Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2023 i The English Garden

Liz Ware Liz is a garden writer, historian, photographer, and the founder of registered charity, Silent Space. She has an allotment in South Oxfordshire and visits the garden of Dreamers Cottage on page 51. Heather Edwards Heather is a garden designer and garden photographer based in Somerset. She has been photographing gardens for 18 years and regularly works with designers. Her images of New House Farm are on page 33. Derek St Romaine Derek is one of the UK’s leading garden photographers and has specialised in horticulture for the past 35 years, after working as an art director. His images of a Cheshire garden can be found on page 61.…

Dan Pearson The visionary garden designer on a career spent working meaningfully to enrich our landscapes and increase biodiversity We were a family of makers: my parents taught art and they were always gardening. Mum grew vegetables and my dad was good with colour. They spent a lot of time with us as kids talking about how to get the most out of it. It was never just a hobby, and when I was five we moved down the lane to a house with an acre of overgrown garden, which became my project. I trained at Wisley, but I didn’t find my tribe until I joined the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. A group of us secured an alpine garden scholarship and went across the Pyrenees and the Picos de Europa…

The modern English country garden is evolving, and awareness of the role large gardens play as pieces in the patchwork of the wider countryside is increasing. New House Farm, in the heart of Somerset, is a prime example of this change of perspective. From its humble beginnings as working farmland, New House Farm has grown in tandem with its bucolic surroundings without sacrificing its sleek modernity and style. Nestled among rolling hills, the garden’s different levels rise and fall between flat terraces of grass and a stunning swimming pool. Classic country plantings of soft pastel perennials give the garden a relaxed and unassuming air, while box balls and trimmed beech hedges add an element of sophistication. Large areas of grass grow wild and shaggy, while majestic mature trees coexist alongside…

The creation of a garden is often about making connections. Forging links between indoor and outdoor spaces and the people who inhabit them. The point is perfectly illustrated by this red-brick cottage set in the undulating Cheshire countryside. Over the years in which they have lived here, its owners have progressively renovated the house to create a much-loved family home. But once their children had grown and there was no longer any need to accommodate trampolines and football pitches, they felt it was time to turn their attention to enhancing the garden. Local garden designer Janine Crimmins was contacted following a recommendation that she might be the perfect choice to help the owners achieve their vision. “We promote ourselves as specialising in an English country garden style,” explains Janine. “It’s…

TOP 10 PLANTS A good climbing rose will turn walls, arches and even outbuildings into eye-catching features to look forward to year after year. Few know a good climbing rose better than Ian Limmer, nursery manager at Peter Beales, the Norfolk rose specialists. Ian joined Peter Beales Roses as a Saturday boy in 1977, after which he took a three-year apprenticeship learning from Peter himself. Ian was appointed nursery manager in 1985 and today heads the hybridising programme at Peter Beales Roses, selecting the best seedlings to be sold as new releases. With the benefit of his years of experience, here he suggests ten excellent climbing roses. Peter Beales Roses, London Road, Attleborough, Norwich, Norfolk NR17 1AY. Tel: 01953 454707; classicroses.co.uk 1 ‘Clarence House’ Flowering throughout summer, “this shorter climber…

If just one vegetable were chosen to symbolise the output of the kitchen garden, it would surely be the enormous, ribbed, deep orange ‘Rouge Vif D’etampes’, known in some quarters as the Cinderella pumpkin. Where kitchen gardens exist at all, they often play second fiddle to more obviously decorative and even haughty ornamental gardens, but given a chance, these valuable spaces can be every bit as beautiful and deserving of appreciation. Creating a good working kitchen garden requires, however, a special attentiveness. Most vegetables we grow are annuals and so must be sown and planted each year; each has its own set of idiosyncrasies that must be learnt; and for a constant supply of vegetables all year round, year in and year out, you’ll need to become adept at succession…

In association with Thousands of gardens across the country, large and small, of every shape and variety, open their gates each year for the National Garden Scheme to help raise funds for the nursing and health charities the Scheme supports. We want to know which of those gardens you most love to visit so we can share the stories of your favourites and reward the hard work of their talented and creative owners. Nominate any garden that opens for the Scheme this year, whether you’re its owner or an admiring visitor. Once nominations have closed in mid July, our judges will select a shortlist of gardens for each of the six National Garden Scheme regions: Wales and the Marches; North; Midlands; East; South East; and South West. Then we’ll ask…

