Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2016 i Gardens Illustrated Magazine

Many of the world’s most beautiful gardens have evolved over decades, if not centuries. Brick pathways worn by generations of footsteps; stone and metalwork with a unique patina; trees and shrubs with idiosyncratic shapes evolved over many seasons – each adds a further layer of interest to a garden. Wabi-sabi , the ancient Japanese philosophy that celebrates the beauty found in imperfection, is becoming ever more popular in the West and there’s no doubt that – even on an unconscious level – the integrity of well-worn, natural materials bring character to your garden. But how can you give a garden a feeling of age when it’s relatively recently constructed? Designer Kristy Ramage offers her insights on page 56. Planting trees and shrubs is a great way to ensure interest throughout…

Ligularia ‘Britt Marie Crawford’ This moisture-loving member of the daisy family has large, glossy, kidney-shaped leaves with a dark-purple reverse and the flowers are a deep orange-yellow colour; a striking combination. Unfortunately, the fleshy foliage is caviar to slugs and snails, which can strip the leaves overnight. The seedheads are particularly attractive covered in dew or rimed with hoar frost on a clear winter’s day. AGM †. Height 90cm. Origin Burma, central and western China, Japan. Growing conditions Moisture-retentive soil; sun or dappled shade. Hardiness RHS H6, USDA 4a-9b. Season of interest Late spring to early winter. Ferula assa-foetida For aficionados of oriental cooking, this is an important ingredient in curries and, apparently, in Worcestershire sauce. A strong-smelling gum is obtained from making incisions in the upper part of…

Remember to leave space around any hedges you plant so you can reach to cut them. If the hedge is large – and you have sufficient space – you might want to consider leaving room for a service path so you can use a wheelbarrow or small tractor to remove the clippings. But if you opt for the latter, be careful with thorny hedging plants. Albert finds it is impossible to avoid getting a flat tyre when removing hawthorn clippings. If you don’t want to spend time clipping and shaping, opt for plants that have an interesting shape without being shorn. Dwarf conifers, such as Picea glauca var. albertiana ‘Conica’ and Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Nana Gracilis’, make such an interesting shape that clipping them would be a crime. Since box blight…

CALLUNA VULGARIS ‘MARLIES’ A bud-blooming heather with dark-green foliage and deep-red buds from autumn to midwinter. Broad and spreading, it is long-lasting and withstands the winter weather well. 30cm x 45cm. RHS H7, USDA 5a-9b. E. LUSITANICA An open, upright shrub with mid-green foliage and bead-like blooms from midwinter to late spring. The pollen-rich buds are tinged pink at first, opening white. For milder areas. 1.8m x 75cm. AGM. RHS H2, USDA 8a-10b. E. LUSITANICA F. AUREIFOLIA ‘GEORGE HUNT’ A form of Portuguese heather for milder areas. Golden-yellow foliage all year with pure-white pearly flowers from late winter to mid spring. 75cm x 60cm. RHS H2, USDA 8a-10b. C. VULGARIS ‘ALICIA’ An excellent bud-blooming heather with tall spikes of dark-green foliage packed with pale bud blooms from autumn to early…

Mark Bulk (left), his brother Rein junior and Mark’s partner Anne Brylla (with Jack the dog) choose their favourite plants for autumn colour. 1 Neoshirakia japonica This small and hardy tree or shrub is easy to grow. Its leaves, which turn a fabulous crimson colour, make it one of the finest plants for autumn foliage. Happy in sun or part shade on moist soil. 8m. 2 Indigofera pendula A vigorous, elegant and upright shrub with slender arching branches, dainty blueish foliage and long spikes of delicate, dusky purple, pendulous flower spikes in late summer and autumn. It prefers full sun, shelter from strong winds and fertile, free-draining soil. 1.5m. 3 Viburnum nudum Brandywine (= ‘Bulk’) More prolific in flower and fruit than the species, with burgundy autumn colour. Fruits are…

1 Straight ahead Grass steps are always a bit tricky because you have to keep lifting the mower and then there is usually a lot of strimming to do afterwards to tidy up the corners. These handsome Corten steel risers make it a bit easier by defining the edges. I also love the screen made from a triptych of steel menhirs. 2 Standing tall A very spectacular use of steel by Andy Sturgeon in his garden for The Daily Telegraph at the 2010 RHS Chelsea Flower Show. There were three series of Corten steel monoliths, which formed screens that stood like massive sentries guarding the gates. They also did a sterling job of framing views into the garden. 3 Crowning glory Here’s an elegant steel pergola with an apex that…

