Latest posts from La Corolla Garden

Rainy season

James Lennox — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 11:11:57 +0000

17 March 2026
By: James Lennox

What’s good for the garden isn’t necessarily good for the gardener. I love steady rain as much as the next man gardening against the odds on a steep dry hillside in northern Spain. Particularly after the drought year of 2025. But two months of solid rain has left the borders water-logged, every grass path a treacherous mud-slide, and me chomping at the bit to meet the new season head-on.

While the piano-playing has been coming along a treat, the relative lack of physical activity has left me battling early-onset middle-aged spread. The garden, meanwhile, has definitely hit its unruly teenage years, clinging to the same favourite unwashed t-shirt and dreaming of its first piercing or, heaven forbid, tattoo. A spot of firm parenting was in order.

Every gardener lies somewhere on a continuum stretching between two extremes: the old-school soldier (trusty tweeds, oiled and sharpened tools, moustache regardless of sex), planning every attack with military precision, determined to subdue, if not defeat, the enemy in the field; and the hippified peacenik, permanently attired in rose-tinted spectacles and shapeless tie-dyed creations (again, regardless of sex) floating serenely through bramble-strewn meadows, trying to find a flat patch of weeds that won’t object to a yoga mat being unfurled.

After months of giving free-rein to my inner hippy, it was time for the brigadier to lead a few carefully-planned sorties between downpours to lick the place into shape. Nothing drastic, you understand, just a case of showing these plants who’s boss while I’m still allowed and before the re-wilding johnnies finally achieve absolute cultural supremacy. The under-gardener/conscripted cannon-fodder was less keen, citing the risk of drizzle on his camera.

Dealing with the still-expanding rose collection is a two stage process – those in more formal areas are carefully pruned before Christmas. Wilder, blowsier specimens in the outer reaches are taught a lesson in January. Or February. Or even March but that’s definitely cutting it fine vis-à-vis new growth.

Rosa x odorata ‘Mutabilis’ was heaving itself into a handkerchief tree, R. ‘Pleine de Grâce’ was obscuring a Persian ironwood, and R. ‘Cerise Bouquet’ was just behaving badly along the Avenida, layering itself about with gay abandon (a regular occurrence on a hillside where horizontal branches, particularly those weighed down with flowers, end up touching the ground sooner or later). They are all absolute thugs here, so secateurs, loppers and even a pruning saw were all pressed into action.

For the first few years, other shrubs are allowed to do their own thing. I rejoice when they manage to survive and, if they don’t, am relieved that I didn’t waste too much time on a lost cause or hasten their demise by interfering. But once their roots are down and they start to look less shop-bought up-tight and more relaxed, if not downright shaggy, it’s time to think about shaping them to meet my aesthetic needs while respecting their natural forms.

After all, the last thing I want is a group of ‘meatballed’ oddities reminiscent of an Ikea canteen’s finest. Abelias, pittosporums, smoke bushes, hollies, hydrangeas all received attention. This past year, more than previous ones, has taught me that it’s crucial to have a contrast between tightly controlled shapes and looser ones – too much green fuzziness just becomes a blur without a few sharp lines. I’ve been spurred on by the success of various pieces of bay topiary dotted around the place – for once I remembered to trim them at the right time (end of October) to have crisp outlines right through the winter.

When you’re hauling masses of material to the compost heap, the last thing you want to have to do is duck and dive under low-hanging branches. Crown-lifting is one of the most satisfying jobs for winter – trees suddenly look more mature, vistas are opened up, access is improved, more bark is exposed. My approach is little and often – catch 'em while they’re young and no more than one rung of branches a year from any tree.

The sweetgums on the Avenida always need a little intervention (I always forget how much branches droop with the weight of leaves, never mind flowers or fruit), as do the oaks, honey locusts (no-one appreciates a thorn at eye-level), tulip trees, redwoods – they’re all shooting up and out at a crazy rate. Some judicious pruning helps them look more statuesque, less haystack-ish. And this year, I finally got round to tackling the Chilean myrtles (Luma apiculata) in the orchard, a reward for them coping so brilliantly and unexpectedly with last year’s drought. Here’s hoping they continue to thrive with fewer branches.

Even though I declared planting season over in January, I might have been somewhat premature. After all, you can’t keep a good plantaholic down, or stop him from expanding the repertoire even further. I mostly stuck to my rule of no new trees or shrubs in the new year (what’s the odd camellia between friends?), but no frosts and copious rainfall meant I couldn’t resist banging in more, many more, herbaceous beauties. Of course, dormant perennials don’t make for the most photogenic new additions to the garden (despite the best efforts of my under-gardener-cum-photographer).

In fact, they’re almost invisible, resulting in the borders looking like they’re playing host to an invasion of leafless running bamboo or miniature plastic gravestones where I’ve marked the new arrivals to avoid any mishaps in the coming months. Some have earned a place merely because I’ve never grown them before and never shy from a challenge (Peltoboykinia watanabei, anyone?), others have been added to flesh out a collection (epimediums, hemerocallis, dahlias) and others because I just got carried away (tradescantias – do they like me? do I even like them?).

And for once, I enlisted the professionals. I’ll turn my hand to most things but felling two dead/dying trees, both 50 feet tall, one hanging over a sitting area, the other a power line, is probably beyond me. I was briefly tempted to get a friendly neighbour with a tractor, a chainsaw and a long rope to have a crack at the job but thought twice. Discretion being the better part of valour, and all that.

Not only have views been opened up, potential hazards been removed and next year’s central heating been taken care of, but I got to watch others working in the garden for a change. There might even be a repeat performance soon, as recent storms have done their darnedest to destroy the shelter belt on the far edge of the gully. Such is gardening life.

Seeds have been sown, wandering acanthus has been mercilessly hacked to knock it back (I’m not foolish enough to think I can eliminate it) and the exhausted but in no way demoralised troops have been withdrawn for a well-earned spot of R&R. A tactical, temporary retreat to prepare for the upcoming spring offensive.

Holker Hall

James Lennox — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 12:30:12 +0000

An exercise in old-school elegance

18 January 2026
By: James Lennox

When was the last time you flicked through a glossy garden magazine (Gardens Illustrated, say, or The English Garden) and saw a rainy photo shoot? Never, is the answer. Basing your blurb on photos of wet gardens must be the publishing equivalent of taking a camera to a funeral. Just not the done thing, old boy.

As you know, my long-suffering under-gardener doubles as chief photographer, forced to capture every leaf of note for the archive. He views persistent rain as a ‘challenge’, in much the same way Scott found the Antarctic slightly more demanding than he’d been led to expect. For the garden writer, it’s quite the opposite, often an atmospheric revelation, the garden all to oneself (even the staff have taken refuge in the bothy), all dripping limbs and sparkling drops, one minute decayed Southern Gothic, the next torrential Himalayan valley.

So it was at Holker Hall last September on a typically dreich Cumbrian day. I was in my element; Chief Photographer was cursing like a trooper, struggling with fogged lenses, misty vistas and bedraggled blooms. As anyone who gardens in Asturias will appreciate, when you live between the coast and the mountains, you’re going to get your fair share of rain (drought being an unwelcome exception).

But the gentle climate also means you can expand the repertoire and push the odd hardiness boundary. Which keeps me on my toes, identification-wise. After all, it’s not every day you spot a Fascicularia bicolor up a tree this far north in England, a delightfully whimsical touch at the transition from formal garden to looser woodland.

The bones of the garden are straightforward enough: formal Arts & Crafts-style rooms, building on early 18th century antecedents, give way to expansive meadows, arboretum, woodland and water. One long axis runs from the Elliptical Garden by the house (all yew hedges, stylish stonework and clipped limes) through a wibbly-wobbly green corridor to the Summer Garden, the stand-out feature of which is a herbaceous border still packing a punch at the end of the season. Calm assurance abounds; the controlling hand of man unites the whole sequence.

The planting is generous, without being obnoxiously clever; layered rather than choreographed. Plants are allowed to bulk up, overlap and occasionally jostle for space, which lends the whole a sense of momentum. There’s none of that brittle, over-edited look that suggests a border has been assembled for a magazine spread rather than an entire growing season.

I’ll pass swiftly over the silver weeping pears (Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula’ adding a touch of 80s/90s Cotswold cliché) at the heart of the Summer Garden and instead applaud the cut-leaf hornbeam standards (Crateagus orientalis) as being more of an indication of the imaginative planting around every corner. High-input annuals edged with low hurdles (a neat response to box blight and the dreaded caterpillar?) keep the show on the road and demonstrate that the team here are more than capable of nailing the details as well as refining the broader brushstrokes of the woodier areas.

While I can admire an aster with the best of them, at heart I’m a dendrophile. A typical bloke, in other words. For folk similarly afflicted, one of the big draws at Holker is the arboretum. With a National Collection of Styracaceae, Holker has serious tree cred. If ever you need proof of a gardener’s good taste, see if his snowbells outnumber his flowering cherries. As well as the different species (including S. americanus, S. hemsleyanus and S. obassia), there are some stylish forms such as ‘Fargesii’ and ‘Pink Chimes’. Of course, they weren’t showing off in September, but they have an elegance and poise that carries them right through the year. Much like the garden as a whole.

Even if you don’t know your styrax from your elbow, you won’t manage to miss the Great Lime (Tilia x europaea). It’s an absolute beast of a tree. Around 400 years old and with a girth of over 8 metres, it holds the stage, Ent-like, quietly biding its time while relative youngsters frolic all around. And it’s the co-existence of different generations’ interventions that is one of the most remarkable aspects of the garden.

Beyond the attention grabbing stars lies an arboretum of real substance. There’s a depth here that only comes from decades of sensible planting and the occasional calculated risk – the chances of the young Emmenopterys henryi ever flowering this far north must be slim, climate change notwithstanding. Trees have been chosen because they suit the site, not because they photograph well or come with a compelling backstory, an unfashionable approach and all the better for it. Most are already proving their worth, including a Chinese sassafras (Sassafras tzumu, showing no sign of suckering unlike its American cousin in my orchard), a newly recognised champion Metasequoia glyptostroboides ‘Goldrush’ and over 100 magnolias dotted throughout.

Where Holker excels is in its ability to marry old and new, skilfully incorporating modern insertions into an established framework. One of the earliest examples of this is Thomas Mawson’s early 20th century Sunken Garden. Once a refuge for roses, now it’s the very definition of artful abundance, an overtly romantic space. The salvias were front and centre in September, holding their own against the imposing stonework, while a charming summer house provided a very welcome refuge from the elements. It feels used rather than preserved, which is exactly what you want in a garden with history.

The tradition of carving fresh spaces within the centuries old gardened landscape is most impressively on show in the Neptune Cascade, a nod to family ties to Chatsworth perhaps but on a slightly more domestic scale. It’s pitched just right - grand enough to feel intentional, restrained enough not to slide into theme-park territory.

Neptune peers out from his lofty perch towards the estuary with a faintly world-weary expression, flanked by Italian cypress. I just query whether he doesn’t need anchoring more securely. The young eucryphias leading up the slope might do the job in a few years’ time, as well as adding horticultural interest to break the climb. (There’s an impressive collection of these southern hemisphere beauties in the wider garden, ranging from the widely seen Eucryphia x nymansensis ‘Nymansay’ to the lesser-spotted Eucryphia moorei.)

The Burlington fountain at the foot of the cascade is, on the other hand, very firmly grounded in its setting, surrounded by vast Rhododendron arboreum which, even out of flower, offer luscious big-leafed glamour and glowing trunks. It’s not difficult to see why this area is the Instagrammer’s favourite.

As a release from the ever so slightly claustrophobic gloomth of the fountain, the recent labyrinth set within a wildflower meadow (a forgivable nod to modishness) acts as something of a palette cleanser, even if it’s not entirely successful. Somehow the combination of labyrinth and standing stones might just be too much of a good thing – a neolithic yin-yang mash-up which in September was partly obscured by wildflowers/weeds (delete as appropriate) in dire need of a good scalping.

The nearby slate sun dial mounted on a glistening slab is an unqualified triumph. Designed by Mark Lennox-Boyd of Gresgarth, based on an ancient design and incised with the signs of the zodiac around the rim, it works as sculpture, focal point and destination, drawing the visitor out into the wider landscape where he can mull weighty matters such as transience, impermanence and whether it’s time to head for a cup of tea.

Perhaps, though, the most enigmatic new space is the Pagan Grove. No hard landscaping, this is a thoughtful counterpart to the Sunken Garden, a shallow, oval bowl, a grassy hollow, ringed with a collection of stewartias, another impeccable choice to provide autumn colour.

It’s a very stylish demonstration of the power of absence in a densely planted garden. A recent innovation, it was designed by Kim Wilkie whose CV stretches to the curvaceous green wall in the toilet block at Longwood, a world away from this serene spot and, for me, an unexpected highlight of that American showpiece.

