soup.”

Runner beans offer a bounty in late summer. They also make a fine decorative element when trained up obelisks or arches with other climbing plants such as squashes, cucumbers, sweetpeas and Cobaea scandens. White-flowering ‘Czar’ is no exception: AnneMarie advises eating these when they’re young and green.

4 Kale ‘Westland Winter’

5 Potato ‘Yukon Gold’

Kale is superb in cooler months and ‘Westland Winter’ especially so – in fact, its leaves sweeten after a frost. “It’s such a reliable plant. It has a rich, bitter taste, with a hint of sweetness.” notes Anne-Marie. Enjoy it steamed or eat baby leaves raw in salads.

Sow in spring and early summer for a September-to-April harvest.

“These are a great all-rounder for us here at Le Manoir. The kitchens use them for roasting, chips and sautéing,” says AnneMarie. This second early is originally from Canada. It has slightly yellow flesh that’s on the waxy side, but it is also dry enough for baking. Try potatohouse.co.uk for seed potatoes.

66 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

IMAGES SHUTTERSTOCK; GAP/HEATHER EDWARDS/MARTIN HUGHES-JONES/FHF GREENMEDIA

6 Carrot ‘Early Nantes’ Successional sowing will keep you in carrots into autumn. Most need protection from carrot fly, and ‘Early Nantes’ is no exception, so ideally use netting or grow it in a raised container. “It’s easy to grow and nurture,” declares Anne-Marie. “It’s crunchy, sweet, and fresh.” Try Mr Fothergill’s and D.T. Brown.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 67

7 Leek ‘Jaune de Poitou’

8 Beetroot ‘Chioggia’

“This French variety develops beautiful yellow-green leaves and thick, tasty stems,” says Anne-Marie. It is ideal for harvesting in early autumn if it is sown at the beginning of the year. It isn’t as frost-hardy as other leek varieties such as ‘Musselburgh’, so it’s best not to leave it standing. The Real Seed Company can supply.

Classic beetroot such as ‘Boltardy’ have their place, but a candystripe variety is unrivalled. “The colour and markings are amazing.

‘Chioggia’ has white flesh and pink concentric rings and is used at Le Manoir for many dishes,” notes Anne-Marie. ‘Chioggia’ is as easily grown from a direct sowing as more conventional varieties.

9 Tomato ‘Coeur de Boeuf’

10 Chicory ‘Witloof’

Meaty oxheart tomatoes are evocative of warmer climes and their large fruits, up to 500g each, will benefit from a greenhouse to ripen in this country. “These are a great size and shape and have the most incredible taste – they work well stuffed,” observes AnneMarie. Try Mr Fothergill’s and D.T. Brown for grafted plants.

It takes some application to force chicory for winter leaves but the results are worthwhile. According to Anne-Marie: “It’s bitter, nutty and so versatile.” Sow ‘Witloof’ in open ground from midsummer. In autumn lift the roots and replant in a container.

Exclude all light to develop characteristic sweeter, blanched leaves.

68 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

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PLANT FOCUS Japanese cherry, Prunus ‘Matsumaeusugasanesomei’ has lilac-tinged blossom that’s outstanding in spring.

WORDS CLARE FOGGETT

Ephemeral Bliss The exquisite spring show put on by Japanese flowering cherries is fleeting, but these lovely trees work well in the garden all year round, as Matthew Hall of Batsford Arboretum explains PHOTOGRAPHS CLIVE NICHOLS APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 71

PLANT FOCUS

T

he Japanese spring-time ritual of ‘flower viewing’ or hanami is well known these days. Travel companies run special holidays for tourists to visit Japan and take part in festivals dedicated to cherry blossom – or at least they did, pre-pandemic. Incredibly, the first references to hanami can be found in Japanese scriptures dating from as long ago as 720AD. In 8th-century England, meanwhile, the old Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were at war, the Picts kept trying to invade Northumbria while Vikings pillaged the east coast. The Japanese tradition of spending spring admiring exquisite cherry blossom sounds so peaceful in comparison.

It was hundreds of years later that the British people got to share in the delight of flowering 72 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Above ‘Hokusai’ is a 6m tall Matsumae cherry with large, semi-double scented flowers from March to May.

cherries. Japan opened itself to Western outsiders in the mid-19th century and Victorian plant hunters began to discover the wealth of cherries the islands had to offer.

Cultivating cherries has a long tradition in Japan, and as well as the country’s native species there were hybrids too – the results of skilful cross-pollination and grafting.

The Japanese had even coined two ancient terms, still used today, to differentiate wild cherries from cultivated ones: Yama-zakura or ‘mountain cherries’ for the wild plants, and Sato-zakura or ‘village cherries’ for the garden selections.

A visit to Japan may not be possible this spring, but with a bit of luck, Gloucestershire’s Batsford Arboretum will be open to visitors, since it’s here that you’ll find the Plant Heritage National Collection of Prunus Sato-Sakura Group – or Japanese flowering cherries – for a little cherry worship closer to home.

At the time of writing, Batsford is open only for local exercise, but head gardener Matthew Hall is pinning his hopes on the lockdown being lifted in time for everyone to enjoy the arboretum’s spectacular spring display. “It is such a magical time of year,” he enthuses.

Batsford’s oriental inspiration can be traced back to 1886, when the estate was inherited by Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, later 1st Lord Redesdale. He spent much of the 1860s and 1870s in diplomatic service in China and Japan and became a recognised authority on the two countries’ cultures. As well as compiling an anthology of Japanese short stories called Tales of Old Japan, and advising Gilbert and Sullivan on the finer points of oriental culture for The Mikado, he modelled Batsford on the Japanese and Chinese landscapes he’d so admired. A wild garden of naturalistic planting evolved, featuring bamboos, oriental sculpture and a Japanese Rest House.

After Algernon’s death in 1916, Batsford was inherited by his son David Mitford (father of the infamous Mitford sisters), but the costs involved in the estate’s upkeep were too high, and the family was forced to sell it after World War I. Gilbert Alan Hamilton Wills, the 1st Lord Dulverton was Batsford’s next owner, but in the years following World War II the garden become neglected. It was

This image Batsford’s

oriental influence is clear; this mythical beast, a Foo Dog, rests its paws on an enamelled globe.

Below right ‘Takasago’ has abundant blossom.

Below left ‘Hisakura’ is a favourite of Matthew’s.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 73

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09:25

PLANT FOCUS only when the 2nd Lord Dulverton inherited the estate in 1956 that Batsford was put back on track.

Lord Dulverton was passionate about trees and set about restoring the garden to its former glory, adding to its collection and creating the bones of the arboretum that exists today. “The wild garden had become overgrown and Lord Dulverton started paring it back, layer by layer. Then his love of trees took over and he was planting here, there and everywhere,” says Matthew. “He was so enthused, he became known by big collectors, and his links with Kew Gardens meant he started getting more and more material, including Japanese cherries.”

In the early 1980s, the 2nd Lord Dulverton donated the arboretum to a charitable trust, The Batsford Foundation. He wanted to secure the arboretum’s future and protect and enhance both his own developments and Lord Redesdale’s original Oriental plantings and landscaping. For Matthew, who has been working at Batsford for just over 20 years, that’s meant, among other things, adding to the cherry collection. “We wanted to build on the existing collection and increase our spring emphasis,” he explains, “and obviously with a National Collection you are making sure that you’re keeping hold of unusual cultivars and propagating them. Keeping them safe, effectively.”

Matthew now shares and swaps cherries with other collections, and ensures there are replacements ready for older specimens – most live for only around 50 to 55 years, so a programme of grafting replaces any losses. “Where we have large, older trees that aren’t paying their way and are looking a bit tired, we’re thinning out a few and opening up vistas.

And then we look into what cherries are obtainable further afield to find unusual cultivars that will bring even more beauty into the arboretum, but also make it a vitally important collection.”

That said, it’s one of the better-known cherries that Matthew recommends first. “I think you have to start with ‘Tai-haku’,” he says. “On a perfect spring day when the sun is shining and the sky is clear, there isn’t a better tree,” he insists. Also known as the great white cherry, ‘Tai-haku’ is breathtaking in March and April, when it is awash with masses of single white flowers. It’s also the cherry that Collingwood ‘Cherry’ Ingram re-introduced to Japan from a garden in Kent, after it had died Top ‘Tai-haku’ is one of out in its homeland. the best known cherries, laden with white flowers.

Batsford’s collection Middle A close-up view also includes several of the delightful single Matsumae cherries, blooms of ‘Hisakura’, raised near Matsumae alongside the tree’s emerging bronze foliage.

Town, Hokkaido, which Bottom Double blossom always attract visitors’ of Prunus ‘Horinji’. attention. “‘MatsumaeFar left ‘Ezonishiki’ is usugasanesomei’ has a Matsumae cherry.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 75

PLANT FOCUS

a lilac-purple flower and is incredible,” says Matthew. “And ‘Matsumae-hanakagoto’, which is early flowering and a pale pink-white, is one of the most photographed trees in the arboretum – it really is stunning.” Double-flowered ‘Matsumaewakamushiga’, he says is “absolutely beautiful”.

‘Ukon’, meanwhile is easier both to pronounce and to grow, and its greenish-white flowers make it a superb choice for gardeners seeking a cherry with a difference. ‘Ichiyo’, with its pale pink blossom is easily obtainable and unfussy. “It grows well on our soil,” Matthew confirms. And if you’ve got space for a tree that’ll reach 6m, he suggests ‘Hisakura’: “It’s a fantastic tree, with an arching habit, bronze foliage and a really dark pink blossom. It’s one of the standout cherries of the arboretum.”

Really though, any cherry in full, glorious flower is captivating, and as we (hopefully) emerge from lockdown this spring, what better way to reacquaint ourselves with the beauty of the natural world than by admiring an extensive collection of these uplifting trees – or planting our own. n Above left Smothered

in blossom, ‘Matsumaewakamushiga’.

