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Claverton Manor commands spectacular views across the Limpley Stoke valley
The American beauty
A year on from its installation, head gardener at The American Museum & Gardens Andrew Cannell tells us about the bold new garden designed by trail-blazing landscape architects Oehme, Van Sweden that’s not afraid to break the mould
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erched on an east-facing limestone bluff a few minutes’ drive from the centre of Bath, Claverton Manor is an imposing neoclassical building set within a quintessential English landscape. Where you might expect a broad manicured lawn, however, today you will find large borders filled with exciting combinations of grasses and perennials. That’s because it is home to the American Museum & Gardens, and surrounding it weaves a bold, unashamedly American garden designed by the landscape architects Oehme, Van Sweden (OvS).
Based in Washington DC, OvS had its beginnings in the 1970s when Wolfgang Oehme and James van Sweden trail-blazed a new movement in garden design in the United States. They sought to rebuke the tyranny of the lawn and ‘foundational planting’ often seen as the hallmark of American gardens. Through their designs they sought to evoke the grandeur of the American prairies – and in doing so they introduced a completely new palette of plants to clients willing to try something different. Their approach became known as the New American Garden style and it revolutionised garden design in the United States. Now this style has been brought to England. The 2.5-acre New American Garden at the American Museum was opened in September 2018. The museum’s board of trustees had a number of aims in mind, but the most important was to make more of the enviable location that Claverton Manor enjoys. The garden was designed to enhance the setting aesthetically, but also to open up and improve the overall accessibility of the site, especially to wheelchair users, and to create a much more welcoming entrance to visitors. The design hinges on a sinuous, circuitous pathway that took inspiration from Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. This path, called the LEFT: Architectural plants such as Acanthus ‘pin down’ the corners of the planting beds RIGHT: The Winding Way has excellent views of the valley and colourful plantings
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Winding Way, allows visitors to stroll through the plantings and to take in the glorious panoramic views of the Limpley Stoke Valley. A turf amphitheatre, designed by Tom Chapman, the local landscape architect who managed the project, nestles gracefully into its natural topography. Here the museum is able to hold outdoor music and theatre events. The planting is cared for by a dedicated team of four gardeners and four volunteers. It is now into its second growing season and has gone from strength to strength. Large swathes of Lysimachia clethroides, the gooseneck loosestrife, has rapidly colonised the borders around the amphitheatre, creating pillow lava mounds of green with curling sparks of white flowers. It is punctuated by burgeoning clumps of tall Miscanthus x giganteus ‘Aksel Olsen’. Other grasses, including Miscanthus sinensis ‘Yakushima Dwarf’ and Deschampsia cespitosa ‘Goldtau’, capture more sunlight in
