Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2016 i The English Garden

Jenny Dalton Jenny writes regularly on design for the Financial Times’ How To Spend It magazine and the Evening Standard. Gardens are a growing passion. She visits Ellicar Gardens, on page 46. Jim Cable Jim is a Kew-trained plantsman and gardening journalist. His own garden, in rural Staffordshire, is a fusion of cottage style and Mediterranean planting. He picks plants for autumn colour, on page 75. Clive Nichols Clive Nichols is one of the country’s foremost garden photographers and this issue marks his 100th garden feature for the magazine, the frost-coated Ellicar Gardens, on page 46.…

SULBY GARDENS, NORTHAMPTON Spread across 12 acres, the Sulby Gardens contain a variety of remarkable features that are both beautiful and practical. The garden comprises a kitchen garden, orchard, 18th-century icehouse and a species-rich nature reserve including a woodland, a variety of ponds and established wildflower meadows. There are plant displays throughout the year, with November being the perfect time to visit for a peaceful walk through the changing colours of the garden. Both orchard and kitchen garden provide a surplus of fruit in winter and act as a food source for garden wildlife. Open for the NGS on Thursday 17 November, 1 - 4pm. Entry £4, children free. Sulby, Northhampton, Northamptonshire NN6 6EX. Find more gardens at ngs.org.uk.…

• This month is best for planting tulip bulbs, when cooler soil temperatures should reduce the risk of tulip fire, the fungal disease, affecting your bulbs. • Maintain herbaceous perennials in your garden by cutting back any yellowing or dead foliage and stems. Divide dense clumps of early summer-flowering perennials now to prevent overcrowding. • Dig up parsnips (above) from the ground only after the first frosts, when they will be sweeter. • If concerned about losing heat from the greenhouse, try insulating it with a layer of bubble wrap. • Switch blades to a taller cutting height if mowing the lawn. • Order bare-root trees and roses to plant during their dormant season this winter.…

SLENDER STEMS The sparing use of pampas grass pays dividends in this border, adding softness and structure to the loose stems of Cornus and Rhus. Adrian is an advocate of growing Cornus for the strong colour it brings to the garden in autumn, as well as for its winter stems. NEW VIEWS Adrian employs the technique of ‘crown lifting’ in the garden to extend scenes through the branches of prominent trees. Here, Betula ‘Mount Apoi’ has been shaped to open up scenes of a conifer collection. Sedum ‘Herbstfreude’ provides a colourful platform beneath. ADDING COLOUR The strong backdrop of conifers makes it easy for Adrian to create layers of colour throughout the garden. Fiery autumn colour from Hamamelis ‘Diane’ seems even more vibrant when it is planted behind the light…

SINUOUS CURVES Sarah uses a circular motif throughout the garden. Here, she commissioned a semicircular green oak bench to fit the stone circle that adjoins the curved stone steps that lead into the shallow end of the pool. Find similar benches at sustainable-furniture.co.uk LEAD THE EYE In a large garden, create longer-distance vistas with dramatic curving beds. Here, Miscanthus leads the eye to pathways beyond the planting. This works particularly well when leading towards a significant feature – in this case the goats’ paddock and border trees beyond. SILHOUETTES Varying the height of your planting – and contrasting tall and short perennials and grasses – means there is a great variety of silhouetted forms to catch the lower winter sun. If possible, position them where you know they will harness…

The elegant stucco and candy-coloured houses lining the streets of Notting Hill in west London often have long, narrow gardens – but there is one that is exceptionally wide. That is because garden designer Butter Wakefield (above) has skillfully merged two gardens together. Peter and Clare Fincham contacted Butter after they had bought the lower ground floor flat next door to their house. They were planning on merging the properties and wanted to combine the two gardens at the same time. Butter had been recommended by a friend, and they hit it off immediately. “I think chemistry with a garden designer is very important – I wanted it to feel like a partnership,” says Peter. Butter says Peter and Clare both have “a very good eye” but, of the two,…

• Crab apples will grow in any soil, but prefer not to be waterlogged nor to be too dry. If the soil is too rich, the trees are likely to grow at the expense of flowering. • Most like full sun, but can also cope with shade for part of the day. • Smaller varieties can be fruited in large pots, although they will need pruning in summer to restrict growth. • Weed, mulch and apply a seaweed solution in spring. • Spread compost in winter round the roots of the tree. • Pruning in winter is mostly remedial to get rid of dead wood and to encourage growth. • If you’re training a crab apple over an arch or on an espalier, then prune the uprights in summer to…