Above right ‘Ichiyo’ is a medium-sized tree with airy, pale pink-white, double flowers.

Batsford Arboretum, Batsford, Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire GL56 9AT. Tel: 01386 701441. Check for updated opening information at batsarb.co.uk 76 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

GROWING ADVICE

Success with cherries Matthew Hall’s tips on planting and caring for healthy Japanese flowering cherries Plant cherries any time from September through to late October, or from February to the end of March, provided the weather is not too dry.

Use mycorrhizal fungi at planting time to give the trees a healthy start. After planting I always mulch with a good, organic mulch, such as wellrotted wood chips. Keep the area around their trunks clear of grass and weeds, and stake as necessary.

Keep pruning to a minimum to avoid problems with fungal

diseases such as canker and silver leaf. Never prune in winter when it’s cold and damp. Only prune after flowering, between May and July, if there is any formative pruning to be done.

Thin out any small branches but don’t make large cuts because the pruning wounds have got to heal.

If you have a small garden, don’t choose a big tree, plant to the space you’ve got. Try some of the Prunus incisa cherries such as ‘Fujimae’ which are much smaller, or Prunus ‘Little Pink Perfection’ at 3m.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 77

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NURSERIES

Wildest Dreams When he took on Cally Gardens in Dumfriesshire, plantsman Kevin Hughes fulfilled a long-held wish to nurture a large collection of rare plants alongside an astonishingly rich array of wildlife

WORDS CLARE FOGGETT

PHOTOGRAPHS RAY COX

Long beds of stock plants divided by beech hedges fill much of Cally Gardens, their planting rich and dense, not unlike a hedgerow.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 79

NURSERIES

I

t’s not often that you chat to a nursery owner and find they talk more about the wildlife in their nursery than the plants they sell, but that’s the case with Kevin Hughes.

Kevin, who owns and runs Cally Gardens in Dumfries and Galloway, was an ecologist working in conservation before he made the side-step into horticulture, but he brought with him a deep-rooted love of nature. This is a man whose earliest memory of being taken onboard a boom defence vessel by his naval father, is not of being held up to the helm to turn the ship’s wheel, but of the basking shark he spotted in the water beside it. Perhaps it was inevitable that years later Kevin would find himself looking after a walled garden where every form of wildlife, from ants to red squirrels, is as carefully nurtured as the rare plants on sale.

Kevin came to Cally Gardens in 2018. This walled garden was once part of the Cally House estate, and its story follows the familiar trajectory of so many walled gardens of its age. Built between 1765 and 1770, it supplied the wealthy inhabitants of Cally House with exotic fruit and vegetables throughout the 19th century, thanks to its heated internal walls, vinery, pineapple pits and peach houses. After World War I the estate went into decline and ended up being sold to the Forestry Commission in the 1930s.

The walled garden became a tree nursery, while the house was sold on and turned into a hotel, but during World War II everything changed again as the hotel became a residential school for evacuees from Glasgow, and the walled garden filled with cabbages as part of the ‘dig for victory’ campaign.

Later, the garden was sold again and used to grow cut flowers and fuchsias. Then, in 1987, it was bought by Michael Wickenden, an enthusiastic plant collector who had dreamt of having his own walled garden for years, in order to develop his specialist nursery business. Cally Gardens soon became renowned for its stock of unusual plants, many collected by Michael himself on his travels around the globe. Tragically, he fell ill and died on a plant-hunting trip to Myanmar in 2016 and then the garden sat quietly until the bitterly cold day in February 2018, when Kevin braved the Beast from the East and made the trip to Scotland to view it.

What greeted Kevin inside the 15-foot-high sheltering walls was “a terrible mess. It was badly run-down, and the beautiful vinery would cost way more to restore than a garden like this could ever make,” he says. Undaunted, he took it on anyway, seeing a chance to build on Michael’s nursery and garden while transforming it into a pesticide-free haven for wildlife. “It was never about making money,” he explains. “The profit is the amount of biodiversity we get alongside the garden.”

Of course, running a nursery and garden where biodiversity is as cherished as the plants, means

80 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Right An old cedar overlooks this part of the walled garden, where peonies, nepeta and meconopsis jostle.

Below Kevin Hughes.

Bottom, from left The gardener’s cottage, where Kevin lives; an unnamed meconopsis; a variegated eryngium of Kevin’s own breeding.

that some visitors to Cally Gardens don’t find quite what they expect. “When they hear ‘walled garden’, some people expect box hedges, straight paths and manicured veg plots,” Kevin says, “but this is not a garden that’s trimmed and pruned to perfection.”

Instead, seedlings from the borders colonise the paths in a charmingly haphazard way, apples are left on the orchard’s trees for birds and, in the meadow, Kevin pulls out tufts of grass by hand to imitate grazing and encourage the formation of ant mounds. Not one drop of pesticide is used, weeds are hoed, and the planting is rich and dense – “the opposite of a monoculture”, Kevin maintains. The APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 81

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result is an equally rich amount of wildlife: he’s spotted at least 19 common lizards and three different species of breeding grasshoppers; northern argus butterflies bred in the garden last summer; so do garden warblers, blackcaps, chiffchaffs and willow warblers. “Everybody who comes here – those who can see past the fact we have some weeds – can see that the sheer number of birds is extraordinary,” he enthuses.

“You might say what we’re doing is ‘Edenistic’ gardening, man alongside nature, not in competition with it,” he notes. A huge advantage of a garden so alive with wildlife is that Kevin’s plants are rarely badly damaged by pests.

“I don’t mind if there are a few holes,” he adds.

New meadow areas are now buzzing with insects.

The walled garden’s soil had been enriched over the centuries, and recognising that there was no

Top left As part of the

laissez-faire approach, border escapees colonise gravel paths.

Top right The old, listed vinery that Kevin hopes to restore with funding.

Above Aconitum napellus ‘Blue Valley’ in the perennial meadow.

point in trying to reduce its nutrient levels so a native meadow would thrive, Kevin instead chose to emulate the montane meadows of North America or the Alps, where big herbaceous plants grow among grasses. Polemonium caeruleum is almost weedlike in Cally Gardens’ beds. “I thought, ‘hang on, this is a grassland plant, that’s why it’s so competitive’,” says Kevin. “Now they come up in the grass and look way better than they do in the borders.” Thalictrum flavum subsp. glaucum, which needs staking to stop it falling over in the borders, stands beautifully among the grasses, as does Salvia forsskaolii. “This salvia flowered all summer long and many, many generations of insect species utilised it for pollen. It was extraordinary to see the number of insects,” he enthuses.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 83

NURSERIES

It’s clear, as Kevin talks about the meadow, that plants are just as much of a passion as wildlife. He previously worked at Spinners, Peter Chappell’s renowned woodland garden in Hampshire, where his love of trilliums burgeoned. He also ran his own nursery, Kevin Hughes Plants, in Wiltshire, before making the move to Scotland. “Cally has such a wonderful array of plants. It’s Michael’s legacy really, this huge herbaceous plant collection.

People see plants that Michael or I have put into the garden, that they’ve never seen before. Not micropropagated, but plants grown for their value rather than their worth.” Choice perennials are order of the day – beautiful meconopsis, shade-loving veratrum, and slipper orchids, to name a few – plus woody plants such as Hydrangea paniculata and magnolias.

Covid-19 has had a huge impact over the past 12 months, while Brexit has also cost Kevin around a third of his plant sales, to customers in Europe and Northern Ireland. “People used to drive up here or come on the ferry from Ireland to buy plants,” he explains, but because of new phytosanitary certification requirements, “people can’t just come, shop, fill up their car and go.” The vinery still needs restoration, for which Kevin is seeking funding.

“Getting grant aid as a private owner is hard, even though it’s listed,” he explains.

84 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Above Meconopsis, dactylorhiza orchids and saxifraga grow below a ‘Kiftsgate’ rose that’s clambered into a holly.

Right Slipper orchids, (cypripedium) are one of the special plants Cally Gardens is known for.

You sense, as Kevin speaks of bullfinches feeding on a buddleja’s seedheads or the merits of a variegated eryngium, that his passion for this garden and all of its inhabitants, alongside his unflappable attitude, will help him navigate these trials: “Striving for perfection is fine, but let’s be relaxed when we don’t achieve it,” he maintains.

“That’s the great thing about gardening for wildlife.

You can have beautiful flowers, but they don’t have to be pristine, they can be covered in insects.

When you see a gang of soldier beetles mating on a carrot from Greece next to an agapanthus from South Africa, the cares of the world fall from your shoulders. Any flower that doesn’t have an insect on it is utterly boring to be honest with you.” n Cally Gardens, Gatehouse of Fleet, Castle Douglas DG7 2DJ. Check the website and local guidelines for up-to-date visiting information. Tel: 01557 815228; callygardens.co.uk

PROMOTION

‘SEA-CYCLING’ IN GUERNSEY Phil Collenette is repurposing pure Guernsey crab shell into a natural, chemical-free fertiliser

O

nce the hub of a vibrant tomato industry, a large, old greenhouse in the heart of Guernsey is now home to a quiet gardening revolution, gently drying row upon row of dusky pink crab shells in the warm Guernsey sun. It’s what Phil Collenette, founder of Sea The Change calls the ‘slow stage’, days of natural dehydration before the shell, a locally sourced waste product, is crushed and transformed into a natural crab shell fertiliser. In fact, fertiliser is something of a misnomer. As well as the slow release of calcium, non-soluble nitrogen and other valuable minerals that promote healthy plant growth, crab shell does more than just fertilise. It also has unique properties that boost the natural immune systems in plants, preparing them to fend off future disease from pathogen attack.

An arboriculture consultant with an interest in plant physiology and infection, Phil Collenette began his journey to bring crab shell to market inspired by research into the properties of Chitin, a natural compound found only in the exoskeletons of insects and crustaceans.

