Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2018 i The English Garden

Marianne Majerus Marianne is an internationally renowned garden photographer, whose images of Feeringbury Manor and Myddelton House gardens feature in this issue on pages 22 and 42. Geoff Stebbings Geoff trained at RBG Kew and was head gardener at Myddelton House, which he writes about on page 42, from 1984-89. He now lives and gardens in County Wexford, Ireland. Sarah Wain Australian-born Sarah trained in horticulture during the 1970s and has worked for the past 30 years in public and private gardens. Her new column on greenhouse gardening starts on page 97.…

Having repaired, cleaned and tidied, all that remains is to apply a few finishing touches. Don’t underestimate the strength of this task, even if your heart lies with the garden itself, rather than garden buildings. When planning how they will look, it can pay to think about how the room at hand will sit within the rest of the garden. Is the building attached to the house? Can it be viewed from the kitchen or sitting room window? Is it nestled against a border of a particular colour? Paint is both protective and decorative; try Cuprinol Garden Shades as well as the exterior paint options from Farrow & Ball, Little Greene and Mylands, which creates palettes in period shades. Any garden room can be enhanced with soft furnishings. Look to…

This year marks an important anniversary in women’s political history: it’s 100 years since Parliament passed the act that allowed some women (those over the age of 30) to vote for the first time. To celebrate this landmark, we start a new series in this issue, highlighting important women in our gardening history, beginning with the grande dame of English gardens, plantswoman and designer Rosemary Verey. That’s not the only new treat we have in store, either. Noel Kingsbury discovers the motivation and passions of a diverse group of National Plant Collection holders in his new feature, starting with hellebore grower Mike Byford. Meanwhile, another inspirational woman, West Dean Gardens curator Sarah Wain shares with us her invaluable advice on greenhouse growing, gained over three decades in horticulture, latterly looking…

SPRING FLOWERS SUNDAY 12 March, Devon This annual family event at North Devon’s Hartland Abbey treats visitors to delightful displays of daffodils, camellias, hellebores, wild primroses and violets. Entry £4. Tel: 01237 441496; hartlandabbey.com KEMPLEY DAFFODIL WEEKEND 17-18 March, Gloucestershire Take in local history, heritage churches and beautiful daffodils on a guided walk around Kempley’s famous Daffodil Way during this two-day event. The Daff & Ride bus transports elderly or disabled visitors to some of the breathtaking daffodil sites. kempleytardis.org.uk THRIPLOW DAFFODIL WEEKEND 17-18 March, Cambridgeshire Take your time and amble through the car-free village of Thriplow to view the daffodil displays, attractions, stalls and open gardens on show this weekend. Tel: 01763 209047; thriplowdaffodils.org.uk DAZZLING DAFFODILS 21–25 March, Kent Some 14,000 daffodils are set to bloom during Hever Castle’s…

When Zoe and Andrew Fenn moved into their Victorian terraced house, near Highbury, a few years ago, the first job they had to tackle was a kitchen extension. Then they turned their attention to the outdoor space, a tiny garden with very few plants and a rotten wooden deck. Both Zoe and Andrew are enthusiastic gardeners, but they were working full time and needed help to transform their garden into a space they could use and enjoy. Zoe is a keen vegetable grower and wanted a garden that had generous space for planting, and they both wanted somewhere to entertain, too. “Our brief wasn’t too prescriptive,” says Andrew. “We wanted to make the best possible use of a fairly small space and were happy to hand over creative licence. Planting…

Plantswoman and garden designer Rosemary Verey was known for creating gardens with traditional elements and beautiful planting. Her famous laburnum walk, at Barnsley House in the Cotswolds, is one of the most recognisable and iconic features in well-known British gardens. Up there with the massed containers outside Great Dixter’s front porch, or Sissinghurst’s White Garden, it’s a classic image that deserves its place in the annals of garden history. This year marks the centenary of her birth, but the gardens she created are timeless. Their classic design is as covetable now as it always was, an expression of quintessential English country garden style that will never go out of fashion. The laburnum walk at Barnsley House is an example of what Verey, renowned for her classic English country garden design,…