Holker is not a garden that ambushes you at every turn. There’s no big theatrical reveal, no manipulation of emotion. Instead, the garden unfolds gradually and with nothing to prove, with the quiet confidence of a place that has been treated seriously over a long period of time – there’s no apparent urge to reinvent itself every five minutes in search of relevance.

Visitors looking for novelty, provocation or the gardening equivalent of a manifesto may leave wondering what all the fuss is about. But that’s missing the point. This is a garden built on continuity, judgement and an enviable lack of insecurity. That confidence is apparent throughout. Holker feels settled. And in a horticultural world increasingly addicted to novelty and narrative, that feels borderline subversive.

More information here: https://www.holker.co.uk

A New Year in the Garden

James Lennox — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 13:20:37 +0000

Far too many books give the impression that the gardening year starts in January. Wrong. The calendar year is for brown-thumbed mere mortals. When the only excitement on offer is browsing through seed catalogues and waiting for snowdrops to appear (cheerless, glacial things that have somehow found their way onto the Lady Gardener’s list of good taste plants), I prefer to stay indoors, get to grips with more Beethoven (18 sonatas down in a 32 year project) and sample some of Speyside’s finest. The combined results aren’t always what Ludwig might have hoped for, but it saves me from scrabbling around in the dirt looking for the first signs of spring.

As every fool knows, the gardening year actually kicks off in autumn. That’s make or break time for next summer’s displays of horticultural excellence, the best time to plant, shift and tweak. If you want to wow the local gardening club with your prowess while they shovel down the free cucumber sandwiches and Earl Grey, you need to start making plans in October. And after a long, scorching drought of a summer, any tedium in the terraces or awkwardness in the orchard are too glaringly exposed to be ignored any longer. About the only upside of having no rainfall for four months is that the grass is so short that it doesn’t need cutting and the crocuses can rejoice in the lack of competition. Everything else needs attention.

Four areas of the garden have been ruthlessly re-assessed, re-jigged and re-modelled – the dogwood arc below the Avenue, the Grass Terrace, the Rose Garden and the Orchard. Some, like the Rose Garden, have been there from the beginning and were starting to show their age. Others, such as the Grass Terrace, were youthful follies, the result of reading too much New Perennial propaganda during a period of prolonged impecuniousness, constant reminders of the garden equivalent of living on Skid Row. I was tempted to call the whole process ‘Operation Rethink and Refine’. In truth, it’s been more like ‘Operation Rip Out and Replace’.

Dogwood Arc

Do you have any idea how far the surface roots of Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’ spread? Too far – they’re greedy, thuggish and have a tendency to colonise new ground wherever a stem makes contact with bare earth. Sure, they have brightly coloured stems and are an obligatory component of any winter garden. But I’m playing the piano and drinking whisky, remember, so devoting 50 square yards of prime real estate to them is frankly wasteful. Out they came, after much huffing and puffing. I’ve left a token drift at the very top of the hill, in remembrance of things past, but I knew I could come up with something better here.

In went a variety of shrubs that can cope with increasing levels of shade and will flatter yet another seed-grown redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) that was surplus to requirements elsewhere. Of course, such radical revamps can take a couple of years to settle down and look ridiculously sparse in the meantime. Which is why I’ve used one of my favourite tricks, ‘the shiny bauble’, to draw attention away.

In this case, I’m breaking all the rules and have popped in a risky tree to hold the space – a Camptotheca acuminata, pushing the limits of its comfort zone here and already about 5ft taller than the trees I normally plant out. It was a novelty purchase I couldn’t resist adding to the autumn bulk-buying extravaganza organised by a local gardening group and fulfilled by a Polish nursery – modern-day international plant-hunting at its most civilised. I’d first seen one at the Coker Arboretum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, suggesting it can cope with freezing winters as long as the summers are hot enough to ripen new growth. And if it’s good enough for my under-gardener’s alma mater, it’s good enough for La Corolla.

Grass Terrace

Have you ever tried to hack out an established clump of Miscanthus sinensis with nothing more at your disposal than blood, sweat, tears and a mattock? And then having to repeat it five more times? A prime example of planting in haste and repenting at leisure. They were too big, too unruly and offered too little in return for keeping them upright and stopping them seeding everywhere. Staring at their indifference to drought all summer long oddly just made me want to cull them once and for all – they were just too static, too dull. Again, because I’m a sentimental old thing, I’ve left a couple of clumps along the Avenue where the mood is more relaxed and they can loll and collapse to their heart’s content.

Other grasses (Deschampsia caespitosa, Pennisetum macrourum, Calamagrostis brachytricha, Stipa gigantea, S. tenuissima and S. pseudoichu) have been edited and re-arranged. Only the pennisetum might make a run through the border but a sharp spade applied to its circumference every few months keeps it in check. While it remains the Grass Terrace, the grasses have been turned into supporting players with the focus now on a trio of redbuds (Cercis canadensis ‘Vanilla Twist’, ‘Ruby Falls’ and ‘Golden Falls’), a group of plants I first fell for at Stoneleigh outside Philadelphia. Again with a Polish provenance, they pick up on others (‘Forest Pansy’, of course, ‘Carolina Sweetheart’ and ‘Alley Cat’) in the Woodland as well as a group of seed-grown Judas trees maturing nicely over by the pond. None of the established redbuds blinked during the drought so hopes are high that the newcomers will thrive in the Grass Terrace.

The Rose Garden

Under-performing hybrid teas and far too many agapanthus made for a dispiriting combination in a prominent location. Inspiration came from the grandiosely named tea pavilion (on the site of an old chicken house, of all things). Could I possibly get away with planting a few Japanese maples? It’s a sheltered enough spot so I don’t have to worry about wind-burn. But would it be too sunny and would the wandering roots of an Eriobotrya japonica suck all the moisture out of the ground and inhibit growth?

Local gardening friends assured me that Asturias is made for acers. I had my doubts and so an Acer palmatum ‘Shishi-gashira’ was the guinea pig earlier in the year. Nothing ventured, and all that. Somehow, with very little attention over a trying summer, it showed no signs of distress at all, put on a foot of growth and coloured up nicely in the autumn. Cue a further contribution to Polish GDP and the planting of another four maples (‘Ariadne’, ‘Wilson’s Pink Dwarf’, ‘Coonara Pygmy’ and ‘Orangeola’). Very much a ‘go big or go home’ strategy.

Am I guilty yet again of over-planting? Possibly. Will the acers sit awkwardly with the couple of roses I couldn’t bring myself to remove? Time will tell. Covering the ground in the interim is an adventurous mix of geraniums, tradescantias and salvias – anything to avoid the dreaded bare soil scenario while the acers take hold. Quite a restrained planting scheme compared to some.

The Orchard

The evolution of the Orchard continues apace. Where once apples reigned supreme (hardly surprising in the heart of Spanish cider country), I’ve gradually been weaving in some more unusual ‘productive’ trees and shrubs – Japanese raisin trees (Hovenia dulcis), sugar maples, Chilean guavas (Ugni molinae), Sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum piperitum), etc.

But I don’t always stick slavishly to my own self-imposed scheme, particularly as the whole area needed more evergreen, dare I say winter, interest. Enter yet more magnolias and every osmanthus that caught my eye. There’s no excuse for the magnolias except my enduring obsession with the entire genus, but at least the osmanthus are in the olive family. Throw in some refugee roses from elsewhere in the garden (for their hips), a pineapple broom (Argyrocytisus battandieri) and a few tea plants (Camellia sinensis) and I can fool myself that I’m still sticking to the brief. Just.

Here endeth planting season, a frenzy of activity to set the garden on the right track for the year ahead. Of course I won’t be able to resist adding more as the months go by (herbaceous especially). But while the new arrivals enjoy the rainy season, the occasional light frost and a flurry or two, I’ll be safely tucked up inside tickling the ivories and downing the odd dram. If I get desperate, I might even force myself to leaf through a seed catalogue.

Lowther Castle

James Lennox — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 07:41:18 +0000

A Lake District work in progress

3 January 2026
By: James Lennox

What should any self-respecting gardener do at the end of a very testing drought? Well, this one offered up a prayer for rain in his absence and hot-footed it to somewhere reliably wet for a change of scene. There’s only so long I can bear to look at slowly crisping foliage and underperforming borders before I get the urge to go off and cast my eye over someone else’s efforts.

The first port of call on this year’s autumn odyssey was the Lake District, a notoriously damp part of the world even by British standards. I’ve climbed every mountain there that I ever want to (a youth mis-spent above the treeline), so it was high time I got acquainted with its gardens. I was in sore need of green inspiration, lush planting and soothing swards.

Lowther Castle should have ticked all the boxes. It’s got a quirky backstory (potted version: impecunious aristo decides to economise by removing the roof of his house to do away with the need for housemaids) and serious garden design credentials (courtesy of Dan Pearson, responsible for the masterplan of an ongoing 20 year re-imagining). As a result it’s gained plenty of (at times) fawning coverage and free publicity ever since the scheme was first unveiled.

And yet it didn’t quite hit the spot. Some gardens, one senses, are intended to impress photographers more than visiting gardeners. On the page or on the screen, these gardens look impeccable, immaculately composed, clean and serene. Inviting angles abound, views are framed, eye-catchers lead on. On the ground, though, they can all too often appear sterile, devoid of emotion, disjointed and uninspiring.

Lowther Castle is, I’m afraid to say, a photographers’ garden. It’s also unashamedly, first and foremost, a visitor attraction. Dogs are walked, legs are stretched, cups of tea are consumed. And it’s very much a work in progress. Reviewing it and forming an opinion at this stage in the development of a garden feels somewhat premature. But if you open to the public and charge them handsomely, “notes” (in the theatrical sense) are to be expected.

The most established areas are the Parterre and the Garden-in-the-Ruins. The former is the more impressive visually. The illegitimate offspring of a Tudor knot garden and a Victorian exercise in bedding-out, the Parterre fills the space directly below the ruinated castle and is an imaginative and generally successful re-working of traditional forms. While the plant palette is limited (perhaps an instance of a designer playing it safe in a challenging climate far removed from his usual more southerly stomping ground), the herbaceous stalwarts backed by clipped yew provide the required pops of colour and textural blocks. Selinum wallichianum, Actaea simplex (Atropupurea Group) ‘James Compton’,Symphyotrichum turbinellum, Hemerocallis ‘Hyperion’ (one to add to the collection) – all dependable doers and nothing to frighten the horses.

The impact of this area is diminished somewhat by two major shortcomings. Parterres should be viewed from above, preferably from a first-floor window or these days a drone, or the planting should be kept so low to the ground that it’s possible to see the intricate pattern while standing next to it. Here there is no access to an upstairs room and the planting, in particular the yew, has (presumably deliberately) been allowed to grow to head height. The effect is of walking through a spacious maze while having the tops of the grasses and taller perennials at eye level blocking the view through. A curiously flat and static two-dimensional effect is the unsatisfying result – a tableau to be admired laterally.

The second shortcoming is unforgivable in a garden open to the public. Each planted subsection of the Parterre is individually edged in rabbit wire. And it’s a hideous distraction. Either change the planting to make it less palatable to rabbits or find a less jarring way of excluding the blighters. Install a disguised rabbit-proof perimeter to encompass the whole Parterre, trap them for the pot or “accidentally” release a strong dose of myxomatosis into the local population – anything would be preferable to the current unsightly arrangement.

The Garden-in-the-Ruins seems less troubled by the furry foe. What should be an atmospheric woodland-esque space within the walls of the castle instead comes across, though, as slightly dank and depressing. I had hoped for an air of romantic decay, a hint of the old sic transit gloria mundi, but no such luck.

Admittedly September is probably not the finest hour for woodland planting, but the cheery yellow bells of repeatedKirengeshoma palmata were doing an awful lot of the heavy lifting.

There are some fine moments (a fallen statue here, a curtain of climber there) and Cornus ‘Norman Hadden’ (a personal favourite and surprisingly hardy) and Tropaeolum speciosum add a welcome touch of sophistication to the planting. But northern lighting and the too too solid stone walls deaden any attempt to lift the gloom.

While garden comparisons are invidious, they can instruct. This gardened ruin struck me as markedly less successful than Chanticleer’s version outside Philadelphia where a lightness of touch animates the stonework.

Further afield, the signs are encouraging that there will soon be more for the garden visitor to enjoy. An orchard of full-sized apple trees (none of this twee step-over nonsense) holds the space below the castle walls well while a slightly stranded Roman bath waits for its surrounding planting to catch up.