PLANT CRAFT by Caitlin Atkinson Timber Press, £17.99 978-1604696493 ISBN Thirty creative projects, with illustrated step-by-step instructions designed to help you bring a touch of natural style to your home. SIMPLY VEG by Sybil Kapoor Pavilion Books, £17.99 978-1910904374 ISBN Tasty, seasonal dishes that celebrate the versatility and flavour of homegrown vegetables from the doyenne of delicious everday cooking. PLANT LOVE by Michael Allaby Filbert Press, £14.99 978-0993389221 ISBN Delve into the world of botanical sex and discover the techniques used by plants to enter into unseemly liaisons to reproduce and survive. RHAPSODY IN GREEN by Charlotte Mendelson Kyle Books, £16.99 978-0857833105 ISBN Novelist Charlotte Mendelson takes us through her gardening year documenting the highs and lows of owning a small urban allotment. RHS HOW DO WORMS WORK? by Guy…

ROMKE VAN DE KAA Romke started his horticultural career at RHS Wisley and went on to work as head gardener for Christopher Lloyd at Great Dixter. Now a garden writer and broadcaster back home in the Netherlands, on page 48 he visited the garden of Albert Tielens for us. “Unfashionable gardens might not always be your favourites, but they certainly are the most interesting.” MAAYKE DE RIDDER The two favourite garden seasons of photographer Maayke are spring and autumn. On some shoots, such as for Bulk Nursery (see page 78), she can’t stop taking pictures and wants to do them over and over again to capture the atmosphere as the leaves turn in colour. “It was great to be in a nursery run by the same family, with so much…

First plant love The bearded irises that still fill my mother’s small garden in Oxford made a big impression on me as a child. So much so that, aged ten, I secretly dug some up to plant in the school car park. Who has inspired your career the most? Family friend and gardener, Victoria Parkhouse has been a constant encouragement. When I was a weedy 14-year-old, Vicky gave me my first taste of horticulture when I was on work experience at Cotswold Garden Flowers. Favourite garden Working somewhere can completely change your appreciation of a place. Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage at Dungeness, on the Kent coast, formed the focus of my university dissertation but it was later, while helping in the garden, that I really fell in love with this…

In a truly ancient garden, paths and steps have been worn down by pounding feet; tree trunks have grown into walls and fence lines; hedges have broadened, hanging out over boundaries, dipping and rolling, eccentric shapes evolved out of years of clipping. Plants grow where seed has survived, tight against walls, out of reach of boot and broom, colonising banks and verges, the less-tended backs of borders and under shrubs. Sun and rain have played their part in creating the patinas that soften and meld the hard surfaces together, encouraging lichens and moss on wind-shaped limbs of trees. For some this looks like garden work undone; to others it is rare and magical. If you fall into the latter camp, it’s fair game to mimic some of these effects of…

ERICA CARNEA F. AUREIFOLIA ‘BELL’S EXTRA SPECIAL’ Compact with sparse, whisky-coloured foliage. Heliotrope, almost-red blooms from late winter to mid spring. Bred from ‘Myretoun Ruby. 15cm x 45cm. RHS H7, USDA 5a-9b† . E. CARNEA ‘CLARE WILKINSON’ Vigorous and trailing with long shoots clothed in mid-green foliage. Shell-pink flowers in long spikes in late winter through to late spring. A long season of nectar and pollen. 10cm x 45cm. RHS H7, USDA 5a-9b. E. CARNEA F. ALBA ‘ISABELL’ Spreading mats of short, upright stems carry bright-green foliage. Pure-white flowers with brown stamens from late winter until early spring. Excellent in pots and containers. 15cm x 45cm. AGM*. RHS H7, USDA 5a-9b. E. CARNEA ‘NATHALIE Glowing purple flowers from midwinter to mid spring. Compact and bristling with dark-green foliage and jewel-like…

“If you grow your own garlic you can have a bit of France, the Black Sea or Spain in your patch” Why grow garlic? Taste is the simple answer. The sweet, subtle flavours of a home-grown bulb will put you off acrid, long-stored shop garlic for ever. Grow garlic yourself and you can eat it at every stage, snipping the spring onion-like greens into tarts and soups in February and later on harvesting the curly green stalk-like flower buds or ‘scapes’ (to use like green beans or asparagus). At harvest time the baked heads of the ‘wet’ new garlic can be roasted whole and the dried crop eaten until Christmas and beyond. Even months after lifting, a home-grown bulb still retains its sweetness. On top of taste, garlic has long…

