Innholdsfortegnelse for Special 2023 i Gardens Illustrated Magazine

DESIGN All three of the young designers competing for the coveted RHS Young Designer of the Year Award at this year's RHS Flower Show Tatton Park (19-23 July) have included an air of wildness in their gardens. “I find wilder gardens that imitate nature more tranquil,” says Camellia Hayes, whose garden, Seeking Resilience, creates an enveloping, nurturing space in which native wildflowers, such as wild carrot, teasels and knapweed, mix with ornamental grasses to create a sense of nature reclaiming a small pocket park. Native wild plants also feature in Ollie Pike's garden for the Bible Society, which takes its inspiration from the wildflower meadows that are often found in churchyards across the UK; while Nathan Webster's woodland-style garden, Off the Grid, makes use of green, textured plants, such as…

GARDEN INTERNATIONAL IN BRIEF Name Robin Hill. What Sweeping garden landscape around a 1920s house. Where Connecticut, USA. Size 20 acres. Soil Acidic and dry, thin and rocky in the meadow, richer in the woodland, long-cultivated in the cutting garden. Climate Winters in New England can be very cold, and the nearby town of Norfolk is known as ‘the icebox of Connecticut', with a short growing season (five months) and cool evenings in summer, due to its altitude. Hardiness zone USDA 5. I'd hesitate to call it a garden,” Dan Pearson says regarding Robin Hill, a 20-acre property in Connecticut that his studio has been steering for the past decade. Although there are set pieces (a herb garden to one side of the house, an enclosure with a circular pond…

GARDEN COUNTRY IN BRIEF Name Cwm Farm. What Exuberantly planted garden featuring a mix of informal and wild planting, and structural elements of topiary and hedging. Where Monmouthshire. Size Three acres and growing. Soil Rich loam with large areas of heavy clay. Climate Temperate; high rainfall, sharp frosts in winter. Hardiness zone USDA 8. Monmouthshire is a gift to gardeners. For beginners, it's also a glorious adventure playground: spindly yew and sparse hornbeam grow speedily into serious hedges; stuff happens almost as you watch. A new garden can appear established and older than its years in a pleasingly short time. The garden at Cwm Farm in the beautiful Usk Valley sits so naturally in its surroundings that it might have been there forever. In fact, it is barely nine years…

GARDEN WILD IN BRIEF What Private walled garden, open for pre-booked guided tours. Where West Sussex. Size Just over an acre. Soil Highly manipulated combination of existing topsoil, sand and crushed aggregates. Climate Temperate. Hardiness zone USDA 9. There is a whiff of existential angst blowing through the gardening world, highlighted by the heated debates that rage every time some iteration of a wild garden wins Gold at Chelsea. What plants should we be growing in our rapidly changing climate? And how can we balance the gardener's urge to create a stimulating and beautiful space with our responsibilities to the planet, and all the creatures that share it with us? Four years ago, proto-rewilders Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell set out to find their own solution at Knepp, the 3,500-acre…

DESIGN INSIGHT The brief The gardens in this tree-lined neighbourhood in suburban Los Gatos, California, are neat parcels of rectangular lawn – which are not, of course, suited to the dry climate. The owners of this ‘L-eichler' (as in a ‘like an Eichler') house – a mid-century modern home with an atrium in the centre – had a different look in mind when they approached landscape studio Terremoto. They wanted to rip out the tired hedges, rotting deck, old-fashioned fencing and lawn at the front and back to create spaces that were packed with plants for pollinators, where their two young daughters could roam. Aside from that, spaces for cooking and entertaining were a key requirement. “That was a really big part of the brief,” explains landscape architect Sarah Samynathan,…

DIG IN WISE WORDS As you can't fail to have noticed, rewilding is everywhere. But what exactly does it mean for gardeners? One problem is the word itself, which is so elastic that it can mean almost anything, depending on whom you talk to. If you could eavesdrop on ecologists arguing about rewilding, you might find them debating the pros and cons of reintroducing carnivores such as wolves and lynx to the UK – in other words, not a conversation of any great interest to the average gardener. A common thread in any discussion of rewilding is an increase in wildness, although ‘wild' itself is another word that no two people can agree on. It's perhaps better, because it's more concrete, to talk about the withdrawal of human influence. In…