The Edwardian era Rock Garden has been cleared and the stones steadied ready for the planting to take hold. The progress made in the Japanese Garden bodes well – already there is an inviting atmosphere created by those essential elements of water, dappled light and beautifully crafted structures. It’s always reassuring to see ferns going in the ground in great quantities. Give it a couple of years and it should have filled out rather nicely.

While there’s still quite a lot of bare earth on display in these areas, the Rose Garden has been ticked off and declared open for business. Of course, no Victorian or Edwardian garden worth its salt would have been without one, but here the overwhelming impression is of a clear commercial imperative dictating the order in which the restoration is happening. First highlight the castle, then draw visitors into the wider estate with a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.

And it works, up to a point. There is a sea of David Austin’s finest (including those glamorous beauties ‘Darcey Bussell’, ‘Lady Emma Hamilton’ and ‘Munstead Wood’) arranged in swirling patterns perhaps best appreciated again from a drone. On the ground, the design had been slightly lost by September in a sprawling thicket of vigorous growth. Where the Parterre keeps the visitor at arm’s length with its overly generous paths and anti-rabbit fortifications, here the danger is of being slightly too immersed, entangled even. Unfortunately, no-one really wants that in a Rose Garden.

To date, very little has been done elsewhere in the 130 acres of garden. Paths snake through some of the forestry-style plantations (one leading to the obligatory children’s playground) and obvious areas of neglect have been tidied up, although work still needs to be done to shore up some of the outlying garden buildings. One of the finest views looks out beyond the garden from the Western Terrace down into the Lowther Valley – a reminder that, various quibbles aside, it is still a remarkable undertaking to carve a cultivated garden out of such an unforgiving landscape. And easy to see why a previous generation thought it wasn’t worth the candle.

Lowther is a vast space dominated by a stark ruin in a challenging setting. Most designers would run a mile when asked to take on this particular garden project. Kudos to Mr Pearson for not shying away. Is every part of the garden equally successful? Of course not, but that’s the case with every garden, more so on this kind of scale. And some sections exist more on the drawing board or in the imagination than in reality. But there are hints here and there that something special might rise from the metaphorical ashes. One to revisit in about 10 years’ time, I should think, once the planting has bedded down and the masterplan is complete. And that should give the gamekeeper just about long enough to deal with the rabbits.

More information here: https://lowthercastle.org

Winners and Losers - part 2

James Lennox — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 09:39:51 +0000

Stubborn shrubs and herbaceous heroes

28 December 2025
By: James Lennox

Now we all know which trees to plant for the future, what about the plants in between, the shrubs in their borders and the perennials in their beds? After a year of extremes, which have risen to the challenge and exceeded expectations and, just as importantly, which ones have fallen short?

Again, I’m not going to deal with the usual suspects. A cistus will cope just fine with heat and drought and an agapanthus will look like it’s living its best life. What I want to do is shine a spotlight on those plants that have just got on with the job uncomplainingly. And give a word of warning about the ones that needed a helping hand or just failed miserably.

Superb shrubs

Gardening is all about celebrating the wins in the perpetual struggle to create a thing of beauty, noting each triumph over adversity. For once, the roses were blackspot-free and for that I am truly thankful. I gave up spraying years ago but I still feel that I should be doing more by them to ensure their happiness. This year the rose border was a picture of health with the once-flowering old roses doing their thing before the drought really kicked in.

Even the repeat-flowering roses fared better than expected despite the demands of pumping out the odd flower throughout the season without any additional watering. The tea and china roses did particularly well, ‘Le Vesuve’ deserving a special mention – a non-stop wonder. And, mirabile dictu, ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ didn’t disappoint once – no rain, drizzle or dew means no danger of balling. I’m sure normal service will be resumed next summer.

While old roses are renowned for their ruggedness, I wasn’t sure how that relatively new kid on the block, Loropetalum chinense, would respond. I’ve got various forms dotted all around the hillside, from the green-leaved, white-flowered species to the darkest plum-coloured types (‘Pearl’, ‘Fire Dance’, ‘Pipa’s Red’, ‘Burgundy’) via the half-way house of ‘Ming Dynasty’. Some are in full shade in deep soil, some in full sun on the driest powder imaginable. All proved themselves worthy of a place in the garden. They put on new growth and put out more flowers than I can ever recall. Neighbouring plants flagged. I’ve never seen a normally cast-iron Viburnum tinus or a buddleia droop with sheer exhaustion, but the Chinese witch hazels shrugged off everything that came their way.

Nobody expects hydrangeas to cope unaided in such conditions – I certainly don’t fancy a mophead’s chances in full sun on this hillside. And yet, barring slight discolouration to the flowers, good old floppy ‘Annabelle’ managed to recover each night ready to do battle the next day, despite being adventurously placed on a sunny slope.

As did the various oak-leaved hydrangeas – the extra heat seems to have spurred them into more growth than normal and certainly improved the autumn colouring. Most surprising of all was a particularly floriferous H. villosa that took the full force of the sun for about four hours each afternoon and didn’t drop a leaf all season. The only explanation I can come up with is that it must have sent its roots in search of moisture in a nearby compost heap. Which shows remarkable resourcefulness bordering on cheating.

Plucky perennials

Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in a while. And somehow I seem to have stumbled across a few perennials that have come through the summer unscathed. The garden would be a lesser place without them.

I’m convinced there must be a factory somewhere in deepest, darkest China churning out new epimediums every year, and I end up buying most of them. We all know that Epimedium x versicolor ‘Sulphureum’ is a real toughie and will happily spread amongst the roots of greedy trees. But the newer, more delicate looking hybrids such as ‘Lilafee’, ‘Domino’ and ‘Pink Elf’ scarcely demand better conditions. Sure, they flower earlier in the season so don’t have summer interest per se, but any plant that looks perfectly content and glossy right through the hottest summer on record and doesn’t need any attention from me is a keeper. ‘Amber Queen’ even managed to bulk up in full sun once the katsura dropped its leaves in August. The books all insist that they prefer moist soil, but they seemed happy enough to me in bone-dry dust.

Another group of plants that supposedly need a moist, cool root run are the toad-lilies. Admittedly I try to give mine a shady spot, but that means that they’re competing with tree roots and they do just fine. Tricyrtis hirta looked completely unfazed under a Judas tree, while T. macropoda and T. ‘Empress’ both frolicked among the roots of a Magnolia grandiflora. All the others dotted around the terraces did a sterling job as well, flowering before the first of the autumn rains arrived. Much like the magnolias and agapanthus, I suspect toad-lilies’ resilience in drought conditions can be put down to their fleshy roots, the camel’s hump of the plant world.

Which brings me neatly onto day-lilies which share a similar root structure. I’m definitely late to the party on this one but am now making up for lost time. From trusty old Hemerocallis ‘Catherine Woodbury’ to the startling ‘Edge of Chaos’ (which neatly sums up my gardening style), day-lilies are as close to indestructible as perennials get. They might not give of their best in the hottest, driest, sunniest spot but they’ll hang on in there. Even when a couple of gaps unexpectedly opened up among the roses in August, the newly purchased day-lilies I stuffed the border with actually seemed grateful to get out of their pots and get on with the job of growing. More please.

A quick shout-out to Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’. The RHS suggests popping it in your best moist free-draining loam. Nonsense, save that stuff for your real treasures. This handsome brute will take over a border in full baking sun with no extra water whatsoever. It might droop slightly during a genuine heatwave but it soon perks back up every night, flowering freely and ready to resume its campaign of world domination. I wouldn’t be without it, but you have been warned.

And the ones banished from the garden for letting down the team? Well, at the risk of bragging, the only abject failures have been the border phloxes (leaving gaps swiftly filled by yet more day-lilies). They’d clung on for a few years, looking decidedly peaky, but they’ve now been put out of their misery and permanently retired from the collection.

They’ve joined other youthful follies like delphiniums, astrantias and lobelias. I often wonder what I was thinking when I look back at some of my original planting plans. At least I knew even then to draw the line at meconopsis. Something tells me this past summer would definitely have bought them a one-way ticket to that great poppy field in the sky.

Winners and Losers - part 1

James Lennox — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 09:19:36 +0000

Tough Trees

20 December 2025
By: James Lennox

It’s safe to say that the dust has finally settled on this summer’s four month-long drought and its record-breaking temperatures. Friday 15 August was the nadir - 40 degrees C in the shade (a suffocating 104F) and a scorching, enervating southerly wind was exactly what the garden didn’t need after 10 weeks without rain. And it’s certainly not what I had in mind when I first started planting up my south-facing Asturian hillside all those years ago.

The immediate aftermath has not been a pretty sight. In fact, I was tempted to call this post ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’. But as ugliness is something I strive to avoid in the garden and elsewhere, I’ll limit myself to giving a rundown of my star performers this year, those plants that have surprised me with their resilience against all the odds. And I’ll consign a few plants to the hall of shame for woefully underachieving.

Extreme weather certainly separates the men from the boys, the sheep from the goats and indestructible plants from those living on borrowed time. And looking on the bright side, as all gardeners must, there have been some fascinating results.

Planting strategy

Some plants are bomb-proof (famously so in the case of our old friend the ginkgo); others might need some mollycoddling to get them through life’s travails. On the whole, I aim to slot my plants into the kindest available spot for them – shade lovers in shade, and so on. Give them the appropriate conditions for their needs and they’ll reward you by thriving rather than merely surviving. I’m really not one of those horticultural psychopaths that gets a kick out of inflicting unnecessary cruelty on living creatures, so that’s the general approach. (There’s a swamp cypress at the very top of my dry hill that might beg to differ, but so far it’s doing just fine so can’t really complain.)

As a rule, I plant my trees small, in a square hole at least two feet wide and no more than one foot deep, and water them generously once a week in dry weather for the first three years. After that, they’re on their own – no feeding, no watering, just an occasional attempt to keep the root zone weed-free. Given that there wasn’t a single tree on this hillside when I first arrived here, they’ve all had to cope with full sun from day one and only some protection from the prevailing wind provided by existing native trees along the boundaries.

This past summer, every single one has been pushed to the limit, and sometimes beyond. Even treasures in the most privileged positions have been bowled a googly by the weather. It’s been a garden-wide experiment in resilience. Some trees lapped it up; others not so much. And in both instances, it’s not just the usual suspects.

Top marks

Some of the trees I’ve planted are designed to cope with dry summers – pines, for example, just laugh in the face of drought. I was less sure how oaks would react, especially the North American species that I’ve piled into. For a start, they tend to have larger leaves than their Mediterranean cousins (Quercus suber, Q. ilex, Q. canariensis, Q. coccifera,Q. pyrenaica, etc., all of which have predictably thrived). And most of them come from the East Coast which tends to be reliably damp in summer.

Well, I needn’t have worried – those Americans knocked it out of the park. For the first few years the amount of top growth might not impress; that’s because all the action is taking place underground. But once they get their roots down they manage to find every last drop of water on this rocky hillside. Even supposed moisture lovers like Q. nigra and Q. palustris have barely batted an eyelid this year. All of them put on their Lammas growth at the very height of the drought and the autumn colour this year has been spectacular. Top marks go to the scarlet oaks, Q. coccinea, one in the relatively benign surroundings of the woodland (part-shade, deep soil), the other tucked below the more challenging escarpment (full sun, thin, sandy soil over solid rock). Both put on three feet of growth. Neither flinched.

Equally surprising was the response of the young wollemi, Wollemia nobilis. Planted in full sun and, as it’s been in the ground five years already, with no additional water, it coped admirably and put on a foot of growth, an annual rate it seems to have settled on regardless of the weather. There’s a good depth of soil in that part of the orchard and there’s no competition nearby, but even so, it was an impressive response. Where neighbouring trees ended up with scorched leaves, even the new growth on the wollemi maintained its usual silvery-blue bloom. The advice to date has been to play it safe – plant it in moist, well-drained loam (a quasi-mythical substance in these parts) in a sheltered spot in light shade. I’ve a suspicion after this summer that the wollemi is a whole lot tougher than we first thought.

Not to be outdone was the xGordlinia grandiflora. Unlike a neighbouring franklinia that jettisoned most of its flower buds and went into survival mode (and looks to have lived to fight another day, thank goodness), the gordlinia showed no sign of distress at all. It grew its usual three feet and flowered non-stop from mid-August to the first week of November, peaking in September after three months without a drop of water. In full sun, on relatively thin soil, its performance this summer has justified it being given such a prominent spot in the garden. Again, the literature suggests it would prefer more moisture in the growing season. But beggars can’t be choosers – it just knuckled down and get on with the job in hand. It’s definitely not one of this garden’s many prima donnas.

