Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2023 i The English Garden

Anna Omiotek-Tott North London-based photographer Anna has a background in garden design and art history. She finds both nature and culture in beautiful English gardens such as Borde Hill, on page 22. Joe Wainwright Joe is an award-winning garden, heritage and tourism photographer. He is based in North East Wales and works throughout the UK. His photos of apple grower Tom the Apple Man are on page 105. Joanna Fortnam For 15 years Joanna was gardening editor of The Daily Telegraph. She grew up on a family-run commercial glasshouse nursery in Gloucestershire, not far from Bourton House, which she visits on page 32.…

Alan Gray The radio personality has developed the exquisite gardens at East Ruston Old Vicarage in Norfolk with his husband Graham Robeson I was born into a farming family and we grew our own food. My grandmother had a lovely tradition where she gave each of her grandchildren a plant from her garden when they got their own home. I still have the peony she gave me; it’s not of great merit, but it has lots of sentimental value. I started out in television and then became an antiques dealer. I gave it up when my partner Graham and I bought extra land at East Ruston Old Vicarage. I remember we walked across this vast expanse in the middle of winter. We looked at each other and said: “What the…

Low-maintenance; handsomely evergreen; fragrant flowers: all these are attributes of the various kinds of mahonia, and all are exactly the sort of qualities you’d want from a winter-interest plant. Yet you are more likely to find this stalwart being described as ‘boring’, ‘spiny’ or, most damning of all, ‘a car park shrub’. “They do get a bad press,” agrees Fran Clifton, head gardener at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens in Hampshire. “But that’s because the more common ones are the big blobby evergreens with large spiny leaves. They can actually be extremely delicate in their foliage and they flower in different tones, from pale whites and creams all the way through to bright orange and fiery burnt marmalade. From a professional gardening point of view, they are extremely useful,” she…

Somehow we have reached the November issue already, the issue that traditionally triggers in me a feeling that my garden might be lacking in the autumn colour department. It is hardly surprising, having spent four weeks immersed in gardens such as Borde Hill in West Sussex, with its historic collection of trees aglow with their turning autumnal foliage, and Thenford in Oxfordshire, where Lord Michael Heseltine has planted a diverse arboretum of colourful trees, one of the country’s finest. Not to mention Bourton House, where the hues of falling leaves are joined by a dazzling array of late-flowering plants. Last issue I mentioned how autumn will always be second to spring in terms of my favourite season, but it’s dawned on me that my planting mirrors this bias. I’m dangerously…

On a chilly but bright late-autumn day, a brazier crackling with blackening logs becomes the garden’s beating heart. While the rest of the garden readies itself for bed, we pull on our wellies, pad across the grass and enjoy a hot toddy, warmed by the flames, ready to embrace the arrival of winter. Large outdoor brazier, £276.25. Tel: 0330 3332123; coxandcox.co.uk ALL PRICES ARE CORRECT AT THE TIME OF GOING TO PRESS.…

The best view of the 17th-century garden at Culross Palace in Fife is from the top terrace perched high above the steeply sloping, dramatically walled space behind the buildings. Reached via flights of vertiginous stone steps, it offers a striking, southerly view over the geometrically laid out beds of mixed herbs and vegetables below, all set against the ochre limewashed palace with its red pantile roof. Beyond it lies the vast expanse of the Firth of Forth with the modern outline of industrial buildings on the far shore west of Edinburgh. It’s a sight that stands in striking contrast to the 17th-century Royal Burgh of Culross with its narrow, winding, cobbled streets. “Visitors are surprised by the garden,” says head gardener Louise Arnot, who has been in post since 2015.…

In the 1990 film Green Card, horticulturist Brontë Parrish finds the New York apartment of her dreams. Its knock-out feature is a gorgeous plant-filled rooftop conservatory, complete with a tinkling fountain and luxuriant tree ferns; to me it’s all too believable that she should enter into an illegal marriage simply to get her hands on it. Given a few caveats, the romantic idea of having a conservatory filled with exotic plants is far from Hollywood fiction. The ideal conservatory for most people is a place where plants and living space integrate without fuss, but most modern structures are made, in the first instance, for people. Employed as a double-glazed extension to living space, they are far more likely to serve as a dining room, an extra lounge or kitchen than…

AUTUMN PLANTING The gardens at Bressingham, near Diss in Norfolk – the late Alan Bloom’s Dell Garden and son Adrian Bloom’s Foggy Bottom – are known for their inspirational combinations of plants, and a year-round supply of colour and interest, but autumn is perhaps one of the best times of year to visit. “Autumn is a strong season,” says Adrian, of his garden, Foggy Bottom. “I’ve purposely developed it with autumn in mind. The year-round aspect has always been something I’ve promoted, so if a plant has good autumn colour, I’ve tended to go with it.” As a result, it’s a colourful time of year with plenty of ideas to offer should your garden need a seasonal boost. Bressingham Gardens, Low Road, Diss, Norfolk IP22 2AA. Visit thebressinghamgardens.com and foggybottomgarden.co.uk…