If you visited the Chelsea Flower Show or watched any of its TV coverage, the fact that several of its show gardens featured weeds won’t have escaped you. My garden is the second one I’ve had that was chock-full of weeds when I took it on. Anyone who, like me, has had to hack their way through bramble thickets and doggedly remove bindweed, thistles and docks just to be able to plant a few things they actually want to grow may well be looking on with faint horror. Gardening is intervention, and if we want to grow cultivated plants, getting on top of dominant, invasive ‘weeds’ is necessary. That said, attitudes are changing – note the apostrophes around the word weeds! After all, they are plants too, just growing somewhere…

Long evenings perfumed with the scent of sweet peas and chilled white wine to sip; the summer garden is a haven to celebrate, whether you’re hosting a joyous barbecue with friends or an intimate dinner to watch the sky turn pink with the setting sun. A floral tablecloth is a lovely canvas for meaningful events. Spring Garland tablecloth, from £65. Tel: 07377 084269; sarahk.co.uk…

No historic garden stands in isolation; it evolves unhurriedly at the whim of each generation, and it’s no different at La Seigneurie on Sark. “The gardens reflect the people who have lived and gardened here, and what you see today is an accumulation of all their ideas alongside artefacts that reveal tantalising glimpses into the island’s history,” says Christopher Beaumont, the 23rd Seigneur of Sark, a titular role since 2008 when islanders voted for democracy in place of a feudal system that had lasted since Elizabethan times. Since moving to La Seigneurie with his wife, Sarah, in 2016, Christopher has focused on the neglected two acres to the back of the house, with its woodland and serpentine lake. “This is where I played as a child,” he recalls. “The walled…

PLANT FOCUS It’s a struggle to think of a plant that’s as useful and hardworking as a hardy geranium. A huge proportion of gardeners must surely grow them, yet they never seem overused – just ever-popular. This is testament to what superb garden plants they are, something that is in part down to the fact that they’re so straightforward to grow. “They don’t need any attention at all,” says Sue Clarke, who is a Plant Heritage National Collection holder of Geranium sylvaticum and G. renardii. Sue’s first geraniums came from her mother – the ease with which hardy geraniums can be dug up and divided means this is often the way, and many plants are imbued with memories of friends and family. “My mother was a great plantswoman. She didn’t…

TECHNIQUES One of the most profound aspects of growing plants is the way in which they can be so easily multiplied. Depending on the material, you can collect seed, divide, layer and take different types of cuttings. Internodal cuttings are the best way to propagate clematis, and if a friend has a plant you like the look of, you might ask their permission to reach for the secateurs. Better still, if you are serious about propagation, try a razor blade. “We find a razor blade to be superior even to a scalpel for this job because it gives an extremely clean cut,” says Andy Jeanes of Raymond Evison Clematis, the Guernsey breeder and grower, which sells around 3.5 million clematis plants a year in the UK and elsewhere. “We take…

PARTERRES Parterres have played a part in English gardens across the centuries. They’re a progression from the knot gardens of medieval and Elizabethan eras, and some garden historians believe they became particularly fashionable in the first half of the 17th century when Henrietta Maria, newly married to King Charles I, brought her favourite landscape designer over from France to remodel her English gardens in a more opulent French style. Elaborate parterres had been popular in France since the end of the 16th century when Claude Mollet designed complex patterned gardens at the royal palaces of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Fontainebleau. The word itself is French, meaning ‘on the ground’ – these features were usually built on a level part of the garden close to the house so they could be viewed from…