Mixed results

Now for the less encouraging news. Unlike the uniformly impressive oaks, the magnolias were a mixed bag. Those in the most favourable positions sailed through with only minor signs of wind- and/or sunburn; those in slightly more challenging spots struggled. All have formed and held onto flower and leaf buds for next year which is a relief. Both a M. grandiflora and a M. insignis suffered with the double whammy of extreme heat and strong wind in mid-August after months with no rain, leaving some dieback at the extremities and scorched brown leaves. Unsightly but not, I hope, life-threatening. Time will tell. A cosmetic tidy-up in the spring once the damage is definite and old leaves have been shrugged off should make them look more respectable.

If you’re in the market for a broadleaf evergreen magnolia and have an eye on future scorchers, then my top tip is to look no further than M. delavayi. It comes from wet Chinese forests and is said to prefer a moisture-retentive loam. Those textbooks might need updating. Mine is in an exposed position on a free-draining slope and sailed through the summer without a care in the world, flowering and growing all the while. Bravo.

At least the magnolias all tried to hold onto their leaves. My nomination in the category ‘Sorriest response to drought’ goes to the katsura, Cercidiphyllum japonicum. By the first week of August, one specimen, admittedly planted in shallow soil in full sun, decided to call it a day and drop all its leaves. Kudos, obviously, for such decisiveness – very much a strategic retreat rather than a vainglorious last stand. Next year’s buds look fully formed and it tends to go into an early autumn most years, so fingers crossed. Another katsura, in an equally dry spot higher up the hill but shaded by a sweetgum, fared better and clung onto its leaves for a whole month longer. However, both give off a slightly resentful air, wondering how on earth they ended up here when they would rather be in a cool, moist Japanese forest. So if you want one, my advice is to treat it more generously than I have – it clearly prefers a comfier billet with a fully-stocked drinks cabinet.

Next time: Stubborn shrubs and herbaceous heroes

Taking it easy

James Lennox — Sun, 15 Dec 2024 13:46:09 +0000

… or letting nature have its way

15 December 2024
By: James Lennox

At times, fashionable gardening advice seems to be nothing other than an exhausting series of exhortations. Do this now or, more often than not, don't do this ever again. Hot on the heels of ‘No Mow May’ comes the invocation to ‘Leave the Leaves’ in autumn. The tone of hectoring tweeness is enough to set my teeth on edge - and obscures what should be a couple of useful hints behind a veil of patronising worthiness.

There really is no need for all this finger-wagging. Some of us have been neglecting our mowing duties for years. I've never had a lawn nor do I aspire to cultivate one. The only grass at La Corolla is there for walking on. It's rough and ready, full of wildflowers/weeds (depending on your viewpoint) and is lucky to get a once over more often than every other month in the growing season. And if there's a promise of orchids in the spring or crocuses in the autumn, not even then - I'm more than happy to hang fire.

At this time of year, it's the quandary of what to do with all those leaves that preoccupies many a gardener. Back in the day it used to be all the rage to pile them up and burn them. Sacrilege, of course, even though I do have a penchant for a good burn-up. I leave mine where they land - within reason, of course. Who wants to skate over wet leaves on a much-trodden path? Slips and broken hips lie that way.

And that's where I take issue with blanket prescriptions - there's no nuance, no subtlety and no leeway for the gardener to exercise a little discretion. It's more a case of different horses for different courses. Leaves should absolutely be cleared from paths and any grass that you would rather didn't turn into a bald, muddy mess by the spring. As for borders, if you've crammed them full of irreplaceable herbaceous specimens or miniscule alpines, it's probably wise to remove the bigger brutes. Oak, sweet chestnut, bay, tulip tree and magnolia leaves, I've discovered, take an eternity to decompose and will smother anything underneath in the process.

What to do with those leaves and the ones lying on hard paths? Easy - suck them up and shred them, preferably in one smooth electric-powered operation. Then sprinkle the shredded leaves back on the borders between the plants to suppress weeds and to be dragged down into the soil by your pampered invertebrates. And a further bonus is that you don't have to walk miles to and from the leaf bin or have to wait a year or so for the leaves to break down.

Thus do minor tweaks to garden maintenance make life easier for the gardener - and ultimately more beneficial for other garden dwellers. Easing back a little seems to result in a win-win scenario for all concerned. That's not to say that I would ever condone sacrificing aesthetics completely for an easy life. After all, I might not shave every day, but I wouldn't dream of growing a full beard and renouncing permanently all hopes of cutting a dash.

It’s the same in the garden - a degree of laissez-faire looseness every now and then is inevitable with 4 acres and no staff. There are always rough patches, unkempt corners and neglected nooks - this is defiantly not a garden of tweezered perfection à la japonaise.

And I’m not the only one to appreciate the light touch maintenance regime. Ever since I started to turn an over-grazed sheep pasture into a densely planted ornamental garden and woodland, I've been rewarded with an astonishing increase in wildlife activity, some welcome, some decidedly less so.

Let's start with the good news. The resident bird population has exploded. There seems to be a house sparrow nesting under every roof-tile. They're a noisy, twittering bunch but they certainly know how to keep on top of the aphids - the roses are greenfly-free all summer long. Robins are reliable garden companions, woodpeckers (green and great spotted) are already investigating knocking at the rapidly maturing trees, and buzzards and kites squeal and circle overhead on the look-out for scurrying rodents. There's even the occasional owl swooping by.

They don't seem all that interested in slithering creatures. I'm probably alone in the village in turning a blind eye to the odd snake - I rarely move fast enough to startle one and induce it to go into attack mode. Tapping the ground with a big stick is normally warning enough, a wise precaution whenever I'm about to plunge into the herbaceous border for a spot of weeding.

As for the local lizards, they go for the ‘freeze and he won't see me’ approach. An interesting move for something that can be over a foot long and bright green.

Foxes, badgers, pine martens and hedgehogs all keep a low profile during the day. All harmless enough since I got out of the chicken business and there's no danger of the badgers tunnelling their way across the hillside undermining the trees - the soil is nowhere near deep enough for sett-building. The recent addition of a tiny pond equipped with escape ramp has proved a huge hit with all of them - after dark it's the local equivalent of a watering hole on the Serengeti.

But for me, there's one creature in particular that brings unexpected excitement to the garden - the hummingbird hawk moth. This little fellow is one of the best reasons to grow buddleia and ensures that I leave far too many Verbena bonariensis seedlings knocking around - both are absolute hawk moth magnets all summer long. There’s something therapeutically hypnotic about the way they hover mid-air before rapidly darting to the next nectar hit.

I cater for other insects by leaving piles of logs artfully dotted around - often out of sheer laziness. Some are destined for the home fires; most are left to crumble away providing vital habitat to what must be the greatest concentration of stag beetle larvae in Spain. Given that it can take years for them to turn into adult beetles, I leave well alone - and look elsewhere for my firewood.

Every gardener should take pride in his compost heap - even though he's not the one doing the heavy lifting. As a garden develops, it inevitably produces more ‘waste’ - prunings, spent flowerheads, weeds, grass clippings, leaves. All can be chucked on the heap and left for nature to work its magic, a remarkably speedy process in a climate as warm and wet as Asturias. The only work involved is in taking the debris to the heap. Which is why I have two - one at either end of the main garden so I never have to walk the full length of La Corolla with a bucketful of clippings. I recently re-vamped one - a collection of old doors and some rusted scaffold poles never looked better. The pillars are just icing on the cake.

Unfortunately, all is not rosy in the garden - there are those critters that even I take objection to. Voles and moles are a constant worry, a definite plague on this house. There's nothing to be done beyond encouraging the local felines to take an interest and setting the occasional trap when there are signs of them creating a highway below a particularly delicate young tree. At least they’ve never attacked me directly - unlike the Asian hornet I once disturbed in a sprawling heap of Rosa wichuraiana. A sting to the forehead from one of those beasts is something not easily forgotten. I much prefer bees and butterflies.

Those are all very much occupational hazards, the slings and arrows of gardening life. There are only two creatures which would prompt me to reach for the shotgun - deer and wild boar. The local hunters do their best to discourage them, but every now and again there's an incursion. And it leads to murderous thoughts.

The deer will happily browse on leaves and strip bark; the boars will sharpen their tusks and plough up the ground to leave the hillside resembling the aftermath of a particularly bloody day on the Somme. And they've developed a taste for the wild orchids I've been encouraging in the orchard – an unforgiveable sin.

Both have made an appearance in the past year. Security has been heightened, fences have been raised and all manner of spells cast and incantations recited. Until I hit on the perfect solution - the dead hedge, an impenetrable linear thicket of branches, twigs, thorns and spikes fixed in place wherever a deer or boar might think to penetrate the perimeter.

A defensive solution to make any battle-hardened general smile. Not only are all the materials readily available (and free!) but I'll be providing yet more habitat for all those creatures that I don’t mind having on the premises. Here's hoping it puts a stop to any more unwelcome frolicking.

The North Carolina Arboretum

James Lennox — Sat, 07 Dec 2024 10:49:30 +0000

Resilient by Nature

7 December 2024
By: James Lennox

Garden photographers are obsessed with light. Full sun at midday, as my long-suffering sidekick claims, is something of a challenge - harsh, glaring and ‘contrasty’, apparently. Golden hour, when the shadows are long and the sun low, is king - soft tones, a hint of mist, the world slowly coming into focus. Wordsworth nailed it before photography, let alone garden photography, was even invented: ‘Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive’.

We gardeners, on the other hand, are all about the vagaries of the weather. Show me the gardener who doesn't keep a sharp eye fixed on the horizon at all times. But we’re not necessarily unreconstructed Luddites, so these days we’re just as likely to be constantly glancing at our preferred apps for advance warning.

Whether it's fretting over the arrival of the dreaded early first frost or a dry spell that's overstayed its welcome, we're always on high alert for whatever the weather gods are ready to throw our way next. Armed with bundles of fleece to protect borderline-hardy boundary-pushing experiments or a hosepipe to revive wilting perennials, we do our best to anticipate what's coming our way and deal with it when it arrives.

But there's not a lot you can do to protect a heavily-wooded hillside from a hurricane. The North Carolina Arboretum was hit on 27 September this year. It's estimated that more than 5,000 trees came down over the 434 acre site. Astonishingly, the 65 acres of gardens at the centre of the arboretum re-opened just one month later while the clear-up continues elsewhere.

I visited well before the storm struck. A year before, in fact. And I knew I was in for a treat when I spotted a nonchalant franklinia gracing the car park. It's the kind of planting that screams confidence in the staff’s horticultural abilities and in the growing conditions - as well as an urge to cram in as much good stuff as possible. (I empathise - why else do I have a suckering sassafras in an orchard?) Plus a dash of incongruity to make the visitor stop in his tracks never harmed anyone.

The next jolt to the senses arrives hot on the franklinia's heels. In the midst of the glorious Southern Appalachian hills and placed at the very centre of the Arboretum’s formal gardens is the Quilt Garden, a dazzling parterre of bedding plants arranged in a geometric pattern recalling one of the region’s traditional craft skills. The exact design changes every two years, with the planting refreshed three times during the growing season.

Carpet bedding has been pretty much abandoned in Britain for financial reasons masquerading as a pre-occupation with sustainability. It was refreshing to see the skill still being practised here. On my visit, the garden was made up of a mix of Chrysanthemum x morifolium interspersed with the recently re-named Jacobaea maritima ‘Silver Dust’. Quite the combination.

Even as a set-piece viewed in isolation, garden statements don't get much bolder or more striking. But then there's the Quilt Garden's relationship with the wider environment. It's not sited in an enclosed garden room. Instead, somehow, the viewer is supposed to lift his head from the intricate design and allow his gaze to be drawn to the distant tree-clad hills.

As challenging juxtapositions go, it's a triumph - demanding, unsettling and irresistible all at once. And in case you were in any doubt where you should be looking, there’s a pair of columnar Liquidambar styraciflua ‘Slender Silhouette’ to focus your attention. Who needs a boring old ‘Dawyck’ beech, purple or otherwise, when this sweetgum selection is on offer?

This composition serves to encapsulate the dual purpose of the arboretum - it's a place that wants to entertain and educate at the same time. The aim is to gladden the eye while instilling knowledge, hence at its core a display garden of possibly under-appreciated native plants in a sensitively preserved, sublime natural setting.

This is no dusty old hodge-podge of weedy-yet-worthy plants but a lively and exciting exhibition of possibilities, a well-judged assortment of native species and garden-worthy cultivars thereof. I've never come across the striking groundcover Pachysandra procumbens ‘Forest Green’ before, a welcome change from the more common Japanese species, or seen Muhlenbergia capillaris used more effectively. And I always love to see an illicium thrown in for good measure.

The rest of the formal gardens are slightly more conventional, in design terms at least. There's a Stream Garden, a Heritage Garden (with a chimney folly and hammerbeam pergolas now added to my wishlist), vistas along paths and even an amphitheatre.