“How fair is a garden amidst the trials and passions of existence!” Politician and writer Benjamin Disraeli voiced the sentiments of many writers who found solace, inspiration or sanctuary in their respective gardens. For anyone engaged in such a fundamentally solitary occupation, gardens can provide both respite from the pressures of the world and a gentle, nuturing space in which to connect with nature. POETIC INSPIRATION Forever associated with the Old Vicarage at Grantchester, Rupert Brooke found poetic inspiration within the gardens there, while British writer Elizabeth von Arnim’s novels possessed a recurring theme of plants and flowers. She once enthused “the garden is the place I go to for refuge and shelter... there I feel protected and at home, and every flower is a friend.” No one knew the…

LEEDS CASTLE Maidstone, Kent ME17 1PL Tel: 01622 765400 | enquiries@leeds-castle.co.uk | www.leeds-castle.com The formal gardens at Leeds Castle have recently been presented with an award to recognise their contribution to tourism in the county at the Kent Life Garden of the Year Awards. The Leeds Castle gardens are an ever changing colourful canvas of beauty, tranquillity and interest from the Culpeper Garden, an English cottage-style garden with neat box hedges, irises, hollyhocks and roses, to the Lady Baillie Mediterranean Garden featuring exotic plants to create illusion and theatre to the ethereal Castle Island garden with its ancient feel. OPEN: All year round. ROUSHAM HOUSE & GARDEN Rousham, Bicester, Oxfordshire OX25 4QU Tel: +44 (0)1869 347110 | Website: www.rousham.org Rousham represents the first phase of English landscape design, and remains…

Vibrant winter gardens • Hyacinth displays in Audley End’s walled kitchen garden • A garden of magical topiary and evergreen interest in Kent • Kaleidoscopic winter stems at Wisley • The best gardens to visit during the colder months • How to make a Christmas wreath from garden greenery PLUS Growing citrus, choosing a conservatory, evergreen perennials for winter leaves and our guide to the best Christmas gifts for gardeners Don’t miss out. Buy single copies or subscribe now at theenglishgarden.co.uk  or telephone 01858 438854…

It is autumn’s final hurrah. Leaves are falling thick and fast but, before they do, the landscape blazes with their vibrant colours, and nowhere more so than Stobo Water Garden, in the Scottish Borders. Here, the spectacular autumn colour of Japanese maples is more than a match for astonishing cascading waterfalls created in the late-19th century. The Bressingham Gardens in Norfolk are no less impressive at this time of year, but here it is Adrian Bloom’s creatively cultivated conifers that contribute so much to those misty autumn mornings. At Bowood House in Wiltshire, the arboretum and mixed borders show how autumn interest can be sustained, the estate’s new trees and plantings in no way detracting from the Capability Brown landscape. And while some perennials may be fading now, there is…

WATER SCAPE Capability Brown appreciated the impact of water, and Bowood Lake is one of the finest creative examples of the harmony between landscape and water. It was built between 1763 and 1768 by constructing a monumental dam across the Whetham Brook. PERSONAL SERVICE Lakeside Cottage is also known as the Ferryman’s Cottage. Until the early 19th century it was occupied by the ferry man’s family, which was on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to transport those wanting to cross the newly flooded footpath. MADE TO MEASURE Gentle evening light draws out the honeyed hues in the stonework of Robert Adam’s Diocletian wing. Bowood’s Upper and Lower Terraces were created to resonate with the 3rd Marquess’ passion for Italy. The Irish yews, planted in about 1900,…

IT IS A CRISP, SUNNY, AUTUMN MORNING shortly after the first frosts and Georgina and Hugh Seymour are raking scarlet and gold leaves off the banks at Stobo, their water garden in Peeblesshire, Scotland. Bright light shafts between tall, dark conifers and filters through deciduous trees. Carpets of red, yellow and orange foliage scatter along winding paths, below trees and swirl, golden, below waterfalls. Above, the waters of the Weston Burn cascade from a white, painted trompe l’oeil bridge down a narrow gorge before rushing through rills, around moss-covered rocks and under Japanese-style bridges. “The garden is all about light, water and colour,” says Georgina. “Our main challenge is to be brave, keep vistas open and canopies raised so light can filter between the trees and shrubs and reflect in…

• Choose plants that stand tall and intact throughout autumn and the winter months, and which have good seedheads, for birds to feed on. My favourites include Iris sibirica, which has beautiful strong winter stems and dark seed heads, plus echinaceas, sanguisorbas, monardas and asters. • Pampas grasses are fabulous in autumn. Their white plumes add drama, especially against the red autumn leaves of Japanese maples. • The best grasses for autumn colour are molinias – they are like fireworks in the border. Molinia ‘Karl Foerster’ is tall, yellow and upright in autumn, and Molinia ‘Moorhexe’ turns a medium-toned butter yellow. • Some of the best autumn flowers include cultivars of Sedum spectabile, Anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’ for a pretty white contrast, and bright yellow Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’.…