The Deanery garden is reaching peak abundance. Amid the hazy froth of plants, I appreciate the ‘vertical accents’ as designers like to call spike-shaped blooms. They serve to punctuate the borders and break up the mounds. By giving the eye somewhere to rest, they slow down our visual assessment of a garden and thereby increase our pleasure in it. Hollyhocks and acanthus are classic examples of this. I grow Veronica longifolia ‘Marietta’, which is smaller in scale with densely packed purple spires, and Verbascum blattaria f. albiflorum – a biennial that self-seeds. My plant of the moment is Sanguisorba hakusanensis ‘Lilac Squirrel’, not quite a ‘vertical’, since the flowering ‘tails’ that inspired the wonderful cultivar name are somewhat droopy. It is definitely an accent plant though by virtue of its…

Gardening with the future of the planet in mind is important to many of us. It’s something horticulturists Louise Allen and Piers Newth have been practising for two decades at Dreamers Cottage, in the Oxfordshire hamlet of Little Haseley. “We were aware that the world was heading for an environmental ‘car crash’,” says Louise. “We wanted to live a more sustainable life, but to do it in a beautiful way.” Evidence of sustainable beauty can be found throughout the third of an acre garden surrounding their thatched cottage. From the paths, gates and fences to the rescued and renovated tools that tend the produce, everything plays a part in their vintage tool business, Garden and Wood. Louise and Piers met as students at RHS Wisley. Years later, while working in…

If ‘summer’ and ‘afternoon’ are the two most beautiful words in the English language, as Henry James wrote, owning good garden furniture to make the most of those warm, languid hours is practically a duty. From folding deckchairs to hammocks and swing seats, with more formal sofa sets in between, there’s garden furniture to suit all manner of lounging. Different materials bring different looks to a garden. This is a truism but give some thought to the influence furniture will have. Generally inexpensive, and improved with squishy cushions, cane is widely available – try Tikamoon (tikamoon.co.uk), Hadeda (hadeda.co.uk) for designs handmade in Malawi, or, for instant patina, the second-hand goods portal Vinterior (vinterior.co). Synthetic rattan is practical, and widely used in outdoor sofas and chairs. Bramblecrest (bramblecrest.co.uk) and Kettler (kettler.co.uk),…

SUMMER HEIGHTS As an expression, ‘flat as a pancake’ usually carries negative connotations – a deflated tyre, an unrisen cake. It’s not something anyone wants to hear said about their garden’s borders. We have moved on from the way traditional herbaceous borders used to be planted, with the tallest plants at the back sloping down to the smallest at the front, instead preferring to mix plants up in a less regimented, rigid way. But ‘flat’ planting, where everything has somehow ended up at the same height or level, can lead to visual monotony. Rather than replant the entire border, there’s an easy fix to break things up and introduce height: a well-placed obelisk or two will do the trick. Instantly adding style, even when they’re on their own and unclothed…

WEEDS & WEEDING Creeping, climbing, trailing, shallow-rooted or deep-reaching, annual or perennial: weeds are regularly encountered by just about anyone who gardens. Generally the first reaction is to uproot them, but something else is also true: one gardener’s weed is another gardener’s treasure. Well, almost. “I have a kind of ‘swingometer’ of where we are on invasive plants, from Japanese knotweed at one end to wildflowers at the other,” says Jack Wallington, designer and author of Wild About Weeds: Garden Design with Rebel Plants. “But everyone’s list of weeds is completely different,” he adds. “Herb Robert is one of my absolute favourites. It will grow in the deepest shade and has lovely pink flowers, but for some reason it has ended up on the weed list.” Another of Jack’s favourites…

TO CONCLUDE It is the ferns that gladden my heart. Every time I return to Wales I am amazed all over again at their lushness. Arm-long fronds of hart’s tongue fern spilling onto the road under mild watery skies, fresh green male-fern confidently peopling a cobbled courtyard, delicate starfishes of maidenhair spleenwort darting across stone walls. If you are lucky enough to have a sheltered garden and plentiful rain, the opportunities for fern-fuelled texture and exuberance are open-ended. In the Garden-in-the Ruins at Lowther Castle in Cumbria, Dan Pearson uses the stately Dryopteris wallichiana as an elegant, repeated vase-shape amid a soft, flowing sea of Hakonechloa macra. This is punctuated by pale-flowered Cornus ‘Norman Hadden’ and distinguished stands of Campanula latifolia var. macrantha ‘Alba’ – a white campanula that looks…