A natural alternative Explains Phil: “My mum is a keen gardener. As a boy, growing up in Guernsey, I remember the many crab shells that decorated her compost heap.

What she seemed to know intuitively is now backed by compelling science.

It explains exactly how Chitin in crab

shell provides a powerful and natural alternative to chemicals and pesticides.”

Once in the soil, the crushed shell attracts beneficial microorganisms which feed on it. They produce an enzyme which breaks down the shell particles, an enzyme that also breaks down the exoskeletons and eggs of harmful nematodes, things like the root-knot nematode that would otherwise attack healthy plants. And that’s only part of the story. The same Chitin compound is also found in the walls of infectious fungi and pathogens. When plants detect Chitin in the soil, its presence triggers inbuilt defence mechanisms, a natural way to boost resistance to blight, wilt and other diseases.

For Phil, Guernsey Crab Shell Fertiliser means even more than promoting healthy plant growth, which he is passionate about. It is also a connection with the local fishing industry, and the fishermen who, for generations, have provided shellfish lovers in Guernsey and beyond with fresh, pot-caught

Clockwise from top left Guernsey fishing

boats; Phil Collenette washes crab shells in sea water; the shells are dehydrated in the sun before crushing; the morning catch.

crab. Adds Phil, “The waters around Guernsey are rich in shellfish, especially Chancre and Spider crab. Our role is one of ‘sea-cycler’, repurposing waste resources sustainably, and supporting the Guernsey fishing community, as well as producing a product that is naturally good for plants. By focussing on this one small thing, I hope we can make a real difference.”

Visit seathechange.co.uk to find out more or order product. Follow Phil on Instagram using @seathechangeltd APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 85

WISTERIA

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A welcome twist to the quintessential garden favourite. Boasting highly fragrant purple and lilac pea-like panicles during late spring and early summer. When grown in a pot the habit stays compact, perfect for your patio where you can sit and take in the full glory.

Unlike other Wisteria, which can take five years, the blooms will be produced after the first year. Prefers well-drained soil in sun or part-shade. Eventual height if planted in the ground 5m. Spread 3.6m.

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WISTERIA Wisteria brachybotrys, a species from Japan, is renowned for its vigour, easily climbing up to 12m and reaching 8m across.

Purple Prose Capturing everyone’s attention in April, wisteria is the glamorous climber we all covet. Jacky Hobbs guides would-be growers through variety selection and plant care PHOTOGRAPHS JACKY HOBBS & MICHELLE GARRETT APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 87

WISTERIA

W

isterias have universal appeal, embellishing elegant town houses and thatched country cottages with equal aplomb. Bursting into bloom before the lime-green, pinnate foliage emerges, smothering and covering facades with a wash of dangling, fragrant, lilac tresses, its springtime floral display is unparalleled. At up to ten metres tall and five metres across, a single plant can engulf an entire property and deservedly capture the limelight.

88 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Above Wisteria is one of only a few climbers able to match the proportions of a substantial portico, colonnade or pergola, and enhance it. This one is Wisteria sinensis.

Instagrammers clamour to share sensational, flower-infused images – #wisteriahysteria – and London even has seasonal wisteria walks.

Chris O’Keefe, professional wisteria pruner and founder of the London Wisteria Company, explains the power of wisterias in bloom: “They stop you in your tracks and put a smile on your face.

Wisteria transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, highlighting beauty or concealing eyesores,” he says. These coveted climbers have become almost a status symbol in the city; quintessentially English in the country. “A London property with virtually no garden can put on an astonishing flower show, its entire facade smothered in masses of elegant blooms for weeks on end,” adds Chris. Wisteria’s perfume drifts freely through open doors and windows and attracts throngs of pollinators.

Wisterias are hardy and longlived. Britain’s first wisteria, Wisteria sinensis, arrived from China in 1816 and still thrives in Kew’s Royal Botanic Gardens – so plant your wisteria wisely. Chinese Wisteria sinensis and Japanese native W. floribunda are the two most popular species. They flower in mid- to late-April, May or June, are lilac in colour and heavily perfumed. Generally, Chinese wisteria, W. sinensis, climbs in a clockwise direction and bears plump, shortish 25-30cm, lilac flower panicles that bloom just before the foliage emerges.

The most widespread, infallible, Chinese wisteria in cultivation is the very vigorous and floriferous W. sinensis ‘Prolific’, holder of an Award of Garden Merit (AGM).

“It’s one of the very best for flowers,” remarks Chris.

It blooms early in its life and at the beginning of the season, from mid- to late-April. Its vibrant, redflushed violet-blue cousin, W. sinensis ‘Amethyst’ (AGM), is equally reliable. Both are heavily scented and excellent for clothing the facade of a house, sending up trees, shrouding pergolas or running along walls and fences.

Japanese wisteria, W. floribunda, spiral in the opposite direction, anti-clockwise, and produce their cascades of long, elegant, pendulous floral

Top left The showy white flowers of W. floribunda f. alba ‘Shiro-noda’.

Top right Wisteria sinensis, neatly trained to beautify a wall.

Far left Close inspection of wisteria’s flowers reveals its pea family characteristics.

Left Professional pruner Chris O’Keefe, founder of the London Wisteria Company.

Bottom Wisteria floribunda ‘Multijuga’.

racemes, some a metre long, at the same time as their foliage appears.

These are best enjoyed cascading from arbours, tunnels, archways and pergolas. Japan’s annual Wisteria Festival, Fuji Matsuri, showcases tunnels dripping with a pastel rainbow of perfumed racemes in every shade of lavender, pink and white.

Wisteria floribunda f. rosea ‘Hon-beni’ (AGM) is the rosiest of all pinks, bearing 50-60cm long tresses with unrivalled perfume. ‘Hon-beni’ can be trained as a standard and is renowned for flowering early in its life, but later in the season, from mid-May. W. floribunda f. alba ‘Shiro-noda’ produces showy, 60cm-long, white blooms, while double-flowered W. floribunda ‘Yae-kokuryu’ (often offered for sale APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 89

WISTERIA

SUMMER PRUNING After flowering, in July or August, shorten the current year’s growth – all those long, unruly and unnecessary shoots – to five-to-six leaves, or to around 15cm. This encourages flower-bud production over leaves and exposes the stubbier, woody side arms to full sun to encourage more blooms next year.

BEFORE

Top left Wisteria sinensis

AFTER

90 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

‘Consequa’ is a robust grower with violet-blue flowers and is a superb choice for walls.

Top right Wisteria ‘Shiro-kapitan’, with its 10-20cm long flowers.

Above Wisteria floribunda f. rosea ‘Honbeni’ is the variety to go for if you’re seeking pink flower racemes.

as Wisteria ‘Black Dragon’) has darker, indigo-black blooms. The most vigorous and enchanting of all floribundas is award-winning, long-flowering Wisteria floribunda f. multijuga (AGM), which has exceptional, metre-long, densely clustered, lilac and purple blooms.

An earlier-flowering Japanese species, silky wisteria or W. brachybotrys, is noteworthy for its immense vigour. Its climbing ability exceeds that of all other wisterias: it can scramble beyond 12 metres and spread at least eight. The versatile white cultivar W. brachybotrys f. albiflora ‘Shiro-kapitan’ (AGM), can scale great heights, but also makes a good container plant for the small garden. Chris recommends it for its fantastic fragrance. Purple species Wisteria brachybotrys and outstanding cultivar ‘Okayama’ are very similar and favoured by Chris for vibrancy and unparalleled vigour. AGM holder ‘Okayama’ bears masses of fragrant but much shorter blooms that are 15cm long, amid dark bronze foliage.

Wisteria are versatile, hardy, relatively quickgrowing and prolific if you follow a few essential rules. “Buy a five- to seven-year-old grafted plant, since younger plants rarely flower, and plant when dormant (October-March) in a sunny, sheltered south- or south-west-facing position,” Chris advises.

“The foot of a wall is ideal as it will protect flower buds against late frosts. Plant in rich, moist but free-draining soil, leaving plenty of room for root growth. Poor drainage can inhibit flowers,” he adds.

WISTERIA PRUNING Step by step Wisteria are pruned twice: first in winter (shown here) followed by a summer prune (opposite page). Do this every year and spectacular floral displays will follow

Before Winter pruning is done in January to February, before the flower buds emerge. The idea is to prune hard back to encourage flowering spurs, remove dead wood and weak branches. You’ll need sharp, clean loppers or secateurs and a steady ladder.

Step 1 Tidy up and maintain the wisteria’s framework. Remove congested stems, dead wood, old foliage and long whips to focus the plant’s energy on producing flowering spurs, not vegetative growth. Leave any stems required to extend the framework.

Step 2 Tidy up flower spurs, removing dead twigs and foliage

Step 3 Remove congested stems, leaving upright flowering spurs at regular intervals of around 30-40cm.

Step 4 Shorten the remaining flower spurs back to two or three

Step 5 Loosely tie in any whippy shoots or stems with wire or twine, to extend your framework upwards or outwards. Then remove all debris (Chris uses a leaf blower). The end result should be a framework of well-spaced branches with stumpy spurs.

stems to create a clear, open habit for flower production.

buds by making a sharp upward cut above, but not close enough to damage the selected remaining buds. This tidies the vine and allows sunlight to reach the flower buds.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 91

WISTERIA

Gardens to Visit Be inspired by a magnificent, mature wisteria in full bloom Waterperry Gardens Oxfordshire Expect exemplary pruning and training at Waterperry, where the pergola in the Formal Garden drips with long racemes of Wisteria floribunda. waterperrygardens.co.uk

Sissinghurst Kent

Wrest Park Bedfordshire Superbly trained to cover the length of an entire wall in the Italian Garden, this venerable wisteria is just one reason to visit elegant Wrest Park. english-heritage.org.uk

Top Double-flowered Wisteria ‘Yae-kokuryu’ or ‘Black Dragon’.

Above ‘Shiro-noda’ bears showers of long white flowers and, because it is less vigorous, is a good choice for fences or trellis in smaller gardens.

