Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2024 i The English Garden

Alan Gray Alan is known for his originality, theatricality and rule-breaking in horticulture. His garden at East Ruston Old Vicarage, which he writes about on page 22, echoes that ethos, with visitors coming from across the world. Jill Anderson Jill is a writer and award-winning garden designer specialising in planting design and how the changing climate is affecting gardens. She visits Moleshill House, the garden of Penny Snell, on page 48. Matthew Bruce Matthew is based in West London and has been photographing gardens for more than a decade. His strong interest in history flows through into his garden and landscape work. His images of Town Place are on page 40.…

Tony Hall Kew’s Head of Arboretum & Temperate Collections on how gardens’ winter scent and colour inspired his most recent book My arrival at Kew in 1999 was a moment of pure fate. My late wife and I had three children, and when our fourth arrived my wife was desperate to go back to work. So we decided that I would look after our son. A job came up at Kew for a paper picker. I lived just down the road so I thought it would be brilliant to gain access to their beautiful grounds. I got a letter back saying I was overqualified, which I’d expected, but surprisingly they offered me the job as a part-time gardener. I leapt at the chance and have been there for 25 years.…

I would have been nine in 1986, when my hometown of Birmingham held its first Superprix, a street circuit motor race through the city centre. In a clear sign of things to come, I couldn’t have cared less about the race – but I was captivated by the crocus spelling out ‘Birmingham Superprix’ in block capitals on a sloping bank alongside Bristol Street. I recall being glued to the car window whenever we drove into town in subsequent springs, desperate to glimpse those orange, white and purple goblets opening out to form the huge letters. The Superprix lasted only five years, but apparently, the crocus are still there. I’m sure Dutch crocus were responsible for me forever associating a busy Birmingham road with these early flowering bulbs. ‘Dutch crocus’ is…

Following the success of last summer’s ‘Wonders of the West’ tour of Somerset and Dorset’s must-see gardens, we’re delighted to team up with Sisley Garden Tours again for another wonderful garden holiday. ‘Marvels of Monmouthshire’ takes in the lovely scenery of this part of the world and a selection of special gardens in their full summer glory, many of which have been featured on the pages of this magazine. The itinerary for our ‘Marvels of Monmouthshire’ tour has been arranged to make the most of the location without making you feel rushed. One beautiful garden opens its gates to you followed by another – in a schedule that would be hard to replicate without Sisley’s behind-the-scenes access. The base is Abergavenny’s award-winning Angel Hotel, so you can expect good food…

Since this issue will arrive with you as 2024 gets underway, we’ve taken inspiration from Janus, the god of beginnings, transitions and time, who looks both forwards and back. Our gardens have all featured in our pages in the past, but we revisit them here and take a closer look at how they’ve developed over time, and how they’re changing now their owners have new challenges to contend with. At Parham House in Sussex, rampaging bindweed proved the catalyst for a rethink of the walled garden’s beautiful borders, while at Rustling End in Hertfordshire, garden designer Julie Wise echoes the sentiments of many of us as her style of gardening has evolved to put wildlife first. Meanwhile, in Norfolk, Alan Gray reflects on the past 50 years he’s spent creating…

SHOPPING…

SUSTAINABLE GARDENING ‘Sustainability’ is one buzzword that has come to the fore in gardening over the past few years. It’s a catch-all term referring to the demands our gardens place on the earth’s resources, as well as the part they play in fostering biodiversity and encouraging our own good health. “Gardens have traditionally relied on a constant stream of resources to maintain them in a steady state, but these all come with environmental footprints,” explains designer Darryl Moore, whose book Gardening in a Changing World (Pimpernel) considers the effects of climate change on botanical life. Statistics about emissions and environmental degradation can be disheartening but the imperative to do our little bit of good where we are is upon us. And while as individuals we might be small, we are…

“People ask me why I haven’t written a pruning book, and the answer is because each tree is different,” explains veteran fruit-tree specialist John Easton, who has been with Brogdale, the home of the National Fruit Collection in Kent, since 1968. “Some books are very good, but the difficulty is that you’ll never get a tree so well-behaved that it looks like it does in print.” This is perhaps a little unedifying if you are faced with an apple tree you feel you ought to prune before spring arrives, but John can still offer sound advice to get you started. His first instruction is that you must learn the character of your tree. If your tree is not self-seeded, it’s likely to have been grafted onto a rootstock when it…

