Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2023 i Gardens Illustrated Magazine

What A small genus of eye-catching, bulbous perennials with a dramatic tropical appearance. Made up of 13 species in the Asparagaceae family, they have the common name of pineapple lily. Origins Southern Africa including Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Africa. Season Mostly summer through to autumn, with one spring-flowering species. Size Depending on species, plants range in height from 15cm to 2m. Conditions An open sunny site with free-draining, poor to moderately fertile soil is ideal, avoiding heavy wet conditions during winter either in the ground or a container. Hardiness Most are borderline hardy with a RHS rating of H3-H5, with some needing winter protection. They are generally suitable for gardens in USDA zones 6 to 11. *Holds an Award of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society. †Hardiness…

HOW TO RECLAIMED MATERIALS The American environmental campaigner Annie Leonard once said, “There is no such thing as ‘away’. When we throw anything away it must go somewhere.” This fact challenges us all to pause before buying new for the garden, and consider where our old paving and furniture may end up if they’re thrown on a skip. In a bid to reduce waste and promote sustainability, many leading landscape designers and garden makers are reusing materials. Garden designer Jilayne Rickards uses reclaimed materials because they lend a sense of age, history and character to a garden that can’t be achieved with new items. “This sustainable approach also reduces a garden’s carbon impact, preventing items going to landfill and polluting the soil and groundwater,” she says. Reusing some building materials…

WORTH £1,195 To enter, scan the QR code above with your phone’s camera or go to: gardensillustrated.com/hartwell house Enjoy heritage and comfort with a stay at luxury hotel Hartwell House & Spa, set on the edge of the Chilterns in Buckinghamshire. Hartwell House is remarkable for its architecture and history – it was leased to the exiled King Louis XVIII of France and his court in 1809. The impressive house, with both Jacobean and Georgian façades, contains Roccoco ceilings, antique furniture and paintings, yet has every contemporary comfort of a hotel of note. An award-winning restaurant, spa and all-weather tennis courts add to Hartwell’s attractions, as well as the extensive 90-acre park and garden. First designed in the early 18th century in the formal style with allées, temples, garden statuary,…

GARDEN COUNTRY IN BRIEF What Private garden with naturalistic planting. Where Northumberland. Size Half an acre. Soil Neutral. The soil is largely riverbed soil. Climate Frost pocket. The site experiences extremes of temperatures, reaching -18ºC in winter. Hardiness zone USDA 8. Alonely stone cottage, nestling in a North Pennine valley, surrounded by upland hay meadows – it was crying out to be loved. Susie White and her husband David Oakley were so swept away with the setting that they made this idyllic spot their home in 2010. Susie had previously run Chesters Walled Garden in Hexham, and was looking for a home for the thousands of plants she had lifted from that site on moving. In this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the couple had found the perfect place to…

IN BRIEF What A naturalistic garden that invites discovery and relaxation. Where The Netherlands. Size 2,000 square metres. Soil Heavy clay. Climate Temperate, with significant rainfall throughout the year. Hardiness zone USDA 7. The brief for this garden was simple. The owners – a busy professional couple living in the Limburg region of the Netherlands – wanted a place to relax and connect with nature, family and friends. And they knew the perfect person to create it: Noël van Mierlo, the award-winning Dutch landscape gardener known for his nature-inspired contemporary gardens. The garden, they decided, would feature a canopied terrace, providing shelter from the frequent rain and offering uninterrupted views of the surrounding hills and fields. “Somewhere to rest and recharge – that’s the essence of a good garden,” says…

IN BRIEF Name The Farm at Doe Run. What Dairy farm with areas of private garden. Where Pennsylvania, USA. Size 700-acre farming estate with 25 acres of garden. Soil Clay loam over limestone. Climate Heatwaves are on the increase in summer, with high humidity; a long winter and cool spring has frosts persisting until May, followed by four months of intense growing. Hardiness zone USDA 6. The rolling hills of Chester County, Pennsylvania, remind many of theUK, and its mineralrich pasture has helped to mould this land into a kind of English idyll. At The Farm at Doe Run, prize cheeses are made with the help of beautifully managed Jersey and Normande cows, Nubian goats and East Friesian sheep. Estate buildings have a similarly high specification: stone dwellings that once…

DESIGN INSIGHT The brief The owners of this house on an impossibly steep site in the Sydney suburb of Cammeray had relatively modest expectations when they contacted Barbara Landsberg of Landsberg Garden Design. The house is built on a sandstone bluff, with an eight-metre drop from the house to the street. The owners wanted to replace the difficult, old stone steps from the house with something more appealing and practical, and to add some plants to the roof of the garage, which formed a flat area halfway up, to the side of the steps. On their ‘good to have if possible’ list were beds for edibles, a water feature and native plants that would thrive in the site’s northerly aspect, exposed to sun and wind. The design Barbara and creative…