Throughout are sprinkled various sculptures - whimsical, figurative, naturalistic, you name it - as well as hard landscaping elements, such as pools, steps, railings and gates that have all been carefully considered and obviously commissioned for each exact location. There's no hint of the ‘shop-bought’ or run-of-the-mill here. I had serious ‘bling envy’, as I often do on my travels.

And then there's the bonsai collection, an incongruous element only if we think an arboretum should be concerned exclusively with growing specimen trees in their natural form.

There are native species on show (Tsuga caroliniana and canadensis, Acer rubrum and Carpinus caroliniana all caught my eye), highlighting the potential to control and snip away at what would otherwise become a forest giant. Even an art form as distinctive and rarefied as bonsai can be adapted and developed to suit its non-traditional surroundings, a Southern Appalachian twist on a theme.

As displayed here, with a starkly simple concrete backdrop and a winding walkway that suggests something akin to a pilgrimage to a mountain-top monastery, the bonsai aspire to the condition of living abstract art. It's a stunning and unexpected interlude.

Beyond the confines of the ordered, formal gardens are areas that tentatively push out into the surrounding forest. The gentle slope below the education centre (featuring one of my favourites, the North Carolina-bred Magnolia ‘Daybreak’), the grassy knoll dotted with specimen trees (Stewartia malocodendron and ovata now firmly in my sights), the meadow ablaze with goldenrod - all aim to provide a transition from the manicured to the wild. It's skilfully done without minimising the sense that at any moment the forest could reclaim the man-made clearing.

And it's quite a forest. I defy anyone not to take the plunge (especially on a scorchingly hot day) into the woods. Only then will you realise that this is really a garden with a vast forest of native trees attached - Quercus rubra, coccinea, alba and montana to name a few oaks, hickories of course and even endangered rarities like Torreya taxifolia from slightly further afield.

Hiking trails strike off in every direction. Down by the stream lies a comprehensive collection of native azaleas, those rhododendron species that first caught the eye of discerning British gardeners back in the early eighteenth century. Overshadowed by later Himalayan and Far Eastern introductions, these shrubs have a charm and simplicity in a woodland setting that suggest they've been unjustly neglected, in Europe at least. And there were even one or two in flower at the start of autumn (including Rhododendron prunifolium first collected as recently as 1913), a gift to any garden flagging at that time of year.

Garden-visiting in Britain rarely comes with the opportunity to go for a serious hike. Strolling along the herbaceous borders and making a bee-line for the cafe for a slice of cake is about as much exercise as you're likely to engage in. Here there are gullies to explore, hills to scramble up and majestic trees to hug around every corner. It's a fully immersive experience, a world away from the bedding out and delicate sculpture elsewhere.

More than anything, the Arboretum serves as a reminder of the riches lurking in the local forests. It’s astonishing to be reminded there are probably more native tree species in one acre of a wild hillside in Asheville, North Carolina than in the whole of Britain.

Whether tree, shrub or perennial, some of those plants have been brought into our gardens and cultivated; others have been left exactly where they've always been, fending for themselves, supporting each other. It's this diversity that is its greatest strength, a natural in-built resilience to outside threats, whether wildlife, disease or storms. Something tells me it'll take more than a hurricane to destroy that.

More information here: https://www.ncarboretum.org/

Autumn Leaves

James Lennox — Sat, 30 Nov 2024 10:03:05 +0000

And other simple seasonal pleasures

30 November 2024
By: James Lennox

Once upon a time, all respectable houses were subjected to a thorough spring clean. The rugs were beaten, dull metal was polished back to shiny life and the sofa was pulled off the wall to reveal a year's worth of accumulated debris.

It also used to be the case that, roughly six months later, the garden would be given its annual once-over. Shrubs would be hacked back, leaves would be raked, perennials would be chopped down to the ground and all the tools oiled, sharpened and then ceremonially hung up for the duration.

Both are perfect examples of the Big Bang approach to life. Bite off a sizeable list of chores, go at it hell-for-leather and then forget all about lifting a finger for the next 12 months. That modus operandi might work in the house (I mean, do windows really need cleaning more than once a year?), but out in the garden, the little and often school of thought reigns supreme. A little light weeding here, a spot of watering or dead-heading there - these are tasks that, like the poor, are with us always.

But there are certain jobs that I reserve for autumn alone, garden rituals specific to this time of the year. Lest we forget, ‘to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.’ And it can be immensely satisfying when the weather co-operates and the long-anticipated activities all go off without a hitch. The past month has been glorious on the whole - misty mornings, clear blue skies and barely a breath of wind.

Perfect bonfire weather, in other words. No, I'm not one of those immaculately dressed Victorian gardeners decked out in tweeds, ties and flat caps who slashed and burned everything in sight the moment it had outlived its usefulness or no longer merited its allocated spot. But how else to deal with the dreaded buddleia prunings, the clippings from the bay hedges and the ever-encroaching brambles? None is suitable for the compost heap or for adding to the leaf-mould pile.

Let's be honest: when the conditions are just right and you've not got any washing hanging on the line, tending a bonfire for a couple of hours with a flask of coffee (or something stronger) to hand is one of gardening's greatest primitive pleasures. A time to unplug, leave the modern world and its carbon footprints behind and re-connect with one's inner caveman, normally kept well under wraps.

Once I've got all the death and destruction out of my system, I turn my attention to what really matters - watching the leaves colour up. Americans have a term for it, leaf-peeping, and I get to do it for about 6 weeks solid without leaving home. And this past autumn has been the finest for colour that I can recall. Was the cooler, wetter summer responsible? Was the dry, bright, unusually mild autumn behind it? Or is it simply that my adolescent trees have now got the bit between their teeth and will put on this sort of show every year from now on?

First off the blocks this year were the oranges - the Parrotia persica, the Nyssa sylvatica, the aronias, amelanchiers and a multi-stemmed Acer cappadocicum ‘Rubrum’. A relatively brief prelude to the main season, they blazed across the hillside and in the woodland while all else was still an emerald green. Even the orchard lit up briefly with the suckering sassafras turning as many different shades as its leaves have different shapes.

Next up were the yellows, with tulip trees, honey locusts and a cluster of birches grabbing all the attention. The latter, Betula lenta, always catch me by surprise. I grew them from seed - and ended up with far too many. But birches are a clubbable tree, enjoying each other's company, looking best in batches. It's an unassuming species, quietly biding its time, without startling white bark or distinctive leaves, waiting to turn the most eye-catching pure buttery yellow, visible from miles away. Literally - no visitor to the village could miss them lighting up the hillside in late October.

Of course it's the reds that are such a novelty in Europe - our own native species don't seem to go in for anthocyanin in a big way. Thankfully, there are plenty of North American species to fill the colour void. Whether it's the flaming pillar-box red of Acer x freemanii ‘Autumn Blaze’ or the towering inferno that is my lanky juvenile Quercus coccinea, the boring browns and underwhelming russets of the indigenous offerings look suitably resentful of their more glamourous cousins.

One of the justifications for planting quite so many sweetgums (Liquidambar styraciflua) was that, in a good year, they might add a splash of colour. In Britain, where summers are cooler and wetter, they’re not a massive success. Great claims are made for various cultivars - but no guarantees are given. Perhaps what they really need is a good dose of global warming. If so, the future might very well be brighter for them there.

No such concerns here at La Corolla (colour-wise at least). The normal advice when planting an avenue is to avoid seed-grown trees. Too much variability and not enough uniformity. I happen to prize character above conformity. Which is just as well as each of my two dozen trees is a law unto itself when it comes to bark texture, leaf size and fall colour. I'm quite taken with the resulting kaleidoscopic effects, but a purist would no doubt find fault. No dull monotony here, instead there's every shade under the sun from orangey-yellow to scarlet to crimson to purpley-black. All technical terms gleaned from the RHS colour charts, you understand.

Last of all, once the excitement on the hillside and in the woodland is starting to wane, my dear old Ginkgo biloba decides to join the party and steal the limelight. It's one of the first trees I planted here and I selfishly planted it right outside the library windows. Watching it turn into a column of molten gold in the last week of November is a very private pleasure. I should probably sell tickets when it coincides with an azure sky and each individual leaf is picked out in detail.

I savour them all while I can. A cool night, a blustery shower or just the passage of time will see them end up on the ground before long. But there’s a great consolation – there are few pursuits more uplifting for the soul than simply kicking your way through a pile of rustling leaves. Yes, some are raked off the paths to save the grass beneath and others are plucked from the borders and beds to give the perennials a bit of breathing space. But, in the absence of strong winds, most stay exactly where they land, allowed to work their slow, silent magic through the long winter ahead.

Garden Bling

James Lennox — Sat, 26 Oct 2024 09:59:22 +0000

Or how to excite a non-horticultural eye

26 October 2024
By: James Lennox

Much like a headstrong mistress, a garden can be a wilful and demanding beauty. I've neglected mine (garden, that is) for the past few warm, wet summer months. It has sulked, pouted and ever so slightly gone to seed, while I've been travelling, garden visiting and messing about on boats. As every self-respecting international playboy should from time to time.

Now I'm giving the garden at La Corolla my undivided attention. I'm old-fashioned enough to prefer not to look out on a brown, scruffy wasteland for months on end so a certain degree of slashing and burning is called for. Nothing too energetic, you understand, more a general wash and brush up, trimming a hedge here, removing an unsightly sprawl there.

The garden is still a long way from being ready for its close-up, which is where the odd bit of garden ornamentation comes into its own. I normally rely on the planting to bring the bling - carefully curated compositions, a stand-out specimen, the occasional rarity. But combine benign neglect with the inevitable winding down of the floral fireworks at this time of year, and garden structures really come into their own, worth their weight in gold.

Which is oddly appropriate as I have only one style of creating garden incidents - a rendered white pillar surmounted with a golden vase, urn or bauble of some sort. I hesitate to call it sculpture for obvious reasons. I'm definitely more artisan than artist, preferring rustic realness to polished professionalism.

A limited decorative range, you might think - cohesive design, I say. And there's nothing wrong with consistency - if gold and turquoise is good enough for Clough Williams-Ellis at Plas Brondanw in north Wales, gold and white will do me nicely in northern Spain.

While hacking my way around the garden this past week, trying to de-wild a hillside all too keen to re-wild itself, I've been constantly reminded that I'm in good company in the way I've been using garden ornamentation. I like to think I've invented the wheel all by myself, but chances are I've been unconsciously influenced by far greater gardeners and landscapers who have gone before and am merely following in their footsteps.

Because there are only so many ways you can add non-plant interest to a garden. I've stumbled across a few and incorporated them at La Corolla and they're coming into their own right now, when the garden's been left to its own devices for too long and the soft landscaping looks decidedly ratty.

Here are some of my tried and tested favourite techniques for bringing the bling.

Create a vista and force the eye to follow. An oldie but a goodie - whether the view is stopped by a structure as at Nemours or allowed to travel onwards to infinity as at Hidcote, this never fails to create a spot of drama in the garden. I've done a variation on this theme with pillars at the end of the sweetgum avenue. Modest but, dare I say, effective.

Provide a spark of interest in the bleak midwinter. Dumbarton Oaks adorns its walls and gate pillars to tide it over the harsh US winters. I needed something to mark the centre of the deciduous American Woodland - a calm, still space for three months of the year with little but bark and fallen leaves to keep a golden bowl company.

Throw in a shiny bauble. Particularly useful when you want to trick the eye into looking away from necessary evils, such as leaf mould bins. A white fire hydrant in the gloom at York Gate does the job nicely - as do shiny white gate pillars between the guest cottage and the compost heaps at La Corolla.

Fill a gap while plants get established. The walnut sculpture in the midst of a national collection of Juglans provides a focal point while the trees get going at Upton Wold. Cedric, aka ‘le coq d'or’, does much the same in the new grove at La Corolla - he'll be doing a fair bit of heavy lifting on the interest front for a while yet.

Interrupt a long walk with a chance encounter. Halfway up the avenue here an exhausted visitor unaccustomed to steep climbs can catch his breath with the excuse of admiring yet more of my handiwork. At Duncombe Park, eighteenth century gentlemen could promenade between a pair of temples hidden from each other on the sweeping terrace above the river.

Commemorate a loved one with a mausoleum. Notable examples abound as at Castle Howard, Bodnant and, less successfully, Althorp. Or have a diminutive urn on standby to receive the ashes of a distant, impecunious relative when the time comes.

Dress to impress. If you've got it (money, ambition, exalted sense of self-worth), flaunt it. Temples, bridges and rotundas make an emphatic statement at Stowe - Capability Brown creating the Grecian Valley with shovels and wheelbarrows, and a few extra pairs of hands, takes some beating. Throw in a Palladian bridge, a Temple of British Worthies and another of Ancient Virtue and you've got a none too subtle political statement.