SARAH RAVEN Despite the vegetable garden starting to look and feel wintery, we’re able to pick something for almost every meal in November and December. There is such a range of produce out there that will grow happily for us, even now. I can’t deny that some of the winter-hardy plants are far more abundant grown under glass, so if you have a coldframe, greenhouse, polytunnel or even a series of glass or plastic cloches, do use them. We grow a mix of salads and hardy annual herbs in our glasshouse here, but certainly in Sussex this protection is not essential. The most cold-resistant of these greens, such as parsley, mizuna, mustard ‘Red Giant’ and American land cress, may falter under snow or after several successive days of frost, but…

TO CONCLUDE I was determined to choose trees that were already a little aged – trees that would look as if they had been there a while. The trees needed to be reasonably small, look good throughout the year and work well as part of the borders I was designing at the church of St Mary The Boltons in South Kensington. After the usual period of agonised research, I chose a quartet of multi-stem medlar trees to create a handsome framework around the lawn and an energising stepping-off point for the rest of the planting. The medlar (Mespilus germanica) is a beautiful tree with large, rich green leaves – like a tree painted by Henri Rousseau – and lovely white flowers in May, like apple blossom but three times the…

As autumn cedes to winter, the paving by the back door remains dark and wet even on sunny days. Everything is glistening with moisture, from the spiders’ webs that span the borders to the colourful rugs of fallen leaves below the ginkgo and the Japanese maple. The body of soil in the Deanery garden will only slowly relinquish the heat of summer, and water and warmth help any new plants in the garden establish a good root system before they hunker down for the season ahead. Time to make a change either side of the path that leads to our front door. The Deanery’s cottagey frontal symmetry has the feel of a country parsonage. The borders in the front garden are accordingly informal and planted with a tapestry of garden…

Borde Hill is a rich and complex garden with many different aspects. It sits on the edge of the High Weald in West Sussex, looking north towards the dramatic 1840s Ouse Valley Viaduct and south across rolling parkland towards Haywards Heath, both vistas ablaze with colour in autumn. Its almost unsurpassed collection of rare trees and shrubs, assembled in the first half of the 20th century by an inspired plantsman, Colonel Stephenson Robert Clarke, is still in private hands. These trees and shrubs, almost all of botanical importance, are spread over 35 acres of formal gardens and woodland and 380 acres of Grade II* listed parkland. Borde Hill is also beautifully designed, with a series of semi-enclosed gardens that flow seamlessly from one to the next. Colonel Clarke bought the…

TOP 10 PLANTS Near Bedale in the Yorkshire Dales, the arboretum at Thorp Perrow offers year-round appeal but is especially beautiful in autumn. The collection includes 51 Champion Trees, the appellation given to the widest or tallest specimens of their kind in the country, as well as the National Collections of Tilia, Fraxinus, Cotinus, Laburnum and Juglans. Thorp Perrow is the creation of Sir John Ropner, who developed the estate bought by his father Colonel Sir Leonard Ropner, and passed it on to current custodians, Sir Henry and his wife, Natasha. Here, Thorp Perrow’s curator, Faith Douglas, suggests ten good trees for autumn colour. Thorp Perrow Arboretum, Bedale, North Yorkshire DL8 2PS. Tel: 01677 425323; thorpperrow.com 1 Acer griseum Native to China and introduced to the UK by Ernest…

TECHNIQUES Of all the sweet peas, ‘Cupani’ is probably the most fragrant. This old-fashioned, short-stemmed variety has modest yet beguiling cerise and purple petals, and renowned breeder Roger Parsons gives it a score of six out of six for scent. It’s reputed to be the original sweet pea sent in 1699 by Francesco Cupani, Sicilian monk and naturalist, to a cleric, Dr Robert Uvedale of Middlesex. “Actually, it was introduced in the 1990s,” says Roger, gently but frankly, in the way of specialists everywhere. “‘Matucana’ also has this attribution, but they’re both improved forms of the wild species Francesco Cupani sent over.” Roger Parsons, holds the National Collection of Sweet Peas (Lathyrus odoratus) and other Lathyrus species, comprising over 1,300 types. Roger and his staff not only maintain this collection,…

NURSERIES Nestled in the rolling countryside of North Shropshire, close to the border with Wales, is Tom Adams’ fruit tree nursery. These border lands, often referred to as the Welsh Marches, have a rich history of fruit growing, but the impact of two World Wars, the growth of intensive agriculture, the rise of supermarkets and cheap food imports all contributed to the demise of orchards in the 20th century. Tom, however, is one of a burgeoning number of growers who are taking a sustainable and holistic approach to tending land. “I had been working as a jobbing gardener for years when a client asked me to prune some of their fruit trees,” says Tom. “I wasn’t really sure what to do, so I went on a few courses, read lots…