ACROSS 6 Genus of herbs such as tansy – can mutate, unusually (9) 9 Genus of ‘Sago palm’ – sort of non-U yuccas! (5) 11 South African, two-lipped, colourful bedding plant – see main variety (7) 12 A yellow-flowered heuchera with coppery foliage – from fair-haired person, that is? (7) 13 Such burnt remains make excellent fertiliser (5) 15 Types of this bulb include ‘Rembrandt’ and ‘Parrot’ (5) 17 Honour awarded Monty Don in 2018 for services to horticulture, broadcasting and charity … in October (3) 18 A white-flowering masterwort (Peucedanum) – beloved of Chloe? (7) 20 Deep-pink, flavoursome, cherry tomato – found in Montrose, Llandudno (7) 22 Tree of eg Abies species (3) 23 Sap-sucking insect (5) 25 A purple ornamental allium with dome-shaped flowers; city of Florida (5)…

You can find plenty more events to enjoy by going to our online diary. Scan this QR code with your phone camera or go to gardensillustrated.com/events FESTIVAL Petal power Before we bid farewell to summer, there is a chance to revel in the best of British-grown seasonal flowers and foliage at the Flower Festival at Strawberry Hill House in Twickenham, London. Curators Leigh Chappell and Janne Ford have commissioned more than 30 UK-based floral designers and growers, including Bex Partridge of Botanical Tales, Electric Daisy Flower Farm and Hazel Gardiner, to fill the rooms of this Gothic-style house with sustainable foam-free designs that aim to challenge our perceptions of floristry. 22-24 September, £19 entry. Talks and workshops need to be booked separately. strawberryhillhouse.org.uk Talking point THE SMART CHOICE? Wouldn’t it…

DIG IN WISE WORDS D oes growing your own fruit and veg make sense, from an environmental or financial perspective? Yes it does, but exactly why takes some explaining. We’ll look at fruit in a minute, but let’s start with growing your own vegetables. The main costs involved are two: seeds and fertiliser. But first, note what’s not on that list: pesticides, and your time and effort. Pesticides make no sense at all; they’re expensive, take a lot of energy to manufacture and – other than in the very short term – don’t work. I’ve also taken the liberty of assuming, as you’re reading this magazine, that you garden for the fresh air, exercise and satisfaction; in other words, that you enjoy gardening. If you don’t, and are growing vegetables…

GARDEN COUNTRY Low, bright and brilliant Susie uses low-growing plants close by the house, planted in the complementary colours of orange and blue for dynamic contrast. The warm-toned gravel picks up on the stone of the lime-pointed walls. This and the California poppies make it feel sunny even on an overcast day. Pots of nicotiana and cosmos jostle by the front door and Mexican fleabane grows in cracks in the terrace. Gravel is the perfect medium for self seeders such as Lavandula angustifolia ‘Hidcote’, Viola cornuta Alba Group and aubrieta. The transition to the garden path is marked by lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis), which Susie cuts ruthlessly to ground level after flowering to prevent it self-seeding. She is equally tough with the lavenders, which she cuts back hard in spring,…

IN BRIEF Name Plantzoentje What A private ornamental garden. Where The Netherlands. Size 4,000 square metres Soil Sandy clay loam. Climate Temperate with high winter rainfall. Dry in summer. Hardiness zone USDA8a On the outskirts of the village of Albergen, in the eastern Dutch region of Twente, sits a colourful garden with the delightful name of Plantzoentje, which translates from the Dutch as ‘plant kiss’. It’s a name that typifies the warm humour of its creator Anja Broekhuis, and is perhaps an acknowledgement of the love she feels for this rural landscape. When she arrived in the mid-1980s, moving with her husband Wim to his family farm, she inherited a large kitchen garden and a smaller ornamental garden dominated by a large lawn, with conifers, heathers and box. It was,…

At the beginning of last year, I started working as a volunteer gardener at Great Dixter, and it’s no exaggeration to say that the experience has changed my life. I have loved this garden for as long as I can remember, drawn by its unique combination of high horticulture and beautiful Arts and Crafts structure. I’ve got a shelf full of books by Christopher Lloyd and I was part way through my second year of practical gardening courses at Dixter when the pandemic brought life to a screeching halt. Stuck at home, I wrote to ask if I could volunteer in the gardens and, a mere year later, I was offered a place. I felt like I had won the lottery – a lottery in which the prize involved setting…

It’s 2023 and we’ve accomplished many things: peat-free plug plants for sale in petrol stations, dandelions at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, and petitions against the sale of nonorganic pesticides to the public. And yet, sourcing affordable and inoffensive garden furniture still remains a profound challenge. This has long been a bugbear and sometime business pipe dream of mine, often swiftly snuffed out, for I am neither a businesswoman nor a furniture designer. My humble kingdom for a small, chic table for the gravel garden. Back in May, when summer turned up for a few weeks, I was emboldened by a cocktail and constructed something out of an old chimney pot and a marble slab. Four months later and it’s still in place; I’m yet to better it with actual…