Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2025 i The English Garden

Andrea Jones Andrea specialises in photographing plants and gardens around the world. She’s passionate about capturing gardens when they’re at their magical peak, which she’s achieved with Madresfield on p24. Philip Clayton Freelance writer Philip has had a life-long love of plants and gardens. He was recently named Features Writer of the Year by the Garden Media Guild and writes about his visit to Rockingham Castle on page 40. Sandra Lawrence Journalist and author Sandra is obsessed with lost gardens, the people who made them, the people who lost them – and the people who save them. She visits the ‘lost’ walled garden of Luton Hoo on page 96.…

Fergus Garrett Great Dixter’s head gardener on the challenges of running one of England’s greatest gardens – and the people who make the place what it is Great Dixter is a dynamic, exuberant and curious garden that bucks the trends. It’s experimental but it’s also a place where we are sensitive with the land and care about biodiversity. It’s a kind, giving place where information is exchanged freely. My grandmother was a gardener and I liked being with her outdoors, but I preferred sports and geography to plants. I had a great geography teacher who thought agriculture might suit me, so I started a course at Wye College but soon found I was frustrated by the principles of agriculture and changed to study horticulture instead. My lecturer was Tom Wright,…

Approaching the village of Rockingham from the fens of East Anglia is something of a revelation. Main Street with its broad grass verges and pretty front gardens rises sharply, and gazing up between stone cottages you catch glimpses of an imposing building crowning the hill: Rockingham Castle, home to James and Lizzie Saunders Watson since 1999, and the family seat for more than 450 years. Rockingham Castle was built by William the Conqueror with a motte-and-bailey layout and functioned as a royal residence. King Edward I modernised the original Medieval Hall by adding windows, fireplaces and a room in the eaves for his queen, as well as the Round Tower Gatehouse. This remains the most castle-like feature; you expect at any moment to catch Errol Flynn abseiling the vast walls.…

Even if you’re an experienced gardener, gardening seems to be becoming more and more challenging these days as we grapple with unpredictable weather turning the usual seasonal timetable on its head and making decisions about what to plant and what to do when more complicated. Coupled with that is most gardeners’ desire to be environmentally friendly and create as small an impact on the planet as possible. We’ve selected a range of courses and workshops for 2025, both short and long, that have sustainability at their heart. If you’d like to improve your gardening skills this year, pick a subject that shows you how to do it in the greenest and most sustainable way. 1 Plants and Climate Change is a free online course provided by the Royal Botanic Garden…

Lawns are probably the most ubiquitous feature in gardens across the country, but they’re also the one that demands the most upkeep. Imagine the hours spent mowing the lawn, multiplied across every garden, throughout spring and summer. That’s not to say that time spent looking after grass is wasted – many people find pushing a gently humming mower up and down the lawn a genuinely meditative and satisfying activity. But equally, there are those for whom lawn care is more chore than pleasure, who see it as time they could spend doing other more exciting tasks in the garden. If you still want a lawn, but resent the time spent on it, how do you go about lowering the level of maintenance, while still having a lawn to be proud…

Rui Jiang grew up on the banks of the Yellow River in the small town of Dong’e in the Shandong province of China. Shandong is known for its fertile soils, and Rui’s childhood home was surrounded by farmland. “We lived in a bungalow and had a garden where my father grew grapes and cucumbers, but we didn’t have flowers because no one else was growing them,” she recalls. The family lost the garden to redevelopment, and ended up with a flat and a balcony instead. “So we got somewhere to live, and there were community gardens, but it was still quite a sad moment,” she says, remembering the lovely cherry tree that used to grow in the middle of their bungalow’s garden. “When I was little, my mum noticed I…

