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Cover Story: Natural Magic with Head Gardener Sophie Walwin
6 Somerville Magazine Natural
Magic
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head gardener Sophie Walwin on how gardens keep us going
Sophie Walwin joined Somerville as Head Gardener in 2019. Writing here after several months of lockdown gardening, Sophie discusses how the endless renewal of gardens brings inspiration in times of hardship, and how a sustainable vision for the Somerville gardens will vouchsafe that inspiration for years to come.
There was a moment in mid-April when I went back into college for the first time since lockdown. You may remember what the weather was like then: baking skies and streets newly silent. On the news every day were fresh updates about infection rates and harrowing stories from around the world.
But alongside all that scared us so much came other reports: of Venetian canals running clear for the first time in living memory and air pollution evaporating over major cities. And then there were the stories of all the inventive things people were doing to occupy themselves – one of which was gardening. Indeed, people were gardening so much that the online stores of all the major garden centres were stripped bare.
I stood there in main quad, listening to the song of a waxwing that had taken up residence in a nearby cedar, and wondered what it is about gardens that appeals to us so much in times of trouble. Part of the appeal, surely, is the proximity that gardening brings to continuity, change and renewal – reminding us, just as the clear water of the canals did, that the natural world is still there however bad things may seem. But there is something more to it, I think. Something about the way we participate in the process. The only way I can explain it is by describing how, as I stood there, my mind was already
noticing things, jobs to be done, plans to be implemented, my mind slipping into the familiar grooves of the work, absorbed in the details yet with one eye on the bigger picture.
This balance between fine detail and the long perspective is what first attracted me to gardening. I had just graduated in Fine Art when my friend started a market garden at which, increasingly drawn to the outdoors, I began to volunteer. My love of plants grew rapidly as I came to appreciate not only their beauty and diversity, but also their ingenuity, their ability to adapt and survive. Soon after, I began volunteering at the University of Bristol Botanic Gardens and then embarked on a National Diploma in Horticulture.
I completed my training at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, whilst working as a botanical horticulturalist in Kew’s beautiful, Grade Onelisted Temperate House. Once my contract was up, I enrolled on their famously challenging three-year Diploma. Combining full-time work in the gardens with lectures and coursework was demanding, but it was also a privilege and a joy to be there. I could work in the herbarium and library, explore the grounds day and night, and study with some exceptionally talented botanists, horticulturalists and garden designers.
All of this experience has fed into my plans for the Somerville gardens – plans which I am fortunate to be implementing with my amazing Assistant Gardener, Dave Townsend. These
ideas have been developing since I first visited Somerville and saw the enormous potential for balancing different scales of planting between the large main quadrangle and smaller gardens like Darbishire Quad.
Throughout, I have been conscious of the need to respect and honour the genius loci or spirit of the place. After all, in what some might consider a fairly typical show of pragmatism, the Somerville gardens have never been purely ornamental. In the early days of the college, the gardens also played an important role in feeding the students and staff, hosting a kitchen garden and grazing space for the college’s two cows, donkey, pig and pony. And in World War One, several large tents were pitched here when the college was requisitioned to serve as the Third General Southern Hospital; for those injured officers, the garden was a refuge, a place to take solace and breathe.
Gardening allows us to recognise that past as we consider the future, to incorporate new ideas while honouring previous generations. Of all our plans for the future, three topics are particularly worth mentioning here, and those are climate change, sustainability and trees.
Sadly, I do have to factor in climate change when I design new planting schemes now, choosing plants that suit our new and evolving circumstances and which can survive both periods of drought and the wet, mild winters that are becoming more frequent in the SouthEast of England. I will also have to consider
It’s almost time to think about pruning the lavenders which the bees have been enjoying all summer.
changing the substrate entirely in some areas to accommodate that new aesthetic.
As for sustainability, I am delighted that the college has responded to the growing pressure on global resources with its creation of the Sustainability Working Group. As a member, I have been proud to switch to modern, greener horticultural processes, including the use of peat-free compost and the creation of our own high-quality mulch. We are also using seeping hoses more now, to replace the need for wasteful sprinklers, as well as growing many plants from seed to reduce the carbon emissions from transportation.