RELANDSCAPE PROJECT Yorkshire on the Med The National Trust has appointed Andy Sturgeon Design to relandscape its gardens at Beningbrough Hall in Yorkshire. Some parts of the 12-acre garden will be re-invented with bold contemporary interventions while others will be refreshed. One of the first areas to be transformed will be the Italian border and adjoining lawn, which will become a densely planted Mediterranean garden featuring shrubs, perennials and multi-stem trees that thrive in Mediterranean climates. In total the project is expected to take up to ten years. nationaltrust.org.uk/beningbrough-hall-gallery-and-gardens URBAN REDEVELOPMENT Greening the city The most recent green space to be revealed at the King’s Cross Development is the Jellicoe Gardens, a public square surrounded by residential buildings on all sides. Designed by Tom Stuart-Smith, in collaboration with master planners…

VINTAGE APPEAL Olive Bucket, £38, Hen & Hammock, 01844 217060, henandhammock.co.uk STYLISH WEAVE Willow Log Basket by Annemarie O’Sullivan, £530, The New Craftsmen, 020 7148 3190, thenewcraftsmen.com STRONG LINING Zinc Lined Willow Basket (Large), £94, Rowen & Wren, rowenandwren.co.uk WARM FINISH Leather Log and Wood Basket, £187.50, Candle and Blue, 01284 624078, candleandblue.co.uk RUSTIC Royal Sussex Traditional Log Trug, £41.85, Made To Last, 01223 967901, made-to-last.co.uk WHAT A CARRY ON Log Bag, £45, Carrier company, 01328 820699, carriercompany.co.uk INDUSTRIAL Medium Galvanised Log Bucket, £50, Pretty Maison, 01353 665141, prettymaison.co.uk LITTLE AND LIGHT Light Grey Felt Basket, £25, Nordic House, 01872 223220, nordichouse.co.uk ELEGANT Willow Log Carrier, £60, Cox & Cox, 0330 333 2123, coxandcox.co.uk…

1 HORTI HOOD 90 GROW HOUSE Make the best use of available garden space with these innovative grow houses, which attach to a fence or wall, allowing fresh produce to be grown and plants protected from the cold on a patio, balcony or in a courtyard. The hood can be lifted and secured for access to the plants or to allow them fresh air on warmer days. The Horti Hood has the headroom to enclose a bench or greenhouse staging. Made from UV stabilised PVC with a strong, light and flexible fibreglass frame. Tel 01932 878 570 Web organiccatalogue.com 2 GARDENATURE The perfect Christmas gift – create your very own wildlife TV channel. Hand-built bird box in western red cedar with an ultra-high-resolution camera system featuring audio and IR night…

• Great ideas for winter gardens • A specialist hellebore nursery in Hertfordshire • Fabulous nature-inspired wrapping ideas to give your Christmas gifts individual style • How to force bulbs for indoor displays • Designer Jinny Blom’s favourite garden books ON SALE 10 NOVEMBER Save money when you subscribe to the digital edition – see page 32. Also in selected Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Tesco stores, as well as WHSmith, and all good magazine retailers.…

Denmark is topographically flat (max altitude 172m) but its numerous private and public gardens ride sky-high in any European or Scandinavian league of excellence. While a climate similar to Britain’s implies the use of familiar plants, it’s the manner in which these ornamentals are put together that distinguishes the country’s little-known places of horticultural paradise. For our specially arranged tour, we immediately dive into this diverse world by heading to the King’s Gardens, a blissful oasis in Copenhagen. Adjacent lies the plant-rich, undulating landscape and curvaceous glasshouses of the Botanic Garden. We stroll through the extensive baroque park at the royal palace, in contrast to its productive Prince Consort’s kitchen garden and the Queen of Denmark’s orangery. And there could be no better introduction to Denmark’s individualism than Exillion, Peter…

Good design begins with a solid backbone of hedges, trees and shrubs. At least half should be evergreen, but beech and, on moist soils, hornbeam can work just as well – and, when bought as whips, they are a lot cheaper. But remember that evergreen shrubs are important to build a good garden frame that stays erect in winter. Evergreens keep the garden interesting during the dreary months. They also provide birds with a place to sleep in on cold nights. Don’t restrict your planting palette to simply perennials and grasses. Use bulbs for early spring colour, perennials and annuals for summer and autumn, and climbing plants and conifers too. And don’t forget ferns. Ferns have a unique shape and add interest to any garden. The genus Polystichum is important…

Trees, for Thomas, take on near-human attributes: young beech are “pushy adolescents” while removing oaks from his congested arboretum feels like “murdering friends” Thomas Pakenham, celebrated author, historian and arborist, is not a man for formality. He prefers not to use his title, the 8th Earl of Longford, which he inherited on the death of his father in 2001, and has restored the original name of the 1,500-acre family demesne in County Westmeath in Ireland – Pakenham Hall Castle becoming Tullynally Castle. Although Thomas, now 83, grew up in the suburbs of Oxford and went to university there, he regards Ireland, where he moved permanently in 1964, as home. We meet at his west London bolthole, which is a short tube ride from Kew Gardens where he’s been closely observing…