Wisteria also needs to be given a robust climbing frame: a sturdy wooden or metal arbour, pergola or stout trellis on which to train the vine. Horizontal wires fastened to strong, metal, wall-fixed vine eyes will provide optimum support for wall-trained wisteria. Loosely tie in lead shoots, leaving ample room for growth of girth. Fertilise the soil annually in March with a potash- and magnesium-rich rose feed to help promote abundant blooms, but “bi-annual pruning is key to keeping your wisteria under control and maximising its flowering potential,” Chris confirms. n Contact Chris O’Keefe at The London Wisteria Company. Tel: 07967 357 907; londonwisteria.co.uk

92 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

IMAGES GAP/TIM GAINEY; NATIONAL TRUST/ANDREW BUTLER; ALAMY

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Based at the Chelsea Physic Garden January – March 2016and led by Rosemary Alexander and architect Catriona Rowbotham, the course is an overview Gardenneed Design, covering all the in elements to rethink an average garden.

Taking students step Covers allofyou to know thisneeded diverse subject, including by step real throughdesign site surveying, using the grid, horizontal and tuition. vertical features, layouts and planting costing TWO projects and CAD (3garden days a week in plans, school, and specification, plus drawing and homework on design and plant portfolios. Tutors are well respected in the 10am-3.15pm, plustuition 2 days homework) industry and will guide students on how to succeed in this diverse profession.

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A light lunch and refreshments will be provided plans, hard landscaping, sitedaily. analysis, planting etc. Taught through a comprehensive course book, with projects submitted by post.

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GARDEN CLASSICS

Gold Standard With its boughs laden with brilliant yellow blooms, forsythia earns its place as a spring garden stalwart

WORDS CLARE FOGGETT IMAGES SHUTTERSTOCK; GAP/FRIEDRICH STRAUSS/NOVA PHOTO GRAPHIK

S

ubtle is not an epithet anyone ever applied to forsythia, the well-known shrub that turns the colour of a Colman’s Mustard tin each April. For many gardeners, it is a step too far. But no one can deny its cheerfulness, and if you enjoy cutting garden flowers, its branches bring a ray of spring sunshine into your home, often at Easter.

Forsythia belongs to the olive family, Oleaceae, its species mainly found in east Asia. Botanist Carl Peter Thunberg spotted Forsythia suspensa in a Japanese garden in the late 18th century. By 1833 F. suspensa had made its way to Holland, and by the middle of the century Veitch Nurseries were selling it in England. At around the same time, Scottish plant hunter Robert Fortune discovered F. viridissima in China. He sent it back to the Horticultural Society (the society only became ‘Royal’ in 1861), in whose garden it flowered in 1847. Nurserymen crossed the two species and it was this breeding that gave us Forsythia x intermedia and its hybrids, which make up most of the forsythia on offer today.

The shrub was named after William Forsyth, an Aberdeenshire man who trained at the Chelsea Physic Garden and was superintendent of the royal gardens at Kensington and St James’s Palace from 1784 until his death in 1804. He was one of the Royal Horticultural Society’s founder members, and great-grandfather of landscape gardener Joseph Forsyth Johnson who was, in turn, greatgrandfather to the entertainer Bruce Forsyth.

HOW TO GROW Forsythia is an easy shrub to grow in sun or light shade, doing best on rich soil since it’s a hungry plant.

After the flowers have faded, its mid-green leaves look rather plain, so plan to grow something else nearby to supply interest from early summer onwards.

Forsythia always look best left to grow naturally, without pruning. In Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles, the oracle W.J. Bean suggests siting them: “where they can grow freely yet are not so remote from the comings and goings of daily life that the birds can destroy their flower-buds undisturbed.”

Other than avian interference, expect few problems.

The shrub featured in the 2011 film Contagion

by Steven Soderbergh, which was prescient of the Covid-19 pandemic. Jude Law played a conspiracy theorist who claimed a forsythia-based remedy could cure the film’s deadly virus. Does Steven Soderbergh have a penchant for yellow spring shrubs, perhaps? ■

Forsythia: Three fine garden-worthy cultivars – and a non-yellow alternative

‘Lynwood Variety’, widely

available, reliable classic.

‘Minigold’, perfect for pots

reaching just 1m tall.

‘Marée d’Or’ has a low habit

useful for groundcover.

Abeliophyllum distichum, a relative with white flowers.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 95

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GARDEN BUILDINGS Garden buildings offer valuable extra living space and you can select a building to fit specific needs. This conservatory is by Vale Garden Houses.

WORDS VIVIENNE HAMBLY

The Great Indoors Chosen wisely, a garden room, conservatory, greenhouse or even a humble shed can dramatically increase usable space for living and working at home, often bringing a cheerful outdoor mood to a place of comfortable shelter APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 97

GARDEN BUILDINGS Left Some larger

greenhouses can double as grand entertainment spaces.

Alitex greenhouses start from £12,950.

Below An aluminiumframe greenhouse

by Hartley Botanic.

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pending more time at home over the past year may have highlighted the need for extra space. Investing in a garden building, whether for growing plants, working from home, relaxing or simply creating more room is a more simple and costeffective solution than a formal house extension.

Moreover, a good-quality greenhouse, summerhouse or shed can still present a desirable proposition for prospective house buyers at some future point.

By the time summer comes around and thoughts of outdoor growing or entertaining surface, the moment for putting up garden buildings will have passed. Given waiting lists and build times, the earlier in the year you place your order, the better.

SPACE TO GROW If you entertain dreams of an exotic plant collection, a harvest of tomatoes fit for the Spanish festival La Tomatina, or neat rows of seedlings waiting to be planted out when the weather warms up, a greenhouse could be a game changer. A warm windowsill will take you only so far, after all.

There are as many types of greenhouses as there are tomato varieties and they range from cheaper PVC structures found in the middle aisle of supermarkets to period-style constructions that can double as entertaining spaces. You’ll find everything in between, but greenhouse fundamentals are the same whatever the scale: buy the largest you can afford, position it well and keep it properly ventilated.

After assessing your need and budget, think hard about where to locate your structure. Be aware of the microclimate of your garden, particularly if you are in a frost pocket. A greenhouse will ideally sit east-west on a south-facing spot so as to make the most of the available light and heat. A sheltered location out of prevailing winds is desirable, and it makes good sense to keep the structure away from deciduous or sap-oozing trees.

Most greenhouses are built using horticultural glass or toughened glass. Horticultural glass is a traditional choice, and while it does let in all possible light it also breaks easily because it is so thin. Overlapping panes will also need regular cleaning. On the other hand, toughened glass, which lets in slightly less light, is more robust, typically withstanding assault by football but not cricket ball.

Construction materials vary too, but the two most common are wood and aluminium. Wood has long been a favourite option for its aesthetics, but it comes with a maintenance warning: constantly exposed to the elements, wood needs regular care. Gabriel Ash (01242 662926; gabrielash.com) and Woodpecker Joinery (01889 562610; woodpecker-joinery.co.uk) are two specialists who source sustainable hardwood timbers that are high in naturally occurring oils.

An aluminium capping can also help preserve 98 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

IMAGES NATIONAL TRUST/JAMES DOBSON. WWW.NATIONALTRUST.ORG.UK

roof timbers. Aluminium greenhouses from the likes of Dovetail Greenhouses (0121 6731509; dovetailgreenhouses.co.uk), Hartley Botanic (01457 819155; hartley-botanic.co.uk) and Alitex (01730 826900; alitex.co.uk) will need less maintenance over time. They’re also more lightweight and can often be powder-coated in a colour of your choosing.

All greenhouses need to be secured to a good base. Top-of-the-range models from suppliers such as White Cottage Greenhouses (01270 753826; whitecottage.co.uk) will be built on a dwarf wall that you can finish to match your house. The wall stabilises what is a quite a large structure and allows for the addition of external coldframes. A dwarf wall isn’t essential however, although a good level base is. Some structures, such as those from Pure Greenhouses (0333 2005833; puregreenhouse.co.uk) and Vitavia (01473 218100; vitavia.co.uk), reach to the ground and are set on a concrete base, offering a direct growing space ideal for vines, tomatoes

Top left The Victorian Lean-to with a dwarf wall for coldframes, by White Cottage Greenhouses.

Top right Manual vents in the greenhouse at Llanerchaeron, a National Trust property.

Above left Cedar is commonly used for wooden greenhouses.

Wisley Greenhouse with dwarf wall, Gabriel Ash. Above right A thermostatically controlled heater will help keep greenhouses frost-free. Alitex Edwards heater, £420.

and melons. Smaller greenhouses, especially minigreenhouses, need a weight at the base to hold them down. Bags of compost will do this job well.

It is essential to moderate temperature in a greenhouse. Ventilation is key and prevents disease build up. Sophisticated models will have automatic, wax-based, sensor-controlled vents that open and shut with the weather. Others will be manually operated. In summer, shade cloth or greenhouse paint can keep out the worst of the sun. In winter, warm-water pipes inserted in the base of the greenhouse will raise temperatures, but you can also use a dedicated greenhouse heater.

Finally, allow room for greenhouse staging on which you will place your immaculate trays of cuttings and seedlings. Most of the larger firms will supply pieces designed to suit the specification and style of their buildings. For many other essential greenhouse accessories, including crucial watering arrangements, try Greenhouse People (01782 385400; greenhousepeople.co.uk).

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 99

GARDEN BUILDINGS

SPACE TO WORK When there isn’t sufficient room for storage or even enough places to work in the house, a good shed can be a lifesaver. He-sheds and she-sheds are voguish terms for the spruced-up spaces once only associated with garden tools. As home-working has become more prevalent, a proper outdoor room has become more than a space to clean bicycles or have a quiet cup of tea. Insulated, heated, electrified, connected to Wi-Fi and removed from the wider household, they can rival any indoor space in terms of comfort.