Tell a story. How about the allegorical tale of a young man setting out on life's long journey, gaining experience and wisdom en route before returning to his point of departure older and wiser? No, not a wander around La Corolla, but a gentle stroll through the unchanging landscape at Rousham where every statue, structure and pool marks a staging post on the road to enlightenment.

Suggest a different place. Stuck in Yorkshire but would rather be in the Himalayas? Plant a few rhododendrons in a dramatic valley and add a Buddhist stupa to complete the picture, as at Harewood. Nostalgic for your misspent youth in India?

Then how about some Brahmin bulls on a bridge or at your front door, as at Sezincote in the Cotswolds.

Or fancy a hint of Italy outside Bath? Then follow Harold Peto's lead at Iford and fill your terraces with Roman antiquities and colonnades. It certainly beats taking a no-frills flight to jostle with unwashed backpackers to get close to the original inspiration. Cross-cultural homage or plain cultural appropriation - just think of the debate your garden could ignite.

And most importantly, have some fun. There's always room for a spot of whimsy, especially in wet Wales where it's most needed. Portmeirion reigns supreme in this regard - rejoicing in architectural detail at every turn.

Or how do you entertain less horticulturally minded friends who might not be bowled over by your never-ending borders of bedding plants changed seasonally or your immaculately curated collection of trees? Longwood opts for a green Italian-style water theatre for staging live performances, failing which a jaw-dropping fountain display, colour-coordinated and timed to coincide with Miss Diana Ross hitting the high notes should just about do the job.

I'm still wondering how best to do a Longwood, a Stowe or an Iford at La Corolla. Thinking big seems to be key - perhaps I just need to scale up my efforts and hope my hypothetical distant elderly relative isn't as impoverished as I thought. I can but dream. In the meantime, dear old Cedric will continue to entertain and put a smile on my face on a blustery autumn day.

Mt. Cuba Center

James Lennox — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 11:16:19 +0000

The return of the native

8 October 2024
By: James Lennox

You ought to know by now that I have a thing for woodland gardens. I seek them out wherever I go (e.g., Bodnant and Gresgarth) and am even trying to create my own on an old sheep pasture at La Corolla (see my American woodland) - an enduring labour of love.

Woodland gardens tend to shine in spring with ephemerals popping up at every turn before the tree canopy leafs out for the summer. That's when the hordes descend on the lookout for colour-clashing azaleas and fleeting bulbous beauties.

My addiction to all things sylvan goes further. I'll visit them at any time of year, even in a September heatwave, when the main attraction is less the flowers on the woodland floor than the blissful relief from the blazing sun. Throw in a few other sneaky late-summer surprises and you've got yourself a winner in my book.

Mt. Cuba Center is an estate of almost 1,100 acres in northern Delaware on the East Coast of North America. Its USP is the trial, cultivation and promotion of plant species native to the mid-Atlantic region, a cause championed by its then owner, Pamela Copeland, from the 1960s onwards. It wasn't long before Mt. Cuba was being referred to as a first-rate botanical garden on a private estate. The garden was opened to the general public in 2013 and now contains over 1,000 native plant species, many of which have been grown from wild-collected seed and which are at risk of extinction in their natural habitats.

An admirable endeavour. But does Mt. Cuba Center work as a garden? The answer to that is a resounding ‘yes’. There's nothing revolutionary about the general layout - the areas surrounding the house are more formal and structured with the design and planting becoming looser further away. And there's nothing wrong with that - after all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Aside from the beautifully curated woodland, what is startling here is the use of native species and their cultivars in a strictly controlled formal setting. In Europe we've become accustomed to seeing North American perennials deployed in generous swathes, as at the American Museum in Bath, often verging on the prairie-esque in scale, with winding paths cut through towering monsters.

At first glance, the South Garden adjacent to the house at Mt. Cuba, appears to be nothing more than a conventional arrangement of lawn flanked by herbaceous borders. Look more closely and it's a skilfully arranged demonstration of how to reinvent traditional European-style beds using local flora already adapted to the conditions. Tradescantia ‘Concord Grape’, Gillenia trifoliata ‘Pink Profusion’, Amsonia hubrichtii, Rudbeckia maxima and choice native grasses among others all rub shoulders successfully.

This leads on to the remarkable Round Garden, a kaleidoscopic, high-octane, full-throttle extravaganza, adding at least another 10 degrees to the sweltering heat - it's just as well the centrepiece is a pool in the form of a Maltese cross to cool things down a touch. Coreopsis verticillata ‘Moonbeam’, its less often seen cousin Coreopsis palustris ‘Summer Sunshine’ and Echinacea purpurea ‘Pica Bella’, Solidago sphacelata ‘Golden Fleece’ and Symphyotrichum laeve var. laeve ‘Bluebird’ play nicely together and are well enough behaved (and managed) that they don't overwhelm a relatively tight space.

The last two are fine examples of top performers from Mt. Cuba's plant trials. The goldenrod in particular deserves a spot in any herbaceous border, its compact size and good manners singling it out from its brethren.

The Trial Garden itself features prominently, acting as a transition between the formal gardens and the woodland proper. Amsonia, Carex, Asclepias and Hydrangea species have all recently been put under the microscope, with a few Vernonia and ferns (Thelypteris kunthii and Lygodium palmatum both eye-catching curiosities) thrown in for good measure.

The ambition of Mt. Cuba is everywhere on display, its driving mission to preserve native species and convert local gardeners to their appeal. One part of that process is demonstrating how natives can be incorporated into domestic formal settings. Another is to show often undervalued natives in a carefully curated version of their natural setting, easy on the eye and still attractive to wildlife.

Far too often, in the UK at least, the inclusion of native woodland in a garden is nothing more than an excuse to ease off on the maintenance, cut back on the already underpaid gardener's hours and let the brambles, nettles and bracken romp to their heart's content under the guise of providing valuable habitat for endangered wildlife (usually code for the owner's own blood-thirsty cats and feral dogs).

Not so at Mt. Cuba, thank goodness. The woodland here has been carefully planned with gently meandering paths leading across undulating slopes. Thugs are kept under control by strict editing while preserving a naturalistic feel - light touch gardening at its very best. There are no obviously man-made vistas, no intrusive sculptures, just a heightened version of nature subtly tweaked here and there.

Interventions don't come much more understated than the three pools created by damming a small stream. This watery glade with its mirror-like clarity is one of the more deliberate pictures created in the woodland, setting off the majestic trees (oaks, maples, tulip trees, ash and beech - so much good stuff to choose from) while allowing the visitor a chance to marvel at the scale of the undertaking.

The only other clearing in the woods is a more typical open space, given over to wildflowers and grasses, that acts as a pause in the procession of delights that unfolds along every path. Flowering dogwoods surround it, the slightly quirky preference for using Benthamidia rather than the more usual Cornus florida merely enhancing the non-conformist bent of the place.

Of course, certain sections of any woodland garden will be ‘resting’ in September. The podophyllums and arisaemas had been and gone, and the trilliums (of which Mt. Cuba holds a national collection) were but a shadow of their spring best. The opportunity to see them earlier in the year, as well as explore further the outlying estate beyond the ‘gardened’ areas, provides just the excuse I’m looking for to warrant a repeat visit.

So does Mt. Cuba succeed in its mission? Well, I hardly needed winning over to the cause. Focusing on native species makes perfect sense when the gardener is as spoilt for choice as East Coast locals - and the textbook examples conjured here of incorporating natives in garden settings cannot be bettered.

But the need to look further afield for plants does arise in less botanically favoured parts of the world. Gardens in the UK and, dare I say my part of Northern Spain as well, would be much less varied than the plantings at Mt. Cuba if they only had local species and plants derived from them at their disposal.

I'm certainly no purist when it comes to plant origins. Mt. Cuba certainly inspired me, but perhaps not in quite the way it intended. Rather than being content with my own native flora, I came away with a renewed desire to grow some of Mt. Cuba's gems for myself, but on my hillside in Spain. I’m now on the hunt for Spigelia marilandica, Scutellaria incana, Gentiana clausa, Neviusia alabamensis, Isotrema macrophyllum - well, the list goes on. When I do get my hands on them, I’m hoping they'll look right at home in my own homage to the American woodland.

More information here: https://mtcubacenter.org/

The Very Mixed Border

James Lennox — Sat, 28 Sep 2024 11:54:56 +0000

The best of all possible worlds

28 September 2024
By: James Lennox

I've come to the conclusion that gardening and writing are incompatible activities. At least simultaneously. Lacking staff to see to the heavy lifting in the garden and discipline to sit at a desk on a sunny day when the garden is calling, something has to give - and for me, it's the writing that's the loser. Spring planting is followed by staking and shaping, deadheading gives way to weeding and watering - and before you know it we've somehow landed in autumn.

Some gardeners manage to juggle both tasks - often by dividing the year between gardening months (early spring to late autumn) and writing months (the dark, cold, wet weeks when all respectable gardens used to be tucked up for the duration). Graham Thomas and his split year with the National Trust springs to mind.

Some writers, on the other hand, turn to gardening in times of adversity - and then write about their experiences. George Orwell is an obvious example - although I wouldn't necessarily advocate catching TB and moving to the windswept Hebrides as the most rewarding route into horticulture. His diaries detail his travails. I'm sure there are those who are inspired by the thought of scrabbling around in peat bogs unearthing shrivelled potatoes and molly-coddling marigolds through the rigours of a Scottish summer. It comes as no surprise he wrote 1984 as a spot of light relief.

For an object lesson in combining gardening and writing, I'm much more likely to turn to Christopher Lloyd. With a wide and deep knowledge of plants and their successful cultivation, his waspish wit, particularly when railing against received wisdom and the stultifying effects of good taste on gardening, enlivens many a page.

And so, I've spent large chunks of the summer re-reading some of his pearls of wisdom and day-dreaming about inheriting a house and garden enhanced by Lutyens together with the means to employ a phalanx of eager young staff.

His first published work, The Mixed Border, is a joy. Yes, it obviously has its problematic moments, as the kids would say. Extolling the wonders of DDT is unlikely to win many plaudits these days - the past is definitely a foreign country and the gardeners of 1957 did things differently there.

But the substance of the book still rings true. And, somewhat unwittingly, without having first read his thoughts on the matter, I seem to have landed on the same solution to the conundrum of how to gain maximum interest from a long border as Mr Lloyd did way back in the mists of time. The solution, my friends, is to mix it up.

The stakes are particularly high for me. The mixed border is the first thing I see when I open the bedroom curtains in the morning, and the last garden view I glimpse at night. Whatever the weather, I've had plenty of time to study what does and doesn't work, both in my own garden and in those I've visited on my travels. There really is no mystery: a mixed border's success simply boils down to three vital ingredients: rhythm, generosity and variety.

Rhythm

A lack of rhythm can be fatal to any long border, mixed or otherwise. Some permanent evergreen structure doesn't go amiss - in my case, a trio of random shrubby veronicas (the plants formerly known as hebes reverting to their previous name … ), a couple of Loropetalum chinense var. rubrum ‘Fire Dance’ and a woefully misplaced x Gordlinia grandiflora which is already outgrowing its allocated slot.

Five carefully chosen roses complete the structural line-up - the repeat-flowering ‘Rose du Roi’ (Portland); ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ (Bourbon) which promises so much but rarely delivers; ‘Tuscany Superb’ which like all Gallicas grown on their own roots loves to run around; ‘Salet’ (Moss), prone to balling but charming enough to be forgiven; and ‘Leda’, a Damask curiosity, the flowers of which could be mistaken for carnations. If a rose has been grown for the best part of 200 years, as all these have been, then who am I to doubt their garden-worthiness? Ruthless pruning and generous feeding are the order of the day in this border's free-draining soil and, with the exception of the ever-inquisitive ‘Tuscany Superb’, they're unlikely to cause any real headaches.

Generosity

Generosity is all - whether in the mixed border or life more generally. Nothing is worse than a pinched look. As in other areas of the garden, I'm a firm believer in the ‘more is more’ approach. Nobody wants to see bare soil where there is room to paint a picture with plants. Don't skimp on the geraniums, let the lupins self-seed with gay abandon and allow the achilleas and phlox to fill out to their full potential.

Avoid bittiness at all costs - stick to a few tried and tested plant favourites and just keep a watching brief that they're all playing together nicely, particularly at their moment of peak interest.

Unfortunately, there are certain plants that are perhaps too giving, at times verging on the world-conquering. Anemone x hybrida ‘Honorine Jobert’ excels at carrying the border's interest into autumn. After a couple of years settling in, she's off with a vengeance. But one man's invasive nuisance is merely another man's labour-saving space-filler. As soon as she strays too far, simply pull up shoots by the handful and discard or distribute.

And yes, the patch of Iris japonica ‘Variegata’ halfway along the border is probably a touch too generous, but what are friends for if not to receive surplus stock.