E. X DARLEYENSIS ‘ARTHUR JOHNSON’ Long spikes of magenta-pink flowers, darkening from midwinter to mid spring. Spreading habit with mid-green foliage, the spring shoots are tipped with cream. 45cm x 60cm. AGM. RHS H6, USDA 6a-8b. E X DARLEYENSIS AURELIE BREGEON’. ‘ Comparatively large, lilac-pink flowers from late autumn to spring on compact plants with mid-green foliage. A sport of ‘Darley Dale, it’s not as hardy as other cultivars. Great in pots. 30cm x 45cm. RHS H5, USDA 7a-9b. E X DARLEYENSIS DARLEY DALE’. ‘ A popular winter heather with profuse pale-pink flowers, darkening with age from early winter to mid spring. Mid-green foliage with cream and pink tips to the shoots in spring. 30cm x 45cm. RHS H6, USDA 6a-8b. E. X DARLEYENSIS F. AUREIFOLIA MARY HELEN’ ‘ Mid-pink…

“We love autumn colour in leaf and stem and have gathered a collection of trophy plants from different genera, that seem to perform better each passing year” In early autumn 1958, 25-year-old Rein Bulk and three friends began double digging the three acres of land near Boskoop in the Netherlands that would become Bulk Nursery – it took them about a year. From such humble beginnings, a renowned specialist nursery was born. Rein began growing shrubs from hardwood cuttings or layering to give relatively rapid results, until one day, he realised there was more value in rare and desirable woody plants than in standard perennials for the same amount of work. “I told friends in the Netherlands,” he says, “who began donating cutting material, then I bought five or ten…

• This autumn’s Info Burst short courses run by the London College of Garden Design look at ethical design. On 7 November the use of sustainable materials is considered, and on 28 November designer Jo Thompson and photographer Rachel Warne with LCGD director Andrew Fisher Tomlin discuss the ethics of planting design and whether designers’ ideas can be protected. At Regent’s University, Regent’s Park, 6-8pm; lcgd.org.uk • Out of the Shrubbery is the theme for the SGD’s Autumn Conference which takes place at the Royal Geographical Society, London, on 26 November. Speakers include Juan Grimm, Arabella Lennox-Boyd, Nigel Dunnett, Jennie Gay and Roger Phillips. sgd.org.uk • Two ‘Capability’ Brown landscapes, Stoke Place in Buckinghamshire and Peper Harow Park in Surrey, have been added to the National Heritage List for England,…

Biographies of some of the most popular garden plants, charting their history plus fascinating facts about them.Reviewer Stephanie Donaldson is a garden writer. GARDEN FLORA: THE NATURAL AND CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE PLANTS IN YOUR GARDEN by Noël Kingsbury Timber Press, £29.95 ISBN 978-1604695656 The introduction to this book comes with a ‘Read this First’ instruction, which does tend to bring out my rebellious side and have me skipping to the next section. However, with a review to write, I did as I was told and am glad I did, as it proved to be an intensive course in the botanical terminology that is used throughout the book. Some terms were familiar; some, such as ‘competitive perennials’ (plants that clone themselves through rhizomes, stolons or shoots from shallow roots), were…

1 BEDGEBURY NATIONAL PINETUM AND FOREST Bedgebury National Pinetum and Forest is home to a world-class collection of rare and endangered conifers and is a centre for international conservation. It also provides the perfect setting for beautiful walks and picnics all year round. The visitor centre features a wonderful café with panoramic views across the Pinetum. Address Bedgebury Road, Goudhurst, Kent TN17 2SJ Tel 01580 879 820 Web forestry.gov.uk/bedgebury 2 OSTERLY PARK Osterley Park and House is one of the last surviving country estates in London. Open all year and only a short distance from the big city, don’t miss the elegant flower gardens and vibrant colours of the ornamental vegetable garden. Address Jersey Road, Isleworth, Middlesex TW7 4RB (sat nav TW7 4RD) Tel 020 8232 5050 Web nationaltrust.org.uk/Osterley 3…

It will give all to throw up a spike of white flowers with a curvature that swan’s imitate for courtship display Succulent but slender might describe a state we can only dream of, which alone is a reason to admire the attenuated agave. I first saw it at Kew or, at least, saw it for the first time with a decent camera to hand there which, by recording the thrill, made it the most potent memory, possibly obliterating earlier, unrecorded sightings. Images have a bizarre knack of becoming truths above other truths. Five, possibly successive, years followed when it was acquired and lost to the English winter. It wouldn’t suffer to live in either the house or the greenhouse. Other agaves shrivelled a little and waited for spring, but the…