• Garden design by Butter Wakefield. Tel: 07973 516149; butterwakefield.co.uk • Maintenance by Fabio Nalin. Tel: 07720 975897; fabiogardens.co.uk • Path lights and Starliter LED lights from John Cullen. Tel: 020 7371 9000; johncullenlighting.com • Bench supplied by Gaze Burvill. Tel: 01420 588444; gazeburvill.com • Wooden seats, W6 Garden Centre. Tel: 020 8563 7112; w6gardencentre.co.uk • Garden deckchairs from Barlow Tyrie. Tel: 01376 557600; teak.com • Planters supplied by Bronzino. Tel: 020 7370 4344; bronzino.co.uk…

Choosing hard landscaping materials can be complicated and it is easy to believe that price affects the aesthetic of the product. In some cases this is true but in most there is often a cheaper alternative, which looks just as good. I have a golden rule; good design should not be affected by budget. You can make a terrace out of high quality, machine-cut, six-sided York stone or you can use gravel. The area of hard landscaping remains the same; only the feeling underfoot changes. Start by choosing a product that suits your taste and works with the material from which the house is built. It is easy to get a sample these days so there should be no need to rush into a purchase at the showroom or quarry.…

‘Arbutus groweth in Italy, but hath leaves like the Quicken tree, a fruite lyke a strawberry, therefore it may be called the English Strawberry tree or an arbute tree’, wrote William Turner, in A New Herball of 1548. ‘Nearly a hundred years later it was discovered flourishing in south west Ireland, the most northerly outpost of this Mediterranean species, where, in Cork, Sligo and particularly in Kerry, it is more often found as a small tree than a shrub’, noted Geoffrey Grigson in his English Man’s Flora. It is said to have spread via Brittany to south-west Ireland in the early post-glacial period, surviving in a few favourable places after the climate cooled down. It is not only unusual for its choice of natural habitats but also because it flowers…

‘KARLEY ROSE’ One of the more upright forms of Pennisetum, ‘Karley Rose’ is distinctive and especially valued for its particularly bright shade of rose-pink flowers that can cover the foliage when in full bloom. Remarkably intricate when seen up close, and soft and fluffy to the touch, the cylindrically shaped flowers come to a gently drooping, tapered point which only adds to the overall attraction. Grown for its flowers rather than its shiny semi-arching leaves, this is best used in the middle of the border among taller and shorter neighbours where the flowers can be best appreciated. ‘FAIRY TAILS’ This is possibly my favourite of all the fountain grasses. With its wonderfully upright habit and enthusiastic flowering, it simply has to be admired. ‘Fairy Tails’ forms mounds of healthy looking,…

Botanicum By Katie Scott and Kathy Willis Big Picture Press, £20 Billed as a curated guide to plant life, this work might feel overwhelming even before its oversized cover is opened. But what lies inside is a beautiful and tremendously well written guide to plant life, from algae to the Amazon waterlily. Central to the simplicity and quality of this book are Katie Scott’s exquisite illustrations. Some pages of her art, such as a plate of orchids and bromeliads, will leave the reader hard pushed not to cut them out and frame them. The large format of the book fully does the illustrations justice. The title starts with a splendid double-page spread of an illustrated plant family tree, before splitting the illustrated plants into seven sections, starting with algaes and…

“A period of warm, dry weather around St Martin’s day will stave off that end-of-the-year feeling” November is the month of mists and memory, of falling leaves and muffled church bells. It is easy to succumb to the general air of melancholy. But there are still treasures in the garden for those who are not yet ready to hang up their trowels and retire indoors. Perhaps a St Martin’s summer – that period of warm dry weather that often comes around the time of St Martin’s day on 11 November – will stave off that end-of-the-year feeling. Many of those who walk the pilgrimage route to Compostela will have come across Martin, the 4th-century Bishop of Tours whose shrine can be found near the Camino in southern France. As a…

ROSA ‘KENT’ ‘Kent’ produces sporadic flowers well into autumn on a healthy, glossy-leaved bush that makes good ground cover. MALUS ‘EVERESTE’ A reliably ornamental crab apple, dripping with clusters of red, cherry-like fruit in autumn. Reaches up to 8m tall. DIPSACUS FULLONUM Teasels are great for wildflower gardens and attracting finches to its seedheads, but watch for their invasive tendencies. HYDRANGEA The skeletal seedheads of hydrangeas last well throughout winter, and are particularly decorative after frost. EUPHORBIA CHARACIAS Before its lime green bracts light up the spring garden, this Euphorbia contributes evergreen winter foliage. CORTADERIA ‘WHITE FEATHER’ Soft, plume-like pampas grass flowers shimmer in winter sunlight. Deadhead them when they start to look tatty. SEDUM ‘MATRONA’ Bronze-purple leaves are topped with pink…