Variety

The very essence of the mixed border is variety. Who wants a monoculture extending as far as the bored eye can see? I should know - I planted a grass border that is ripe for revision. Too much, well, grass.

The aim here is to keep the party going for as long as possible with a reasonable number of plant types all living in harmony. Evergreens jostle with annuals (where would we be without Eschscholzia californica?), early summer flowers (lupins) give way to late summer/autumn stalwarts (asters). Then there are scattered salvias to fire off pops of colour all summer long until the first frosts.

All of which wax and wane with the seasons, never combining in the exact same way from one year to the next. At times the lupins will dominate, at others (such as following this year’s slug-infested spring) only a few brave survivors will reach their full potential. That's nature's way of shaking things up. The gardener can also get in on the action - herbaceous plants can be moved around the border like pieces on a chess board to achieve more felicitous combinations or to respond to changing conditions, in my case encroaching shade from a particularly lusty walnut.

With the onset of autumn, for me the beginning of the new gardening year, plans are already afoot to make a few tweaks. For one, I'll definitely be adding more bulbs, preferably those that can withstand the local rodent population. And one or two of the smaller grasses might make their way there from the soon-to-be-revamped grass terrace above.

Onward and upward

But what of the future of the mixed border as a style of planting? While it probably never left private gardens, it’s definitely been slightly overlooked of late, shunned by fickle fashionistas in favour of newer naturalistic tendencies with swaying grasses and swathes of tall perennials, with talk of matrix planting all the rage.

But perhaps the pendulum is swinging back slightly - dare I hope that the new perennial monopoly might be nearing its end? Surely there has to be room for the odd shrub, an old rose (or twenty!), ephemeral spring bulbs and the occasional evergreen to provide a longer season of interest than can be gained from an exclusively herbaceous planting that dazzles in summer and autumn, but can look a bedraggled, soggy brown mess in winter and stubbly bare earth in spring.

Surely the revival of the mixed border's fortunes is just around the corner.

Bodnant - part 2

James Lennox — Sun, 07 Apr 2024 09:56:30 +0000

The descent into the Dell

7 April 2024
By: James Lennox

When last we parted, we were about to plunge into the abyss, the second moment of drama at Bodnant. More prosaically, this is the valley of the Hiraethlyn, a relatively modest watercourse but one with innate ‘capabilities’, as a certain Mr Brown might have said.

In these surroundings, the river assumes the air of a raging mountain torrent powered by glacial meltwaters. Yet again, Bodnant proves that there’s no greater weapon in the garden designer's repertoire than respecting the genius loci - and then enhancing the qualities Nature has bestowed on the site.

Depending on your chosen route, reaching the river involves either a vertigo-inducing descent down a narrow, slippery path or a calf-tightening drop down a 1-in-5 wheelchair-friendly slope. (And if granny somehow made a miraculous recovery from her ‘accident’ at Kiftsgate, you could alway have another go here.)

This is where the real action is. The formal, obviously man-made garden of hard-landscaping is left behind. The terraces disappear from view, obscured by mass plantings of dense camellias hugging the top of the accelerating downward slope, a stylish transition from the horizontal to the vertical. A good showing of Williamsii hybrids (‘J.C. Williams’, ‘Donation’, ‘Anticipation’, ‘China Clay’) nods to another prominent twentieth century gardening family with similar interests to the Aberconways of Bodnant.

Many of the camellias have recently been cut back, quite adventurously in places - a reminder that a firm hand is needed to stop an exotic woodland turning into an impenetrable thicket.

The overstorey is composed of magnolias (including two enormous Magnolia x veitchii ‘Peter Veitch’ combining the best traits of its campbellii and denudata parents, and champion M. sprengeri var. sprengeri and M. campbellii var. mollicomata), eucryphias for summer interest and the odd conifer or pine (P. montezumae a standout) to carry the rest of the year.

The view of the Old Mill and the torrent at the bottom of the valley from the narrow contour-hugging path above is a classic of the genre, a mirador if ever there was one. An understated, moss-laden architectural focal point, low-slung and partially obscured by magnolias (in particular a stunning M. denudata in full sail) exaggerates the depth and natural grandeur of the drop.

Man's mastery of the elements comes to the fore with the waterfall halfway along the valley floor, a perfectly controlled curtain of water positioned beneath a clifftop folly-cum-mausoleum. And it was a brave gardener who decided to offset it with a particularly fuchsia-pink form of Rhododendron arboreum.

Quite the eye-catching combination and a fitting culmination to this beautifully judged garden sequence, a perfect demonstration of horticultural ambition, energy and optimism. This is a long-term prospect only now, a mere 150 years after its conception, coming to maturity, faith in the future writ large.

It does no harm at all to be reminded sometimes of our place in the scheme of things. Just stand on the bridge over the thundering waterfall, look downstream and marvel at what man and nature combined can create.

Because of course this isn't a natural scene at all - it's a heightened vision of nature, the finest plants available to humanity (to adapt a phrase) set in the ultimate picturesque landscape.

Either side of the stream is enlivened by rhododendrons. Species such as Rh. sutchuenense var. giraldii, praevernum, oreodoxa, praestans, russatum, augustinii subsp. chasmanthum and the hybrids ‘Titness Triumph’, ‘Endsleigh Pink’, ‘Rosalind’, ‘Snowy River’ and ‘Maya’ were all putting on a show at the end of March.

Towering over them all is a breathtaking assembly of champion trees, including the love-it-or-hate-it Sequioadendron giganteum ‘Pendulum’, Sciadopitys verticillata, mighty Douglas and Greek Firs (Pseudotsuga menziesii and Abies cephalonica) and a rarely seen Pinus ayacahuite.

And we even have a welcome sighting of a champion Pinus muricata, to remind us of our recent jaunt to Portmeirion.

I know, I know - size doesn't matter, and all that. But the first glimpse of these giants is awe-inspiring, whether peering over the lip of the valley side from above or seeing them emerge from the shadows one after the other while walking along the valley bottom.

The intention here is to inspire awe in the visitor, to transport him to a different world, the wonders of Nature served up in a skilfully edited collection. (And no doubt the baser motive of showing off to visiting horticultural grandees played a part in the garden's early history.)

In its most elemental guise, garden design can be boiled down to one basic concept - seeking to create specific visual effects, primarily with plants, occasionally combined with water, statuary, buildings and so on. Eliciting an emotional response from the visitor must rank as the highest compliment that can be paid to the garden designer's art.

Nothing quite beats this section of the garden. Further upstream is, inevitably, something of an anti-climax. Romance gives way to engineering here. A sequence of sluices and a reservoir disguised as a pond ensure a constant supply of water at just the right level of intensity.

As for the planting, does anyone really have a thing for alders (Alnus spp.)? Relatively recent magnolia additions (including M. ‘Galaxy’, ‘Heaven Scent’ and x soulangeana ‘Picture’) are worth their weight in gold here, livening up proceedings no end.

The side of the valley furthest from the house is crowned with a shelterbelt of Victorian favourites (Pinus radiata, P. sylvestris, Cryptomeria japonica, etc.) intermingled with more unusual offerings such as particularly fine Nothofagus alpina and obliqua. This area is less densely planted (it's all comparative - some would still find it congested) but the specimens just keep on coming. Occasional losses to storms and old age temporarily open a space which all good gardeners know is just an invitation to get digging.

The Yew Dell, an offshoot of the main valley, is filled with, you guessed it, more rhododendrons, such as Rh. ririei carpeting the ground with fallen petals, a further reminder of the days when messing around with plants and creating gardens were competitive sports indulged in by the super rich.

Who knows? Perhaps today's electric car gurus and tech billionaires are all quietly spending their Sunday afternoons hybridising ericaceous beauties and re-directing rivers. Perhaps we're in for a deluge of new hybrids to rival Bodnant's Viburnum x bodnantense and Rhododendron ‘Elizabeth’, No, me neither.

But there are still people out there being won over by this type of gardening. Arabella Lennox-Boyd at Gresgarth Hall springs to mind - her growing collection of flowering trees and shrubs in a steep-sided river valley in Lancashire strikes me as the perfect modern response to the desire to cultivate these particular plants.

And on a much, much smaller scale (and in a more challenging, hotter, drier climate and with much shallower pockets than the Aberconways or the National Trust), I'm giving it my best shot as well at La Corolla.

Is there anything the humble modern gardener can take away from a visit to Bodnant? Definitely. The most important lesson is first and foremost to respect the particular qualities of the site, the genius loci. Choose the style of gardening and the type of plants that appeal most to you - and stick with that choice no matter what the fashionable crowd might say. And then commit fully to your creation - no half measures allowed.

Hillsides can be something of a mixed blessing when it comes to creating a garden. I should know. Parterres and formal layouts are best left to lowland-dwelling gardeners, but in exchange we mountaineers are gifted a potential for creating drama that only a change in elevation can provide. We are not confined to thinking in horizontal terms of upper, middle and lower levels of planting. With a hillside, mid-level planting, for example, can be seen above the tops of the trees below. The scope for shaking up the conventional arrangement of plants is endless.

And nowhere exemplifies this design creativity and sense of drama better than Bodnant. Whether it's views out to distant mountains or being able to peer into the tree tops from above, heart-stopping moments of high drama abound. All gardens should aspire to inject some sense of drama, even awe, into their design. It just comes easier, I think, when there are hills and valleys involved.

Now I just need to remind myself that the climb is worth it the next time I forget the secateurs in the tool shed all the way down at the bottom of my very own hill.

More information here: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/wales/bodnant-garden

Bodnant - part 1

James Lennox — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 14:59:34 +0000

The sunlit uplands

31 March 2024
By: James Lennox

They say you should never meet your heroes. That way lies inevitable disappointment. Expectations are set ridiculously high - no mere mortal could possibly meet them. And that's all our heroes are at the end of the day - mortals, all too humanly fallible.

What of those gardens, then, that loom as large as heroes in the horticultural pantheon? Is it better to steer clear and allow them to retain their lofty status, unencountered and unchallenged? Or should we put to one side our preconceived notions, gathered from dusty tomes or blemish-free social media, plan a trip and see for ourselves what all the fuss is about? In other words, shouldn't we just man up and face our heroes?

Some gardens woefully fail to live up to the glossy hype; some perfectly conjure up the mental image I'd formed in advance; others fully deserve their reputations as planting or design exemplars, such as York Gate. (Others still lurk below the radar, waiting to bowl over the unsuspecting visitor, like Stoneleigh, but that's another story entirely.)

So my first visit to Bodnant, a mecca for lovers of all things woody and Himalayan, was a high-stakes gamble. Would it be everything I'd hoped for? Well, rest assured - it didn't disappoint, in fact if far exceeded all my high expectations, and an early spring trip has since become something of an annual rite.

What makes Bodnant so special? The scale of the undertaking, obviously. But the overriding impression is of boldness, confidence and bravado, all qualities arguably lacking in the country (and the gardening world) today. Who but a Victorian industrialist would have had the vision to set about such a project, to re-imagine a Himalayan valley in a Welsh ravine? And to create moments of exhilarating drama simply by respecting and enhancing the natural lie of the land?

How fortunate was Mr Pochin from Salford to have descendants to preserve and expand his masterpiece, the Italianate terraces being a bravura later addition, an early 20th century demonstration of how to transform a slope. And how blessed was Bodnant to reap the efforts of three generations of dedicated, knowledgeable head gardeners (the Messrs Puddle) to actually, you know, do all the work.

The first dramatic moment, a showstopper if ever there was, is the view from the top terrace looking west - the snow-dusted peaks of Snowdonia seemingly within touching distance. Rose beds and that erstwhile favourite, a rockery (in this case, rather modest), play second fiddle to a somewhat tortured but still striking Arbutus x andrachnoides that has clearly been stroked once too often.

A narrow strip of lawn below provides a breathing space and the perfect spot from which to look down on the next terrace with its semi-circular lily pond flanked by a cedar of Lebanon and a blue Atlantic cedar. Unlike the strawberry tree above, a Schima argentea is in fine fettle up against the retaining wall - testament to the heat-absorbing qualities of the stonework and the benign, humid climate of the Conwy Valley. Lush growth is the norm in these parts.

A trelliswork pergola follows, a period piece if ever there was one. Adorned with roses, Solanum crispum and ceanothus, it eases the transition down to the final terrace while no doubt requiring its fair share of maintenance - wooden fixtures and the wet Welsh weather aren't exactly made for each other.

The final, bottom terrace is restraint itself - a long canal set into a lawn flanked on one side by a yew-backed herbaceous border, nothing but mounds and spears of zesty lime green new foliage at this time of year. At one end there is a raised stage complete with yew ‘wings’, at the other the celebrated Pin Mill.