Wood anemones have a wonderful sense of timing, opening once ‘spring proper’ arrives. They’re gentle characters, with ferny foliage and nodding flowers that raise their heads only when spring sunshine warms them up. They spread equally gently, filling in the gaps between showier plants such as oriental hellebores, and they thrive under deciduous trees and shrubs before retreating underground for their summer sleep. Brian and Steph Ellis, of Avondale Nursery, near Coventry, have a Plant Heritage National Collection of Anemone nemorosa. In spring, huge hernia-inducing display pots sit on sturdy staging, and you’ll usually find about 40 varieties for sale, many not available anywhere else. Brian began collecting them about 15 years ago. “There’s definitely a stamp collector in me somewhere, so I just keep buying them and swapping them.…

Historically, in a glasshouse range, like that at West Dean, a number of fruit houses were built to grow figs, dessert grapes, peaches, nectarines and potted fruit. We still produce most of these crops today and one of the early seasonal tasks is to hand pollinate the beautiful blossom of peaches and nectarines, such as the luscious crimson-fruited peach, ‘Duke of York’, or yellow-fleshed nectarine ‘Pineapple’ (pictured right in bloom). These are fan trained against the back walls or in one house, trained on a structure near the glass as well to double the productivity of the space. These fruit trees flower early, but on dull cool days in late February and early March, there might not be many pollinating insects flying about to fertilise the flowers. To help the…

Using simple shapes taken from nature in the form of shells and pebbles or cut pieces of smalti, a richly coloured specialist glass manufactured in Venice, artist David James creates mosaic features that fit so seamlessly into his clients’ gardens that they appear to have been there for ever. “The work is always part of an environment, so I need to be aware of what is already there, whether that’s architectural references, the hard landscaping or the planting,” explains David. Describing himself as “an artist who happens to make mosaics, sculptures and other garden features”, he completed a degree in graphic design at Leeds Metropolitan University before embarking on a career in commercial design. While he was ascending the corporate ranks, he retained his enthusiasm for drawing and painting, and…

How many graveyards did you visit and over what length of time? Over the years, I must have seen many hundreds, if not thousands, of graveyards because they have fascinated me since my childhood and I find it hard to pass one by without a visit. I have probably seen a hundred while writing the book, but they are all so different, each having its own unique qualities, that it is impossible to single out one as the most interesting. Why do churchyards provide such important habitats for plants and animals? They are important in providing habitat because they are isolated from the surrounding area by virtue of being enclosed and, in many cases, having been relatively undisturbed for centuries. Many churchyards represent microcosms of local landscapes with floras and,…

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.comAnnwell Lane, Smisby, Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire LE65 2TA SPRING REACH NURSERY Spring Reach Nursery grows a fantastic range of clematis, trees, hedging, ferns, shrubs, fruit, perennials, roses, climbers and grasses. STARRING NOW Coprosma ‘Pacific Sunset’, Daphne ‘Jacqueline Postill’, Leucothoe, Hamamelis, Skimmia and Nandina Visit one of Surrey’s finest nurseries – a gardener’s paradise!…

What do you love about working in the garden? There is something rather special about the gardens here at Myddelton. I hear it time and time again from staff, volunteers and visitors – when you walk through the gates you breathe a sigh of relief from the hustle and bustle of the world outside, and you leave feeling calm and revitalised. It’s a real honour to work in a garden that so many people hold so dear and a daily delight to work somewhere with such a wealth of history. What is the biggest challenge? The biggest is getting people into the garden for the first time. Most people are familiar with our neighbours at Forty Hall or Capel Manor and, although we like being called Enfield’s best-kept secret, we…

When spring is almost palpable, the sun brighter and the birds louder, the desire to be in the garden can be overwhelming. One way to make the best use of this in-between period is to tidy up garden buildings before the growing season begins in earnest. Now is the time to oil the sticking hinge ignored last summer, to sluice accumulated debris from glass panes so the sun can reach seedlings, sort out and tidy up pots, and even replace tired furnishings in summerhouses. By the time your rounds are complete, the new season will be well under way and your energies can be directed to where they will be most useful.…