At what stage in the life of the garden did you think that you would produce a book on the subject? We have kept significant records since the earliest days in 1976. Not only did we have the inevitable family photographs but as the different restorative projects began we created ‘before and after’ records. It is this collection that singles out Thenford from so many significant gardens in that most of them were built before the camera existed. The concept of telling and illustrating the story was in our minds from the outset. Of all the areas of garden you have overseen, which project gave you the most satisfaction on completion? To single out a part of the garden and arboretum is impossible. The changing seasons draw us to different…

Shed The shed, which measures 10m x 3.5m, was a collaborative effort between Butter, the architect working on the house, and Peter and Clare. It is made of green oak. As there is a height restriction on buildings in London gardens, steps lead down into the building to prevent the ceilings from feeling too low. Bulbs Every autumn, Butter plants tulip bulbs in what she calls lipstick colours and which Peter and Clare love. Most are lily-flowered varieties, as they are taller and can be seen from the house. They include ‘Ballerina’, ‘Burgundy’, ‘China Pink’, ‘Merlot’ and ‘Red Shine’. She doesn’t include white tulips in the mix, on the advice of Clive Nichols [who photographed this feature]: “He says white complicates the look.” White plays a key part in the…

Do you know where your materials are coming from? This is important if using a reclaimed material such as York stone. And if you are investing in Indian sandstone, which as the name suggests has been imported from India, it is crucial to consider not only the environmental impact and carbon footprint of importing such a material but also the ethics behind the way in which it is quarried, and by whom. Working conditions vary in India’s quarries, so choose a stone supplier that sources ethical products. Marshalls, for example, guarantees that no child labour has been used in the processing of their Fairstone range of ethically sourced Indian sandstone, and are members of the Ethical Trading Initiative. For more information see ethicaltrade.org…

Memories are the stuff of gardening. One of my earliest ones is of my mother making crab apple jelly in autumn, and hanging a stocking of the ripe fruit to drip over a basin on the marble shelf of our larder. But that tree, like all crab apples, was a joy year round. Looking back on a garden I left over 40 years ago, I think the tree was probably Malus ‘John Downie’, whose abundant ovoid red and orange-yellow crabs are among the best for making brilliantly coloured jelly. This spreading tree, growing to a height of 8m, can become rather gnarled in appearance, giving it character even in winter. That is one of the many advantages of crab apples: despite being deciduous trees, they offer interest over the course…

Gardeners often talk of putting the garden ‘to bed’ for winter, but even though plants themselves are winding down, there are plenty of autumnal tasks to get on with. Most are the kind that pay dividends in return for effort, setting the garden up for a fine show next year. The work doesn’t stop in gardens that close their doors to the public in winter either. At East Ruston Old Vicarage in Norfolk, Alan Gray and his team use the year’s quiet months to carry out the groundwork that enables the show-stopping summer displays at this garden. “At the end of October, the garden closes to visitors and while they may think we make a dash for exotic climes when the gates shut, this is when we redress the wear…

How would you describe the book? It is a collection of mini-biographies, the stories of people’s lives rather than their professional résumés. I wanted to communicate what kind of people these great garden makers were and are their backgrounds and talents and troubles. It is for people who say ‘I know the name but nothing about him or her’. How difficult was it to select only 40 gardeners? It was outrageously hard in some ways, but it was made much easier by the fact that I wanted these people to be real makers – gardeners and designers, professional or amateur – not simply the big-name garden owners. These are people whose talent directly created gardens, whether it was one or hundreds. In every case their influence has been huge. Who…

BLUEBELL ARBORETUM & NURSERY Specialists in hardy trees, shrubs and climbers including a huge selection of unusual and rare species and varieties. Expert advice is available from our helpful staff. The nursery is open to the public and surrounded by a lovely nine-acre woodland garden (RHS Partner Garden). Visitors are welcome all year round. Informative website and a reliable mail order service is available if you would like plants delivered. Tel: 01530 413700 sales@bluebellnursery.com | www.bluebellnursery.com Annwell Lane, Smisby, Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire LE65 2TA WOOTTENS PLANTS Established for 25 years, Woottens is a traditional nursery growing and selling over 600 different varieties of hardy perennials. We also stock some of the largest collections of Irises and Primula auriculas in England and specialise in Pelargoniums and Hemerocallis. We are…