Before erecting a structure, check local planning regulations. If a shed is large in relation to the garden and the footprint of the house, tall in relation to the fence, or close to neighbours, it could require planning permission, especially if the property is listed or you live within a conservation area. A good supplier should be able to advise on this and help you navigate through the process.

Buildings that will do more than house garden equipment will need to have good lighting. Basic but capacious sheds, starting at around £500, will have a strip of polycarbonate for windows, but for working spaces good security is essential. You’ll need secure doors, possibly bi-fold to let in additional light and a summer breeze, and proper windows with latches.

You could even install an alarm to be extra safe.

If the shed is set close to the house, electric cables can be run directly from the mains. Or you could investigate using solar power. The Posh Shed Solar 100 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Top Heating, lighting

and insulation feature in the elegant Expression Garden Room by Green Retreats. From £18,245.

Above Smart overlap cladding is used on the Bloomsbury, by Malvern Garden Buildings.

Hub with Light, from £209, works by collecting daylight and sunlight through a solar panel mounted on the shed’s roof. The kit comes with a 5w solar panel, 12vLED strip light and main HUBi unit (01544 387101; theposhshedcompany.co.uk). For sheds already fitted with these features, expect to pay £3,000 to £15,000, depending on size and spec.

Simple sheds can be modular and assembled in less than a week without the need for a concrete pour on the base. Vinyl bases are less permanent and still

IMAGES GAP/CAROLE DRAKE

need groundwork often not provided by the shed supplier. Designs may be modern, such as those from Green Retreats (01296 325777; greenretreats.co.uk) or Forest (0333 3213142; forestgarden.co.uk), or traditional – try The Posh Shed Company and The Cosy Shed Co. (01623 861364; thecosyshedco.co.uk) For shepherds huts, look at Plankbridge (01300 348414; plankbridge.com).

A roof will influence the look of the building – choose from modern with a pent green roof and clean lines, or steeply apex and classically English with slate tiles or cedar shingles. Malvern Garden Buildings (01932 783999; malverngardenbuildings. co.uk) offers the Bloomsbury Garden Retreat, modelled on a shed used by Virginia Woolf.

It features barn-style cladding, four pairs of opening windows and insulation to walls and ceiling. Crane Garden Buildings (01760 444 229;

Top left Bespoke lean-to

half-shed. The Posh Shed Company, £6,120.

Top right Plankbridge shepherds huts start from £23,400.

Above left A pent pitch roof is common on contemporary designs.

Above right Scotts of Thrapston specialises in summerhouses, but they can double as offices.

cranegardenbuildings.co.uk) has developed a portfolio of sheds and summerhouses in partnership with the National Trust, ranging from the Blickling, with its exterior log store, to the Ickworth, with dual-aspect windows. And Crane’s Classic Garden Office is designed with home working in mind.

Spring is a good time to give more functional sheds a lick of paint. Treat exterior wood with Ronseal, Cuprinol or Sadolin, wash down windows, and have a good clear out. You can boost storage by adding hooks for hanging tools. A cedar potting tray from Alton Greenhouses (01782 385409; altongreenhouses.co.uk) or the Rowlinson Premier Potting Station from Marshalls (01480 774555; marshallsgarden.com) could be just what is needed, while Selina Lake’s book, Shed Style (£19.99, Ryland, Peters & Small), illustrates just how beautiful these valuable spaces can be.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 101

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GARDEN BUILDINGS

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SPACE TO ENTERTAIN An English summer is cherished largely because it can be so fleeting and comes with the imperative to make the most of every clement day. For this, summerhouses and their glamorous cousins, orangeries and conservatories, are a boon. These cherished spaces have been on our wish lists for centuries, with many grand houses including a classically themed summerhouse folly within sight of the main house. For gardeners, the timeless summerhouses at Hidcote are the benchmark for what can be achieved of a building like this.

Mull over materials that would suit your garden and what your budget will allow. Basic tongue-andgroove kits are relatively inexpensive and can be set up in a few days – Scotts of Thrapston (01832 732366; scottsofthrapston.co.uk) offers a range of sizes and designs. But if you’d like something with a classical bent or even a loggia, contact a builder.

Haddonstone (01604 770711; haddonstone.com) and Redwood Stone (01749 677777; redwoodstone. com) offer products with a classical mood but why not make a small holiday out of visiting historic properties for inspiration? Think about scale and design and the effect each will have on your garden.

Orangeries and conservatories are in a league of their own and can add significantly to the footprint of the house. These structures were traditionally

Top The 4x4m Sun Ray Garden Room with a cedar shingle roof, Scotts of Thrapston.

Above The Grade II listed summerhouse at Newark Park, a National Trust property in Gloucestershire.

separated from the main house by a door, but the contemporary taste is for a large, open-plan space incorporating a kitchen, dining table and even a sofa and entertainment area. With direct access to the garden, usually with large windows and glass doors, they offer a seamless transition between indoors and out. Specialists include Vale Garden Houses (01476 564433; valegardenhouses.co.uk), APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 103

David Salisbury (01278 804123; davidsalisbury. com) and Westbury Garden Rooms (01245 326500; westburygardenrooms.com). Each of these will offer a range of designs intended to blend with the architectural period of the house, so look out for Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian themes in particular. One of the simplest ways to add a conservatory without upheaval is to use the side return. These are modest in scale but can add a critical extra couple of metres to a house.

Timber-framed garden buildings such as those from Oakwrights (01432 353353; oakwrights.co.uk) offer a distinct mood. These are bespoke structures with wide-ranging applications: garages, stables and barns in addition to regular sun-rooms and 104 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Top left An Oakwrights

garden room extension on a period building.

Top right Sensitive planting integrates building with garden.

Above left A good conservatory, like this one from Vale Garden Houses, will be sympathetic to the period of your home.

Above right David Salisbury specialises in timber and glass orangeries and conservatories.

conservatories. These sunlit rooms are wonderful for lovers of exotic, tropical plants and offer a great opportunity for growing vines, melons, palms and the like. Decorate them accordingly, with a nod to the colours of the garden beyond the doors and the rest of the house behind it.

Build times are reduced when a structure is separate from the main house, or attached simply by a door, and much increased when any structural element is fully integrated with the house. Extending the house by adding a larger structure can also increase your property’s value, so while the initial outlay and commitment are greater, it may bring a significant return over the years both in terms of space and financially when you come to sell. n

IMAGES GAP/JULIETTE WADE

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EASTER CRAFTS

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Spring is here, and Easter is beckoning, a lovely time to indulge in garden-inspired crafts and projects.

Spring into Action A new season begins and the Easter bank holiday weekend beckons, so there’s no better time to pick up a new hobby or settle down to an enjoyable creative project

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 107

EASTER CRAFTS

Bake a cake A delicious and beautiful cake for those who’ve worked hard in their garden and deserve a treat. It’s also free from refined sugar if you use maple syrup and coconut sugar. Our preference is to use honey in the icing. Fresh blueberries also make a lovely decoration if you don’t have flowers to hand.

108 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Ingredients 120g finely grated, peeled, trimmed parsnip 120g finely grated, peeled, trimmed carrot 120g peeled, cored and grated eating apple 50g pecans or walnuts, chopped 150ml mild oil such as rapeseed, sunflower or vegetable 100g coconut sugar or soft brown sugar 100ml maple syrup 4 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 tablespoons orange juice 250g wholegrain stoneground spelt flour 4 level teaspoons baking powder For the icing 175g slightly softened butter 225g full fat cream cheese 3–5 tablespoons mildly flavoured runny honey or maple syrup

To decorate

Herbs and edible flowers such as viola, primrose, borage, nigella, mint, rosemary, nasturtiums, or fresh blueberries.

Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C/150°C fan/gas mark 3.

Grate the vegetables and apple and mix together, with the nuts, in a bowl. Put the oil, sugar, maple syrup, eggs, vanilla and orange juice into a mixing bowl and whisk well for a minute or so. Fold in the grated vegetables, apple and nuts. Sieve over the flour (return the grainy bits to the bowl once sieved), two pinches of salt and the baking powder. Fold in until just combined. Spoon into a greased and lined, deep, loose-bottomed 20cm cake tin. Bake for one hour or until cooked through. Remove from the oven and cool. Whisk the butter and cream cheese until smooth then add honey or maple syrup to taste. Slice the cake horizontally then sandwich the layers with a heaped tablespoon of icing. Smooth the remaining icing over the top and sides. Chill for ten minutes, then decorate.

Adapted from: The Little Grower’s Cookbook by Ghillie James & Julia Parker.

Photography by Ali Allen.

Lettuce Publishing, £20.

Lay a table No matter what the size of the party or whether you’re eating inside or out, every meal is improved by a properly laid table.

Use your best linen for a change and the china that’s usually reserved for special occasions. Or, if your regular napkins and tablecloths are somewhat worse for wear, replace them. You’ll find that eBay is an excellent source of vintage embroidered Madeira linen, but consider too, Club Matters (right), Cologne & Cotton, OKA, Summerill & Bishop and, for block prints, The Cloth House and Molly Mahon. East London Cloth offers a small, quality selection of linen tablecloths with pleated edgings and cushions to match, as well as bespoke items. Bring the garden to the table, with boughs of blossom in a vase or a sprig or two or rosemary placed on a napkin. Try bright, multicoloured vases, candlesticks and candles from Ibbi Home.

Make an arrangement To ring the changes and set a seasonal mood, make a table arrangement of spring flowers. Supermarkets are an excellent source of inexpensive prepared bulbs, particularly hyacinths and narcissus, while you should try garden centres for cheering primroses. Remove flowers from their plastic tubs and plant them directly in an attractive container. Anything will do: try a pretty china tureen or a crystal salad bowl for good effect, or use terracotta pots or an enamel bucket for a wholesome, rustic look. Keep colours similar for the best overall effect, especially on hyacinths. You won’t need extra soil for this, but covering the surface with moss lifted from the lawn will make a neat finish. Cotswold florist Willow Crossley specialises in intensely seasonal, looser, wild arrangements and offers online tutorials.