GERANIUM Hardy geraniums are exactly the kind of plants Verey liked to use: mounds of soft green foliage that act as a fresh foil for bulbs in spring, followed by plentiful flowers in her favourite shades of pink, blue and mauve. Try Geranium magnificum for large, reliable, vigorous clumps, bearing violet flowers in late spring. CAMPANULA The peach-leaved bellflower, Campanula persicifolia, has tall spikes of violet or white flowers with charming, old-fashioned cottage-garden style. They’re ideal for sunny borders, where they will seed about and weave airily among other plants. Try them around roses or clumps of herbaceous peonies. AQUILEGIA Granny’s bonnets, or Aquilegia vulgaris, are a typical English country garden plant, seeding around to add splashes of colour among borders, while their fresh green leaves are among the first…

“I remember going for a walk at Anglesey Abbey, in Cambridgeshire, in the depths of winter,” Mike Byford recalls, “and seeing this flower, a white spotted thing... I just had to ask what it was. From then on, I was hooked.” So began Mike’s love affair with hellebores, which has now blossomed into him being a National Collection holder for Plant Heritage. “I’m inclined to suffer from seasonally affected depression,” he says, “and being outdoors in winter and working with hellebores has helped a lot.” Mike, a career biologist, has been a keen amateur gardener since his late twenties. “I found it a good way of dealing with work-related stress. I started by completely re-doing the garden of my first house.” Once he discovered hellebores, he threw himself into finding…

What to grow in your glasshouse can be a dilemma, an absolute joy or shades in between. At West Dean, the decision is permanently made in some houses, such as the fruit houses, where trees last tens of years, and in the case of one old fig even more than 100. The display comes first from the peach flowers in spring, the elegant training of the branches and laterals, the development of fruitlets and the ripening fragrant fruit in summer. Here are a few ideas to consider for displays at this time of year. VIBRANT COLOUR Lachenalia, a bulb from South Africa, makes a wonderful early display in brightly lit, unheated or frost-free glass. Several bulbs in a small pot, say 12cm, of quick draining, grit-enriched compost will flower…

Double Flowers by Nicola Ferguson, Pimpernel Press, £30 When garden writer Nicola Ferguson died in 2007, she had written a couple of popular books – Right Plant, Right Place; Take Two Plants – and was halfway through a third. Thanks to the completion of the latter by Charles Quest-Ritson, Double Flowers brings to the fore our taste for these genetic anomalies over millennia. And they are anomalies. E A Bowles reputedly examined the flowers of Geranium pratense for rare double-flowering that he could propagate vegetatively, the stamens often having been replaced by petal-like structures. From this introduction follows a survey of some of the most striking forms. There are doubles such as Helianthemum ‘Mrs C.W. Earle’ and Primula ‘Katy McSparron’ in a chapter considering the quaint and the charming; formal…

THE MANOR The Manor, Hemingford Grey, PE28 9BN Tel: 01480 463134 | e-mail diana_boston@hotmail.com | www.greenknowe.co.uk Approaching from the river towpath, visitors get a glimpse of the long herbaceous borders filled with mainly scented plants of year-round interest. The 3 1/2 acre garden, laid out by Lucy Boston, also contains Coronation and chess topiary, Lucy’s beautiful collection of old roses and award-winning irises. It is bordered by a moat and the river Great Ouse. The Medieval house is open by appointment. OPEN: Daily throughout the year, 11am to 4pm (dusk in winter). Adults £5, Seniors £4.50, Children free. House open by pre-booked appointment: Adults £8, Seniors £7, Children £3 HEVER CASTLE & GARDENS Hever, Edenbridge, Kent TN8 7NG Tel: 01732 865224 | www.hevercastle.co.uk Follow a snowdrop trail through the grounds…

Given that dogs seem to be turning into the stars of television gardening programmes, I feel impelled to speak up on behalf of cats. Not that I have anything against dogs. Many of my friends and neighbours have dogs, and I love them all very much (both friends and their dogs). But I have always had cats, for a variety of reasons: sometimes they were wished upon me by friends going to live abroad or moving into upstairs flats; sometimes they invited themselves, arriving hungry and homeless on the doorstep, insisting on becoming part of the family; some were bereaved, and needed a new home; some were feral cats who took up residence of their own accord in the garden, and were initially glimpsed only from afar, a stripe of…