Considering the needs of local fauna, I am also hoping to develop some wilder areas by making use of informal plantings and areas of long grass and meadow, primarily as a habitat for invertebrates. As always, I balance this against the need to keep key areas of the gardens presentable, with more variety than ever in terms of flowers, foliage, texture, structure and, importantly, movement – plantings that will shift and surprise you as the seasons change. I really like using signage to explain how different parts of the grounds are developing to help with this.
Sophie uses signage to inform visitors about changes to the gardens
Finally, regarding trees, this is where the really long view of the gardener comes into play. There is an old Greek proverb that says, ‘A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.’ Leaving aside the fact that I’m not an old man, I can relate. Our mature tree collection is declining; if you look into the crown of our tulip tree on the main lawn, for example, you’ll see braces supporting its limbs. Fortunately our new tree fund, generously supported by several alumni, will enable us to plant successors to this and other trees in advance of their demise.
So as summer draws to a close – as the swallows leave for Africa and I start to think about ordering restorative Spring bulbs or pruning the lavender which the bees have been enjoying all summer – the same themes resonate in my gardening as back in April. Change, growth and renewal, the absorbing worlds of detail and perspective, the shape of the future emerging from the past.
All of this provides comfort at times like this. Who knows, perhaps that is what Voltaire had in mind when he placed the eponymous hero of Candide in a garden at the end of his novel. Certainly, Candide’s refrain in the novel’s final lines feels as relevant as ever; after enduring all the cruelty and misfortune that the world could throw at him, he decides that the wisest response we can make to adversity is to ‘cultivate our garden,’ with all the hope and determination that entails.
A joy for all seasons: Professor Fiona Stafford on the timeless appeal of the Somerville gardens
People probably notice the Somerville gardens most during the spring. First the drift of snowdrops beside the Chapel, then the half-moon beds of miniature narcissi on the way between Wolfson and the Hall, before the great burst of yellow daffodils outside House, so bright that you can see them through the arches as soon as you come into College. By Trinity, we take for granted that on a hot day, exam nerves can be eased by taking time out with the sun and the geraniums in the Quad, or (speaking as a redhead) under a shady tree. In Michaelmas it’s only too easy to forget that as the Freshers arrive with carloads of boxes and bags, the gardens are shifting into their autumn wardrobe of tawny leaves and late-flowering, jewel-bright borders. Often the gardens are just a backdrop to all the personal dramas unfolding across the College, and yet when people pause to look at - rather than through or beside - the flowers and trees, the benefits are incalculable. The abundant colours, scents and natural forms, the butterflies, birds and tiny insects all stir a sense of perpetual renewal within a reassuring cycle of continuity. Somervillians who were in Oxford five, fifteen, fifty years ago will still see trees they recognise and flowers that remind them of their own student dramas. The scent of the great magnolias by the library can send people back through decades in seconds. But the gardens are forward-looking, too. Planting is always a pledge to make everyone’s future that bit brighter, that bit better: the Somerville gardeners are agents of hope.
Currently, all the gardens in the world are quietly contributing to the fight against environmental catastrophe. In cities like Oxford, plants mitigate carbon emissions, air pollution and urban heat, while offering habitats to a vulnerable species. They have a vital role to play in tackling anxiety, loneliness and depression, by creating inviting safe spaces, where people can meet, chat, read, exercise, play games. It’s surprising how many problems can be eased by trees. Somerville is lucky to have its own green spaces, even luckier to have such dedicated gardeners as Sophie and Dave, constantly working to keep the plants healthy. It’s not just a matter of mowing, weeding, pruning, digging: plant diseases are on the increase and the unpredictable effects of climate change demand constant vigilance and adaptability. I was so sad to see the demise of the cavernous mulberry tree and the exuberant lime in the past year. As old trees succumb, new ones need to be set to benefit generations of students in the 22nd century. Just imagine the open-armed welcome that a slim sapling planted in 2020 will offer to freshers arriving in 2120.