IMAGES GAP/VISIONS

Try out needlework Craft shops have reported a surge in sales of needlework supplies and it’s easy to see why. This relaxing pastime is both completely absorbing and immensely satisfying, as many will say they have always known. Fine, embroidered clothes featured heavily in the recent Netflix series Bridgerton, and there are even tutorials on TikTok. Jo Butcher (above) sells embroidery kits online and also offers classes. Her work has a buoyant botanical mood. Look too, to Jo Saunders, whose bold, bright designs have been lauded by the likes of Jigsaw and Barbour. Try also The Crewelwork Company, Ornamental Embroidery and Sarah Dennis Embroidery.

If the mood takes you, consider a class with the Royal School of Needlework, which was founded in 1872.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 109

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EASTER CRAFTS

Dye botanical eggs Decorating eggs at Easter is a popular tradition: they are fun to make and an attractive addition to a seasonal display. Prepare them by making a small hole at each end of the egg with a needle and then blowing out the contents before decorating. Once treated this way, the eggshells will last well if wrapped in tissue paper and stored carefully in egg boxes. It’s also fun to colour eggs with vegetable dyes. Place a square of muslin on a flat surface. Lay a pretty leaf in the centre, then put an egg on top. Gather the fabric around the egg and secure well.

Boil the wrapped eggs with plenty of onion skins for a brown colour or red cabbage for blue, for around 15 minutes. Remove the eggs and while they are still hot, peel off the leaves – they can stick if left to dry on the eggs. Store the eggs in the fridge if you’re planning to eat them, otherwise use them for a few days’ display only.

Make a tied bunch

IMAGES GAP/MAXINE ADCOCK; ALAMY

It is a joy to receive and to give flowers, especially when they have come from the garden. Knowing a few florist’s techniques can prove immensely useful. In Vintage Flowers (Kyle Books) Vic Brotherson of Scarlet & Violet offers a wealth of inspiration on arrangements and unusual containers to use as vases. To make a tied bunch as you would receive from a florist, lay out partially opened flowers in rounded shapes as well as lighter flowers and foliage for ‘fillers’. Pick a main flower and hold it in your flat left hand. Using your right hand, add more flowers and foliage, holding the stems in your left hand secure with your thumb and forefinger. The other fingers “grip and release as more flowers are added,” Vic explains. Turn the bunch with your right hand and as you progress you should develop the classic florists’ twist of stems. Lower the height of the stems as you go for a rounded form.

Attend a lecture

Keep a nature diary

It’s a long time since a crowd has filled an auditorium, but now we have the online lecture. Where once we were constrained by geography, it’s now possible to listen to talks by experts in their field from around the world, without so much as removing your slippers. Philippa Burroughs presents for the National Garden Scheme a talk on tulips at Ulting Wick, her Essex garden, on 30 March at 7pm. See ngs.org.uk for details. Other sources are Gresham College, The Kew Mutual Improvement Society, the Linnean Society and the Garden Museum.

The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White was first published in 1789 and remains one of the most important pieces of English nature writing to date. Most of us give up on journalling after just a few weeks but keeping to some simple parameters can help sustain it. Instead of writing down everything, record just three things in the briefest form: the weather, what you saw or heard, and how you felt. Illustrator Anna Koska provides a joyful and inspirational record of a year in her West Country life in From Field & Forest (Pavilion).

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 111

EASTER CRAFTS

Build a bug hotel

Fine weather is the clarion call to shed owners everywhere. Now is the time to sweep it, paint it, repair it, replace it and tidy it. Brush out and wash pots then stack them in size order so they’re ready and waiting for new inhabitants. Check garden tools to see they’re in good repair. Take lawnmowers for a service if necessary and clean hand tools, removing rust with steel wool and WD-40. This might also be the year you re-cover the deckchairs: The Stripes Company has a large, colourful collection of fabrics, while Ian Mankin offers Lancashire-woven canvas in nautical hues. If you anticipate spending more time in the shed, add a mood board to guide your seed-sowing thoughts throughout the year.

Revisit your favourite books There is nothing quite like pulling down a book and remembering why you liked it so much. Similarly, now might be the time to add to your library. World of Books is an excellent online source of popular second-hand titles and books that may be out of print. Stock changes constantly. For rare and special editions, try Peter Harrington. This month, several titles are reissued revised and expanded: Head Gardeners by Ambra Edwards (Pimpernel), New Wild Garden by Ian Hodgson (Frances Lincoln) and Hummelo: A journey through a Plantsman’s Life by Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury (Monacelli).

112 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Sow seed The golden rule of seed-sowing is to do so little and often. Succession sowing however, is trickier to master and requires an attentiveness for which few have time. Instead of trying it with everything you’ll grow, pick just a few items of which you know you will use plenty. Salad leaves are ideal to begin with, but you could also try two or three batches of sweet peas to keep the run going from spring (from a sowing last year) to the first frosts.

Where possible, avoid buying plastic trays: toilet roll cores work well, as do newspaper pots. Plastic Free Gardening and Anything But Plastic sell reusable rubber seed trays.

IMAGES GAP/JONATHAN BUCKLEY/CAROLE DRAKE

Spruce up the shed

There are plenty of bug hotels for sale but a homemade one will accommodate garden wildlife just as well, if not better.

Dave Goulson (see Q&A on page 123) sets out how to make one in his new book, Gardening for Bumblebees. The simplest means is to pack hollow bamboo canes into several empty tin cans. Lay these horizontally on top of a small wood pile or a stack of bricks against a garden or shed wall and position to avoid flooding. Keep the canes at varying lengths so insects can crawl over the hotel and inspect their new lodgings easily. Provide insects with food sources as well: this spring, try mowing the lawns less frequently and let buttercups, clover and dandelions flower. These are a critical early food source for pollinators that have just come out of hibernation.

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International Garden Photographer of the Year In association with The English Garden, this annual competition seeks the best images of plants, gardens and landscapes from around the world

T

he winner of International Garden Photographer of the Year is Robin Williams of Melbourne, Australia, for his image of a white lotus flowerhead, which also won the Beauty of Plants category of the competition.

Robin’s image of the Nelumbo nucifera bloom was taken in the Blue Lotus Water Gardens of Yarra Junction, Victoria. Lotus are aquatic perennials that have the ability to use thermo-regulation, self-heating their flowers to aid fertilisation by bees, flies and beetles. Robin is an internationally recognised photographer whose career, particularly in the fields of medical photography and photographic education, spans four decades. He moved to Australia from the UK in 1992.

“Robin has used macro photography to immortalise the culturally iconic and ancient lotus species. The composition, intention and novelty invite us in with a delicious allure and promise of sensory satisfaction. Like the countless tiny creatures that are drawn onto its warm golden facade, we cannot help

but stop, stare and absorb the sense of potential delight, as if caught outside the window of the world’s finest patisserie,” says IGPOTY’s managing director Tyrone McGlinchey.

“I am absolutely thrilled to be named ‘International Garden Photographer of the Year 2020’ – I am always inspired by the beautiful work submitted by photographers all over the world and humbled to think that my work can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with theirs,” says Robin. “We all celebrate the beauty of the natural world and, in doing so, hope to protect it.”

Ten winning images from IGPOTY’s 14th Competition are featured here, but all the winning images will be available to view on the IGPOTY website from 6 February. The exhibition is then set to tour the country, going on display at venues such as UNESCO World Heritage Site Blenheim Palace and Herrenhausen Gardens in Germany, but this will depend on local and national restrictions. Please visit igpoty.com where you can also find out how to enter Competition 15.

WINNER

The Beauty of Plants

Robin Williams Creation Victoria, Australia “I captured this macro shot of the golden reproductive parts of a Nelumbo nucifera (white lotus) flowerhead, which was ready for pollination. The sacred lotus is a rhizomatous aquatic perennial and is a ‘living fossil’ dating to pre-history, having been domesticated in Asia about 7,000 years ago.”

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 115

Abstract Views

Claire Ogden Magical Trees Roseland Peninsula, Cornwall, England, UK “I was looking for colour but few leaves remained on this hillside of trees in late autumn. Using software, I inverted and then altered the colours further to create this magical, abstract treescape.”

Beautiful Gardens

Nigel McCall Indian Summer Morning Aberglasney Gardens, Carmarthenshire, Wales, UK “The Upper Walled Garden is an inspiring place to photograph at virtually any time of year. It was now late October and the cool and sometimes frosty nights were being followed by warm, bright and calm days. Mist filled the valley and the morning sun began to highlight the scene; the conditions were perfect to photograph an ‘Indian summer’ morning.”

Wildlife in the Garden

Petar Sabol Survivor Goričan, Međimurje County, Croatia “Beauty can be found in the imperfect, damaged wings of this male dragonfly – Sympetrum striolatum (common darter). I discovered this specimen close to the pond in my garden. It was morning when beads of dew were still to be seen and I waited for the perfect alignment to complete the composition.”

116 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Greening the City

Richard Bloom Valencia Parque Central Valencia, Spain “Valencia Parque Central was implemented by lead landscape designers Gustafson Porter + Bowman. Phase 1 was completed in 2019, following the relocation of high-speed trains below ground.

It is one of the city’s most significant redevelopments at a total site cost of €73 million.”

Trees, Woods & Forests

Gianluca Gianferrari Flooding Birches Guastalla, Emilia-Romagna, Italy “Sometimes nature reminds us of her power, but even then gives us beauty. The Po River flooded and created a striking scene, ready to photograph, of these beautiful Betula pendula (silver birch) trees.”

Wildflower Landscapes

Simon Lea Poppy Coven Coven, West Midlands, England, UK “I captured this photo at a then secret location in the West Midlands at sunrise – the town nearest to the field is called Coven. As with all sunrise photos, you have to get up extremely early, especially when you are travelling 30 minutes from your home to be there. The reward is a photo that is unique to you, because no one else is there capturing the same magical moment as the sun hits the first poppies.”