SNOWDROPS Tucked off a tiny Norfolk lane is a nature reserve known as Snowdrop Acre. Cared for by a local conservation group, this pocket of land’s obscure connection to snowdrop royalty, one Heyrick Greatorex, will be known to only the most ardent galanthophile. But you don’t need to be a galanthophile for the name ‘Greatorex’ to ring a bell. The term Greatorex doubles, referring to the array of double-flowered snowdrops bred by this gentleman and former corporal, will be familiar to many of us, even if we only dabble in these early spring bulbs. Crossing the common double form of Galanthus nivalis, ‘Flore Pleno’, with G. plicatus, Greatorex created a range of hybrid doubles that were tall, large-flowered and quite the sensation at the time. Many were named after Shakespearean…

TO CONCLUDE As our garden became quieter and greener in the uncanny warmth of last October, I was struck by the impact of a few new dashes of red. Our south-facing dining terrace was lushly clothed with the glossy-leaved Rosa cooperi (the flowers long gone), mounds of Euphorbia mellifera (the honey-scented flowerheads a distant memory) and pots of shiny emerald Camellia sasanquastill tight in bud. But by the back door, a U-cordon apple tree with its modest still-greenish harvest, was on fire as the singing red nasturtium, Tropaeolum majus ‘Empress of India’, rampaged over its hazel frame. Opposite, peeping through the leaves of an overhanging Malus ‘Sun Rival’, a host of crimson crab apples glowed brightly, suspended in mid-air. Just a little red adds a surprising energy to the softest…

When the sun shines, I celebrate the start of its acceleration into spring with a hot drink on my favourite bench. I am sheltered by a six-foot Tasmannia (formerly Drimys) lanceolata. One of my favourite evergreens, it has rich red stems and glossy green leaves. It hails from Australia and is hardy only to around -5˚C so enjoys the maritime climate of South Wales. Scrambling around the base of this shrub is Vinca difformis, a rampant groundcover smothered in fresh white flowers that seem to belie the season. Its stems reach around the side of my bench and threaten to overwhelm a patch of Cyclamen coum displaying its dainty pink blooms – another joy of the season. The vinca needs a light trim, but before that I head to the…

TOP 10 PLANTS Matthew Murgatroyd has been head gardener at Holker Hall in Cumbria since September 2022. “I started out at Levens Hall, then spent some years with the National Trust,” he explains. “My career then took me to Highgrove, where I worked for 13 years.” The gardens at Holker Hall span 25 acres and boast a fine plant collection. “This winter, my team and I are working on several exciting projects including the restoration of the Cascade and new planting schemes, which we’re looking forward to showcasing when the garden reopens in March 2024,” he adds. Here Matthew suggests ten good groundcover plants for shade. Holker Hall & Gardens, Cark-in-Cartmel, Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria LA11 7PL. Tel: 015395 58328; holker.co.uk 1 Vinca major “When you have ground to cover, nothing beats…

GREENHOUSES February is an underrated month; snowdrops and other highlights of winter plantings are reaching their peak and it’s a time to relish the prospect of the gardening year ahead – all the best moments are just around the corner. If really cold weather does strike now, it is likely to be mercifully brief. With a greenhouse, that threat is reduced, so your picture is brighter still. While last year’s patio pots of dahlias and cannas are likely tucked away under the benches awaiting longer days, with a little extra warmth the first seed sowings can begin of this season’s delights, perhaps pelargoniums, cosmos, chillies and tomatoes. But more immediately, even in an unheated, or better still frost-free, greenhouse, some permanent residents will be looking superb right now. Flowers under…

CRAFTSPEOPLE As a child, paper and letterpress printmaker Lauren Smith walked the country lanes of her childhood with her eyes on the hedgerows. Leaf litter, flowers and berries, spiny twigs, a mouse glimpsed scuttling from branch to branch and scratching songbirds; all fell under her imaginative gaze. “The happiest memories from my childhood are from the homes that were the most remote,” Lauren says. “They were always where I felt the most at home and the most myself. I’ve always looked at the detail in nature.” Although she was a creative child, she left school without the confidence to pursue a career in the arts and picked something vocational instead. “I don’t have any regrets, but I do wish I’d had some role models to show me that a creative…