Gardening, especially when you take on a new plot, can feel like an archaeological dig. The things you unearth as you clear and plant provide clues to its past and its former owners. Shards of blue pottery are common for many; in my garden it’s marbles, tiny cars and action figures and what, after a brief moment of panic, turned out to be a toy pistol. I imagine a Just William-type schoolboy kicking balls into his parents’ plants. I also constantly unearth loops of American tan nylon stockings, which I assume were once used as plant ties and found their way into the compost heap only to appear decades later on the end of my fork tines. When I’ve cut new borders, I often find bendy edging six inches below…

At this time of year, snowdrops carpet the gardens at Wallington, the National Trust property in Cambo, Northumberland. Another highlight arrives when 100,000 crocuses burst into flower, creating a sea of purple on the main lawn. And in a new 32m-long Arts & Crafts-inspired white border, thought to be the longest of its kind in the country, the flowering year begins with soft-hued narcissi and iris and ends with late-flowering cyclamen. Overseeing it all is Simon Thompson, who has gardened at Wallington for 25 years and “finds magic in every season” across the estate. Here he suggests ten bulbs for beautiful early colour. Wallington, Cambo, Morpeth, Northumberland NE61 4AR. Tel: 01670 773606; nationaltrust.org.uk/wallington 1 Crocus ‘Ruby Giant’ “Crocus bring a showstopping wow-factor to a spring garden,” says Simon, who loves the…

The pièce de résistance is a huge ivy heart that boldly speaks of the passion that goes into every detail As Valentine’s Day approaches, I have been thinking about romantic gardens and – perhaps surprisingly – about ivy as a key ingredient. Ivy is often regarded as a costly nuisance, the uninvited plant that causes trees to topple and fences to become unstable. It conjures images of gloomy ruins or neglected buildings smothered in a tangle of dark green. But two of the most romantic gardens I know use ivy in a way that speaks of the owners’ devoted approach to working with plants. They may even turn your idea of this marauding climber on its head completely. If you ever had the privilege of visiting Herterton, the exquisite, beautifully…

There are some really good things about February. One is that it’s short; two is that the days are drawing out and it gets just that bit lighter and brighter as the month wears on; and three is that February is stuffed with snowdrops from start to finish. In the deep, dark winter garden, as well as in hedgerows and woodlands, clusters of snowdrops shine out as a herald of those lighter days unfolding. I’m hard put to think of a plant that is more universally known and downright welcome than the dainty little snowdrop. While I’m nuts about them, I’m far from a galanthophile. For one thing my eyesight isn’t good enough to appreciate the delicate nuances between different varieties, and for another it’s gleaming carpets of snowdrops that…

‘I wish you’d leave Wissett, and take Charleston,’ Virginia Woolf wrote to her sister Vanessa Bell in May 1916. ‘It has a charming garden, with a pond, fruit trees and vegetables, all now rather run wild… but you could make it lovely.’ These were the First World War years and Vanessa, having spent her summer in Suffolk, needed a country base where her lover, the artist Duncan Grant, and his lover, the author David Garnett, both conscientious objectors, could find farm work to avoid conscription. Having discovered Firle near the South Downs, Vanessa wrote to her friend Roger Fry that the 16th-century Charleston farmhouse was ideal: ‘It’s most lovely, very solid & simple, with flat walls… & wonderful tiled roofs. The pond is most beautiful, a willow at one side…

Not every plant can be the centre of attention, their incredible flowers or showy foliage drawing gasps of admiration. Sometimes you need something that’s quiet, reliable and hard-working – a plant that just gets on with its thing and provides a backdrop for those showstoppers. Evergreen grasses are that sort of plant: a bridesmaid perhaps, but not really a bride. Rosie Holman is horticulturist for Welcome & Riverside at Wisley, the Royal Horticultural Society’s Surrey garden. Within her remit is Wisley’s Grass Garden where, in the shade below a sprawling catalpa, a tapestry of evergreen carex carpets the ground. “Carex aren’t at their best in isolation,” Rosie observes. “They need creativity and they’re definitely most impactful planted in drifts. They have a real beauty as a groundcover plant, especially because…