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 117

Plants & Planet

Jonathan Barran Tolaga Bay Tolaga Bay, North Island, New Zealand “A series of intense storms due to climate change have brought down thousands of tons of wood from forestry plantations in the flooded rivers behind Tolaga Bay. The rivers have spilled their cargo of wood onto the beach, destroying the sand dunes and plants in the wake.”

Breathing Spaces

Luka Esenko Land of the Waterfalls Plitvice Lakes National Park, Plitvička Jezera, Croatia “I visited the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Plitvice to capture the stunning winter scenery and woodlands with one of the many impressive waterfalls in the park.”

118 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

The Royal Photographic Society Gold Medal – Portfolios

David Townshend Hosta Patterns Northamptonshire, England, UK “There are always images waiting to be created, even early on a wet June morning. Pots of hosta, heuchera and libertia on my patio, each with their own distinctive leaf shape, texture and colour, were transformed as rain droplets collected on them with the gloom accentuating their colour. Moving my camera during the sequence of exposures, I captured their transient beauty as unique patterns that are at the same time bold and intricate.”

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BOOKS

The Reviewer

A selection of the best writing on the shelves this month

The Flower Yard

by Arthur Parkinson Kyle Books, £22

There isn’t much that is low-key about Arthur Parkinson’s planting choices, but that’s the point. The young Kew alumnus and sometime Sarah Raven protégé is a popular figure on Instagram, and in this, his second book, he tackles a problem facing many gardeners of his generation. That is, how best to grow a garden with limited means in a property that is not your own. For Parkinson, the solution is to develop a container garden and to do so with unwavering spirit. “There seems to be an abhorrent idea that beauty is something you can only aspire to or achieve in a grand house or in a large garden. But beauty doesn’t bow to this…” he writes.

Glamorous, jewel-toned tulips, flamboyant dahlias and scented sweet peas feature strongly in this work, which is part containergarden handbook and part autobiography, but there is much more besides. Find how-to guides on layering bulbs, lasagne style, for prolonged displays, or sowing into a seed tray, as well as thoughts on florals by fabric house Osborne & Little.

While Arthur has both written and provided the photography for this work, it is through the talented arrangements of colour and form pictured here that his skills truly shine.

The Healing Power of Flowers

WORDS VIVIENNE HAMBLY

by Claire Bowen and Eva Nemeth Ebury, £12.99

Floriography, the language of flowers, was popular among the Victorians but has enjoyed renewed attention over the past few years. While it is now rare to send someone specific flowers to convey a particular message, we still rely on certain blooms to communicate what words cannot: spring bulbs for hope, lilies for sorrow.

Florist Claire Bowen, of Honeysuckle and Hilda, and photographer Eva Nemeth draw on the energy flowers present, in addition to the meanings of old. Hellebores, for example, once represented lies and scandal, but could also be associated with longevity and constancy due to winter tenacity. Chapters are grouped by emotion, so there are flowers for consolation, celebration, joy and calm. There are also instructions on caring for flowers and techniques for making a meaningful bouquet.

Discovering Dahlias

by Erin Benzakein and Chris Benzakein Chronicle Books, £18.99

Erin and Chris Benzakein own Floret Farm, a family-run flower and seed company in the Skagit Valley, Washington State, specialising in unique, uncommon and heirloom blooms. Here, with colleagues Jill Jorgensen and Julie Chai, they present a guide to growing dahlias. What began with a load of tubers gifted to them by a friend is now a collection of some 800 varieties and 18,000 plants, so there is plenty of knowledge to share.

The full extent of dahlia care is neatly explained, with illustrated topics including propagation, hybridisation and winter storage, but this is balanced with the romance of this compelling flower. The maritime climate of the Skagit Valley is not dissimilar to the climate we enjoy here in the UK, so there is plenty for British readers to take from this work. This book is a feast for passionate dahlia lovers.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 121

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Q&A

BOOKS

A professor of biology specialising in bumblebee conservation, Dave Goulson explains how we can help these beleaguered insects in his new book, Gardening for Bumblebees What are some of the things that you find most compelling about bumblebees?

Bumblebees seem endearingly clumsy, but in fact they are remarkably clever; I spent many years studying their impressive navigational abilities – they are able to find their way back to their nest when released up to six miles from home. They also use many tricks to sniff out the most rewarding flowers, including avoiding flowers bearing the smelly footprint of previous bee visitors. Bumblebees are hugely important as pollinators; without them many wildflowers would disappear, and we would not have many of the fruits and vegetables we take for granted. Did you know, for example, that almost every tomato you eat was pollinated by a bumblebee?

Which are the most threatened bee species in the UK and what’s causing their decline?

How many bee species are there in the UK and of these, how many are bumblebees?

Many people are surprised to hear that there are more than 20,000 species of bee in the world, with over 270 in the UK. Of these, 26 are bumblebees, which are fairly easy to spot, being large and furry, although with tremendous variation in their patterns of yellow, white, black, red and brown stripes.

INTERVIEW VIVIENNE HAMBLY

Unlike many species of bee, bumblebees are broadly sociable. What is their life cycle?

Bumblebee queens emerge from hibernation from late February and fatten up on spring flowers such as pussy willow before looking for a nest site, usually underground in an old rodent burrow. They rear daughter workers to start with, which take over foraging for food, and by late spring the nest will have grown to several hundred workers. Males and new queens are then produced, which fly from the nest in summer and mate. The young queens burrow underground to begin hibernation. The old queen, workers and males all die at the end of summer.

England’s rarest bumblebee is the shrill carder bumblebee, a sweet little bee with a reddish bottom and a high-pitched buzz. It used to thrive in the flower-rich haymeadows and downlands that once covered much of Britain. Sadly, the industrialisation of agriculture led to the loss of 97% of these meadows during the 20th century.

What three things could we all do in our gardens to accommodate more bees and pollinators?

First, plant lots of bee-friendly flowers. Second, avoid using pesticides – there is no need for them in your garden. Third, mow your lawn less often, ideally leaving a corner uncut until late summer. With luck, you will see wildflowers popping up, which will include clovers, buttercups, speedwell and more.

The use of neonicotinoids on certain UK crops has recently come to the fore again. What is your opinion on their use?

Neonicotinoids were quite rightly banned across Europe because they were harmful to wild bees and incredibly poisonous to all insect life. The equivalent of Novichok for bees, these are neurotoxins, highly persistent in soils, leaching into streams, and turning up in the nectar and pollen of hedgerow wildflowers.

There should be no place for these or similar chemicals in agriculture.

Gardening For Bumblebees

by Dave Goulson Square Peg, £16.99.

APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 123

e im t y an 2 n 2 e ak e 20 t e un nb eJ a c or ize bef r P

WIN A GREAT BRITISH HOLIDAY Your once-in-a-lifetime trip includes: ● Free international flights (if applicable) ● One-night London stay ● Two-night stay in Edinburgh ● Visit to Edinburgh Castle ● Tickets to Blenheim Palace ● A night in a Cotswolds hotel ● West End tickets with dinner

Enter our competition for your chance to win a holiday in Britain for two worth up to £5,000, including free international flights What would your dream holiday to Britain include? A five-star stay in London and tickets to a West End show? A trip to historic Edinburgh? How about a stay in the Cotswolds, including a visit to one of Britain’s finest stately homes? Well, with our Great British Holiday competition, you can win all of this and more.

London luxury Starting with free flights (for overseas entrants), the winner and their guest will travel to London for a luxury one-night stay at the Athenaeum, a five-star hotel in the heart of Mayfair – just a short stroll from Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly

124 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Circus and the Royal Parks.

Your visit will also include tickets to a top West End show of your choice, with a lavish three-course meal with wine at Prezzo to make your night one to remember.

Historic Edinburgh Next, our winner and their guest will head to Edinburgh for a stay at the luxury Radisson Collection Edinburgh, located on the famous Royal Mile, with stunning views of the Old Town. During your stay you’ll visit the iconic Edinburgh Castle, followed by a special three-course dinner.

The charming Cotswolds To conclude your trip, it’s time to escape to the countryside to visit one of Britain’s finest stately homes and the birthplace of Winston Churchill: Blenheim Palace.

Accommodation for the night will be at Minster Mill, a glamorous and luxurious hotel on the banks of the River Windrush in the historic village of Minster Lovell.

After a full English breakfast, you can take advantage of the hotel’s top-class facilities – from its spa to its croquet lawn – or explore the idyllic Oxfordshire Cotswolds, home to some of England’s most beautiful villages.

Two annual tickets to Blenheim Palace, one of the country's finest stately homes and the birthplace of Winston Churchill. www.blenheimpalace.com

One-night stay for two at The Athenaeum, a fivestar hotel in London's Mayfair district, near Buckingham Palace. www.athenaeum hotel.com

One-night stay for two at Minster Mill, a luxurious Cotswolds hotel near Blenheim Palace.

Includes breakfast. www.minstermill.co.uk

Two-night stay for two including breakfast at the Radisson Collection Edinburgh on the city's Royal Mile. www.radissonhotels.com

Two premium theatre tickets, plus a threecourse meal at Prezzo for two with wine, from Buyagift, the UK’s leading provider of experience days. www.buyagift.co.uk

Visit Edinburgh Castle, the Scottish capital's unmissable historic attraction, followed by a three-course dinner for two from go-to gift experience company Red Letter Days. www. redletterdays.co.uk

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APRIL 2021 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 125

NURSERIES & GARDENS FOR SPRING INSPIRATION ASHWOOD NURSERIES

BRED BY PETER MOORE To celebrate 60 years working in the horticultural industry, last year, in 2020, renowned plant breeder, Peter Moore, gave 25% of his plant royalties to horticultural charity Perennial.