PLANT PROFILE ECHINOPS What A genus of around 218 species of annuals, biennials, and herbaceous perennials, commonly known as globe thistles. Only a small proportion of globe thistle species have reached gardens in the UK – the majority are cultivars of Echinops bannaticus and Echinops ritro. Origins Species originating from across Europe, Africa and Asia. Of the cultivars grown in the UK, most originate from cooler regions of Europe. Season Attractive jagged foliage from spring to midsummer. Flowers emerge first in midsummer, often re-flowering in autumn. Size Variable between species and cultivars. Echinops ritro cultivars typically reach a maximum height of 1m with a spread of 50-70cm. Echinops bannaticus cultivars can reach 1.5-2m tall with a spread of 70cm-1m. Richer soils produce wider and bushier plants while in poorer soils…

GARDEN INTERNATIONAL IN BRIEF What An ornate, productive garden that embraces wildlife. Where The Netherlands. Size 3,500 square metres. Soil Dry, sandy soil. Climate Cool temperate. Hardiness zone USDA 7. Striking a balance between an overly cultivated garden and one that permits nature – wildlife, weeds and all – the freedom to roam is about the most topical challenge in horticulture right now. The principles are in place: chemicals are all but banished, May is becoming unmown, and slugs and snails are being rebranded. The question now is how, rather than why, we should provide for nature in our gardens. Frank van der Linden, a naturalistic garden designer based in the Netherlands, is well versed on this subject, and the move towards a more wildlife-inclusive vision for his own garden…

The Walled Garden at Knepp Castle is a horticultural experiment, inspired by what owners Charlie Burrell and Isabella Tree learned from rewilding in the wider landscape of the Knepp Estate. The project was masterminded by experts including Tom Stuart-Smith, James Hitchmough and Jekka McVicar, and the aim is to maximise biodiversity, while at the same time being as sustainable as possible (see page 82 to learn more). Our exclusive reader day is a unique opportunity to visit this extraordinary garden in the company of its designer and head gardener. In the morning, we will learn all about the garden transformation and the Knepp ethos, and get a first look at the Walled Garden. Our group will be guided through Knepp's gardens, meadows and orchards by an ecologist, looking at emerging…

GARDEN National treasure Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932) was one of the UK's most influential horticulturists. A plantswoman, designer and author, she created some 400 gardens, introduced at least 30 new varieties of plants to British gardens, and was one of the first women to be awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's Victoria Medal of Honour (along with Ellen Willmott, in 1897). In the 1890s, she began a long professional collaboration with the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, when she commissioned him to design a house for her, Munstead Wood, near Godalming in Surrey. In the 11 acres of gardens surrounding the Arts and Crafts house, Jekyll experimented with garden design, particularly her innovative use of colour, and laid out a woodland garden that exemplified her approach to artistic ‘wild gardening' . After the…

GARDEN SMALL IN BRIEF What Water meadow garden. Where Buckinghamshire. Size 13m x 36m. Soil Heavy clay. Climate Temperate. Hardiness zone USDA 8. The idea is to walk through the garden and not really know where one pond ends and another begins Many of us revamped our gardens during the lockdowns of the Covid pandemic, but few of us can claim to have embarked on projects of quite the scale achieved by André Schott. In just three years, he has transformed the garden behind his semi-detached suburban home into a watery landscape that looks as if it could have been here for decades. When he moved here from London six years ago, in search of more outdoor space, André already had a clear vision. It drew on a lifelong fascination…

Green oasis A small pocket park that sits in the intersection of several lanes of traffic in Boston, Massachusetts, has won the Award of Excellence in the Built – Small Design category at this year's World Landscape Architecture Awards for an entry entitled ‘This was Once a Pond' . Designed by ASK+ with Baltimore-based Unknown Studio, the North Meadow project on The Rose Kennedy Greenway is both a response to the local community's desire for a calm, biodiverse, green space in the heart of the city, and a reflection of the site's history. At one time, it was open water and mudflat within the Charles River estuary, and the design abstracts the historic water's edge into a place of tranquillity, with a boomerang-shaped boardwalk leading through soft planting. The interior…

It happens about once a week – I emerge from bed to inspect the garden, and find that something has been rummaging in the night. A broken stem of last summer's growth here, half a chewed-up glove there, a plastic compost bag trawled across the lawn. I imagine it's a particularly wily fox, but if so, they always close the shed door behind them. Playful, yes, but considerate. This kind of thing might have bothered me once. I've found all sorts in the garden: cat poo, cat-caught pigeons, rat burrows, sweet wrappers and burnt-out tealights from revelries past. There was the weekend I went to Glastonbury and received a particularly grisly message from the husband about a deceased rat the “size of a loaf of bread” splayed elegantly on a…