A plantsman’s paradise and an independent nursery situated in the West Midlands. We specialise in Hellebores, Hardy Cyclamen, Salvias, Hepaticas, Lewisias, Hydrangeas, Dwarf Conifers, Snowdrops, Primula auriculas and many more beautiful plants.

Our mail order service sends plants, garden essentials and gifts to mainland UK destinations.

Please visit our website for up to date information regarding opening times and events. For a free colour brochure, quote ENGGAR21.

Photo: Plantipp BV®

One of his more recent introductions is: Choisya White Dazzler ‘Londaz’ AGM. An international award-winning hardy shrub covered in intensely scented white flowers in spring and again in the autumn. Ideal for a large patio pot in full sun or light shade.

Tel: 01384 401996 mailorder@ashwoodnurseries.com | www.ashwoodnurseries.com Ashwood Lower Lane, Kingswinford, West Midlands DY6 0AE

www.bredbypetermoore.co.uk for nationwide stockists

WEASDALE NURSERIES

DAISY CLOUGH NURSERIES LTD Weasdale Nurseries have been growing hardy trees and shrubs on our site at 850ft elevation in the Howgill Fells, at the heart of beautiful Cumbria, since 1950.

Specialising in mail order from the outset, our careful packaging system has become legendary and guarantees safe arrival of the delicate contents anywhere in the UK. Contact us for your free copy of our highly readable, illustrated catalogue, listing over 900 different plants available from November to April. EG04/21.

A busy nursery in rural Lancashire, Daisy Clough specialises in a carefully selected range of over 700 perennials and grasses.

Open seven days a week, the nursery also offers a good selection of shrubs, trees, container plants and fruit. Plenty of homegrown vegetable plants are available through spring and summer.

A full plant list is available to view on our website. Our garden shop sells seeds, tools and essential garden sundries. We have a beautiful homeware and clothing shop, a deli and a tearoom to round off your visit. Covid restrictions apply.

Tel: 015396 23246 sales@weasdale.com | www.weasdale.com Newbiggin on Lune, Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria CA17 4LX

0Tel: 01524 793104 info@daisyclough.com | www.daisyclough.com Station Lane, Scorton, Preston, Lancs PR3 1AN

TREHANE NURSERY

HEDGING UK A small, traditional grower based in Dorset, Trehane Nursery has specialised in Camellias and blueberries for more than 60 years, introducing many new Camellias to the British gardener. Today, we grow an unsurpassed range of more than 200 different varieties, from young plants to mature specimens, all of which can be dispatched by courier throughout the UK. For friendly advice, or to order, please contact us by phone, via the website, or call in and visit our peaceful, woodland nursery.

OPEN: Monday to Friday (all year) 8.30am to 4.30pm; please check website for weekend opening hours.

Tel: 01202 873490 www.trehanenursery.co.uk Stapehill Road, Wimborne, Dorset BH21 7ND

Hedging UK are specialist growers of quality hedging plants.

Plants are available to purchase at wholesale prices across the UK through our mail order service.

Buy direct from the grower, delivered direct to your door.

Readers of The English Garden get a 5% discount (quote TEG2021).

Tel: 01704 827224 or 07789 922457 sales@hedginguk.com | www.hedginguk.com Boundary House Farm, Holmeswood Road, Holmeswood, Lancashire L40 1UA

BLUEBELL ARBORETUM & NURSERY

CERNEY HOUSE GARDENS Cerney House garden is a romantic English garden for all seasons. There is a beautiful secluded Victorian walled garden. In March and April we feature a wonderful display of tulips which heralds the arrival of spring with a riot of colour throughout the garden.

Explore our new medicinal herb garden. Tea, coffee and homemade cake available.

Dogs welcome.

Specialists in hardy trees, shrubs and climbers including a huge selection of unusual and rare species and varieties.

Expert advice is available from our helpful staff. The nursery is surrounded by a nine-acre woodland garden (RHS Partner Garden), and visitors are welcome all year round.

Informative website and reliable mail order service if you would like plants delivered.

New for 2021 Potting Shed shop selling plants.

OPEN: Daily from Sat 30 Jan 2021. 10am-7pm (dusk).

Tel: 01530 413700 sales@bluebellnursery.com | www.bluebellnursery.com Annwell Lane, Smisby, Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire LE65 2TA

Tel: 01285 831300 janet@cerneygardens.com | www.cerneygardens.com North Cerney, Cirencester GL7 7BX

SPRING REACH NURSERY

LANGTHORNS PLANTERY A plant fanatic’s paradise on the edge of the beautiful Surrey Hills, just 10 minutes from the A3/M25.

With an eye for the unusual and a vast range of plants of all sizes, the team at Langthorns Plantery are on hand to help you choose the right plants for your gardens.

Brilliant home-grown Shrubs, Climbers, Grasses, Perennials, Roses, Ferns, Trees, Hedging and Fruit, plus these spring wonders: pink Chaenomeles ‘Moerloosei’, Exochorda ‘The Bride’, Magnolia ‘Black Tulip’, Magnolia ‘Genie’ and Ribes ‘Elkington’s White’. New season roses and yew hedging now ready.

Our collection of more than 5,000 varieties includes ornamental and fruit trees, shrubs, perennials, roses, climbers, bamboos, grasses, herbs and wildflowers.

We have plants, you have time, come to our shop, it’s now all online. Browse our collection and treat yourself from the comfort of your home, or visit the Plantery and enjoy some fresh air in the beautiful Essex countryside.

OPEN: Every Tuesday to Sunday 9am until 5.30pm.

Tel: 01483 284769 info@springreachnursery.co.uk | www.springreachnursery.co.uk Long Reach, Ockham, Surrey GU23 6PG

Tel: 01371 872611 info@langthorns.com | www.langthorns.com High Cross Lane West, Dunmow, Essex CM6 1TD

TENDERCARE NURSERIES

TWELVE NUNNS

Specialising in more mature and specimen plants, from Hostas to Hamamelis, Tendercare’s 12 acres are a joy to visit for anyone with a garden in the making.

At Twelve Nunns we are well known for our Harvington Hellebores® and have many beautiful colours and forms to choose from.

They are available to order from our website now, so why not brighten up your winter garden.

Our site visit and warrantied planting service is very popular to help rejuvenate a tired garden or change the focus of the garden after building works. Our award-winning design service will create a beautiful garden for you to enjoy all year through.

Book your visit for assistance with one of our horticulturists, by golf buggy, or pop into our office and we can give you a map, a route to follow, and suggestions to get you started.

Tel: 01895 837120 sales@tendercare.co.uk | www.tendercare.co.uk.

Southlands Road, Denham UB9 4HD. Next to Junction 2 on the M40.

© Clive Nichols

Tel: 01778 590455 penny@twelvenunns.co.uk www.twelvenunns.co.uk

We also specialise in Trilliums, Erythroniums and Roscoea – all plants that enjoy dappled shade in the garden. Our plants are bred and grown by us in rural Lincolnshire and come carefully packed in our ecofriendly packaging. Visit our website to find out more.

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LAST WORD

The Whole Hog The various materials that can be used to surface paths offer different sensory effects. Katherine Swift muses on the pleasures and pitfalls of versatile hoggin

130 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

“

Each surface responds with a crunch or sigh, resistant or yielding to the foot”

for the binding qualities of their gravel; when the Privy Garden was being made at Hampton Court in 1701 they had to make do with (non-binding) river gravel dredged from the Thames. Once laid, maintenance is easy. The hard surface repels weeds, and occasional rolling keeps it trim. But no surface is immune to high heels: as 17th-century diarist John Evelyn complained, “I would they were banished all out of our gardens forever” a cry echoed by owners of houses and gardens open to the public today.

Modern versions of hoggin include bound gravels and bonded gravels, both achieved by the use of resin to fix ordinary washed and graded gravel. They come in a very wide range of colours, and bound gravel has the added advantage of being porous, because the resin is aerated before being mixed into the gravel, making it SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) compliant. But I should miss hoggin with its natural irregularities and the sandy whisper of walking on its surface – not to mention the thought of those 17th-century high heels. ■

ILLUSTRATION JULIA RIGBY PORTRAIT RICHARD BLOOM

T

here is more to a path than meets the eye. Paths aren’t just a way of getting around the garden or of enhancing the look of it. The sensation and sound of different sorts of surfaces can be a major factor in establishing the mood of a garden, too – each surface responding with its characteristic crunch or sigh, resistant or yielding to the foot, each with its story to tell.

The paths of my childhood were made with cinders from the hearth, regularly topped up, in the days before central heating. Here at Morville, the old path down to the church still contains chunks of glassy blue slag from the bottom of local furnaces, a product of the limestone flux used to purify the iron.

Before garden centres and the internet, you used what was to hand. And it’s still a good plan to buy local materials: cheaper to transport and more in harmony with local buildings.

As part of the ongoing renovation of the Canal Garden here, we have recently been relaying the hoggin path. Hoggin is self-binding gravel – a naturally occurring mixture of gravel and clayey sand or marl that sets hard when laid and rolled.

It scores over conventional paving or flagstones in that it is slip-resistant, and it is easier to walk on than loose gravel – very much easier, if pushing a wheelbarrow or using a wheelchair.

Hoggin is also highly affordable, and comes with its own foundation, if bought ‘as raised’ (not screened or graded, as is more usual today). You use the larger pebbles as the foundation of the path, then progressively add the smaller sizes of gravel in layers, before laying the ‘fines’ (which will make the hoggin’s characteristically smooth, sandy surface) on top. Once rolled and set, hoggin is not porous, so large areas need to be laid with a slight camber to drain excess water away. This may be the origin of its odd name, ‘hogging’ being the present participle of the verb ‘to hog’, meaning ‘to arch’ something.

The word itself did not come into use until the 19th century, but the material and its properties were very familiar to 17th- and 18th-century English gardeners. At that time, all gravel came ‘as raised’, and would have been sourced locally. If you were lucky, your gravel was self-binding. Kensington and Blackheath were two areas of London well known

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