This early eighteenth century building was moved here from a garden in Gloucestershire and provides a fitting climax to the sequence of terraces. It also marks a significant switch in visual focus - the eye is re-directed through 90 degrees from the hills facing the terraces to the woodland garden that lies behind the building.

As garden features go, it does the job very stylishly, even if (whisper it) it doesn't quite blend with the substantial stonework of the retaining walls or the house looming far above. It's a far more delicate creature, a reminder that architectural styles evolve almost as quickly as garden fashions.

It's probably best at this point to keep the house firmly behind you. Given the dramatic drop from one terrace to the next, the house is pretty well hidden from view by now. For the most part, it bears little relation to the garden and has variously been described as ‘elephantine’ and reminiscent of a hotel in a staid Victorian spa.

Having grown up in just such a staid Victorian spa, I find it reassuringly solid, a familiar touchstone in such exotically planted surroundings.

It does have its moments though, for example when viewed across a swathe of daffodils or through the bare branches of a flowering magnolia.

The house is at its finest when glimpsed from the far side of the valley, where it sits in proportion to the conifers on the hillside beyond and the finer details, or lack thereof, are obscured if, for whatever misguided reason, unabashed Victoriana isn't quite your cup of tea.

All of which is a mere prelude to the main attraction. For me, anyway. Some visitors, I imagine, never make it beyond the terraces and the relatively flat parkland to the south of the house. There's a decent shrubbery to one side of the lawn, flowering cherries to the fore in early spring.

And, for the brave souls who venture out no matter the season, on the other side is a garden dedicated to all those goodies that shine in winter - sweet-smelling daphnes, the spicey vanilla and chocolate notes of Azara microphylla, no-nonsense heathers and the inevitable dogwoods.

Ancient oaks are dotted around the lawns and a sunken, sheltered pond awaits its turn in the spotlight, destined to display tropical hothouse treasures in summer. Close by but standing in splendid isolation is a majestic Wellingtonia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), one of the first specimens to be planted at Bodnant. In stark contrast to the native oaks and beeches, this one tree gives a first inkling of what lies below.

If you venture no further, you're missing the whole raison d’être of Bodnant - the woodland planting proper. And just around the corner, tucked behind the Pin Mill is the second, possibly most dramatic moment in the entire garden - the descent into the Dell.

To be continued…

More information here: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/wales/bodnant-garden

Portmeirion

James Lennox — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 10:12:31 +0000

An intricate illusion

20 March 2024
By: James Lennox

In the Jerry Herman musical, Mame, there's a particularly rousing first act number in which the title character, bemoaning her financial woes following the Wall Street Crash, decides that “We need a little Christmas, right this very minute”.

She had it easy. I've just had to endure one of the wettest winters on record. When it's not been raining, the wind has been howling - neither of which is particularly conducive to gardening. Rather than dragging out the Christmas tree in March or embarking on building an ark, I decided I needed some colour injecting into my life. Preferably involving plants.

And so, to Portmeirion in North Wales. It's no great mystery why the architect Clough Williams-Ellis chose this site to build his fantasy holiday village - a project that occupied him for around 50 years from 1925 onwards. (I empathise - it'll take at least that long before La Corolla is ready to receive visitors.) He recognised that this wasn't just another rugged, rocky promontory that Wales does so well. Instead, a Victorian shelter belt offers some protection from the prevailing wind, while the village itself was built in a cove facing south over a wide tidal estuary. Frosts are few and far between, rainfall is high.

Perfect growing conditions for the plants I love best - conifers, ferns, rhododendrons and other goodies that seem to have fallen from grace. (My tastes are either a hundred years out of date or on the cusp of a comeback.) But before I get carried away in the woods, a word or two about the village itself. It's the main reason visitors flock to Portmeirion and the primary focus of its creator.

Colourful is the first word that springs to mind. Followed closely by whimsical, fantastical, Baroque, joyful, kitsch, amusing, riotous, entertaining and eye-catching. The buildings surrounding the village green form quite the ensemble. Some critics see an echo of Portofino, although Williams-Ellis denied being directly influenced by any one spot on the Italian Riviera.

Rather, it’s a gloriously shameless collection of architectural details, styles and effects - an onion dome here, a colonnade there, a frescoed ceiling, a bronze Buddha. Only his signature turquoise and gold-painted ironwork visually links Portmeirion to the much more sober and restrained Plas Brondanw up the road which he created as his private retreat.

Yes, this is a self-consciously designed tourist attraction, but perhaps that undersells it. Portmeirion is a three-dimensional stage set (inevitably beloved of television location scouts), the largest multi-component sculpture around, a giant art installation, a provocative, fully immersive experience. Is this real life? Or is it, as the song goes, just a fantasy? Years before Walt Disney produced his plastic version, here's a magic kingdom made of stone and stucco, all whipped up out of thin air for our delectation.

And there's equally impressive planting to boot. The obvious crowd-pleasers are packed into the village proper. As with the magpie-like architectural smash and grab, plant provenance is not a major concern here. This is not the place for native plant purists to convene an away-day. If it grows in these conditions and adds to the joy of nations (or ice-cream licking day-trippers - and I include myself in their ranks), then in it goes.

New Zealand is well represented with clipped hebes, variegated pittosporums and spiky drifts of phormiums. Bedding out is big - bulbs for spring, pelargoniums and other stalwarts later on. There are echiums and Euphorbia mellifera, Luma apiculata and Irish yews dressed up as Italian cypresses.

All appropriately quirky seaside planting, with ranks of Chusan palms (Trachycarpus fortunei) somehow looking less ridiculous than normal in this setting. But peer a little closer, beyond the mophead hydrangeas lying in wait for the summer season, and there are signs of a lively gardening mind at work.

An Edgeworthia chrysantha here, a cluster of agaves clinging to a rock slope there, cloud-pruned bay trees lining a walkway and further hints at the woodland’s horticultural delights dotted between the idiosyncratic buildings. A billowing camellia clashing with the painted stucco, a majestic Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) demonstrating its value as a specimen and not just as plantation fodder on a Highland bog, an Australian blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) hugging the side of the town hall - all are just a little unexpected.

Venture up the steep slope to the Gwyllt woodlands and you could be forgiven for thinking that you've left all trace of artifice behind in the village below. Yes, there's a wildness to these 70 acres (reflected in the Welsh name) with its native populations of birch, oak and rowan and the far-reaching views of rugged coastline and treacherous sands. But again, like the village, this is very much a man-made creation.

Exotic plants were introduced from the 1850s onwards, first by Henry Seymour Westmacott, then by Sir William Fothergill Cooke and lastly, in the first part of the 20th century, by G.H. Caton Haigh, an ornithologist and authority on Himalayan plants, from whose estate Williams-Ellis purchased the woodland in 1941.

To the very few visitors who break free of the village's attractions, the woodland's botanical treasures are the cause of many a double-take. Now, I'm a huge fan of dense planting, a committed adherent to the “more is more” school of gardening. But the array of specimens piled up, seemingly at random here, is bewildering. There's a distinct danger of missing the wood for the trees, particularly as labels are few and far between, adding further to the illusion that these plants must all just have drifted in on the wind.

Look up and the canopy is composed of towering Douglas firs (Pseudotsuga menziesii), Monterey pines (Pinus radiata), Sequoiadendron giganteum, Pinus muricata and Cryptomeria japonica. Over 40 species of eucalypts hang precariously above the sea, their leaves perfectly mirroring the silvery-blue expanse.

The mid-storey is dominated by rhododendrons (R. sinogrande, macabeanum, sinofalconeri, maddenii among other species, with 20th century hybrids and azaleas akimbo), eucryphias, crinodendrons, groups of Maytenus boaria, Lomatia ferruginea, Schima wallichii, tree ferns and camellias, often strikingly juxtaposed.

And now it's time for a confession. I've never really seen eye-to-eye with camellias. Too often they seem to have yellowy foliage, wishy-washy pale pink flowers which brown at the merest hint of frost or rain, and a sulky demeanour that adds little to the garden for 50 weeks of the year.

Well, I think I'm on the verge of being converted to their charms. Perhaps it was their weedlike profusion, their ruddy good health, their vigourous upward growth or their sheer variety (japonicas, Williamsii hybrids, plain old species, flowers ranging from deepest burgundy to fuchsia pink to clotted cream to arctic white), but when planted en masse in a woodland of exotic treats, even I admit they look the part.

More of a contrast in atmosphere to the village it would be hard to find. It’s a refuge from the crowds, there's not a hint of commercialism, it's sensitively maintained but not to the extent of feeling scrubbed for its next starring role on TV. New arrivals are filling the very few gaps - and who doesn't love a Fitzroya cupressoides or a Podocarpus salignus?

There are few designed structures in the woodland, precious few architectural twiddles, merely the odd Chinese-style bridge or tea house, a rotunda or a gazebo. Here the artifice all lies in the plant choices, the exoticism of the planting subtly playing up the otherworldliness of the village below.

Of course I was vaguely aware of where I was the whole time, but the sheer incongruity of finding an exotic woodland next door to an Italianate village in a remote and rugged corner of North Wales might be unsettling for some. For me, it was invigorating, energising and just the splash of colour I needed at this time of year.

More information here: https://portmeirion.wales/

Bartram's Garden

James Lennox — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 10:57:18 +0000

A botanical bonanza

3 March 2024
By: James Lennox

As the Monty Python team didn't quite get round to asking: “What have the Quakers ever done for us?” That's an easy one. Not only did they contribute to the world's waistlines by inventing the chocolate bar, they've produced great actresses (take a bow, Dame Judi Dench) and misunderstood politicians (step forward, President Nixon) and, more importantly for present purposes, in the eighteenth century they facilitated the introduction into England of some of the finest North American plants.

Two Quakers in particular were responsible for this transatlantic trade: Peter Collinson in London and John Bartram just outside Philadelphia. During the course of a partnership that lasted for over thirty years, Bartram would collect seed from the wild (on travels ranging from Lake Ontario in the north to Florida in the south) and propagate plants on his ever-expanding nursery by the banks of the Schuylkill River. He was very much a pioneer of the “right plant, right place” school, a keen observer of the natural environment, writing detailed notes on where he found the plants and what conditions they preferred.

Seeds and notes would then be shipped to England and distributed by Collinson in so-called “five guinea boxes” to keen botanists and collectors. Customers included the Dukes of Richmond, Norfolk and Argyll, Lord Petre at Thorndon and Philip Miller at the Chelsea Physic Garden. Linnaeus studied the plants sent by the untrained Bartram and praised him as “the greatest natural botanist of his time”.

In total, over 200 plants were introduced to England this way, including Chionanthus virginicus, Collinsonia canadensis (another Linnaean seal of approval on the enterprise), Cornus amomum, Dodecatheon maedia, Kalmia latifolia, Liatris spicata, Magnolia acuminata and tripetala, Rhododendron maximum and Veratrum viride. The influx of so many woody plants into England through this partnership, and their subsequent adoption by high society, has even been credited with the gradual shift from formal to informal seen in landscape design at the time.

All of which means that Bartram's Garden is a place of pilgrimage for those of us with a keen interest in eighteenth century gardens (cf. Castle Howard and Harewood House) and an entirely healthy obsession with North American trees.

It's truly remarkable that the handsomely proportioned house (built with local stone quarried by the Bartrams), adjacent seed house and 14 acre garden have survived everything that a growing city has thrown their way. Railways, cement works, housing estates, industrial pollution - this garden has seen it all.

Somehow, it still shelters the oldest ginkgo in North America, an ancient yellowwood (Cladrastris kentukea), stately tulip trees, shagbark hickories and bald cypresses (Taxodium distichum), and a pawpaw (Asimina triloba) suckering for all it's worth.

And of course, there's a young Franklinia alatamaha, a species discovered by John and his son William in 1765 and named by the latter in honour of his father's good friend, Ben. It’s just as well they spotted it when they did - it hasn't been seen in the wild since 1803. All franklinias now growing, including the one at La Corolla, are descended from seed collected by William and propagated in this very spot. A bit like the giant panda, they don't exactly make it easy for humans to lend a helping hand. They can be pernickety customers, although so far my sunny well-drained hillside seems to suit it just fine.

Surrounding the house there are flower gardens. The one at the front is filled with a lively cottage garden-style mix of local favourites and exotic species flanking semi-circular paths designed to welcome visitors to the house and allow them to examine more unusual specimens up close. The profusion of flowers recalls how this part of the garden would have looked when John's granddaughter, Ann, lived here and ran the nursery.

At the back of the house on the slope down to the river is a small productive patch, handy for the kitchen and fenced off from marauding wildlife.

The rest of this area is dedicated to growing a display of native plants discovered by the Bartrams on their travels and brought back to Philadelphia for sale through the nursery. Both father and son must have had a good eye for an indestructible plant. Physostegia virginiana, Euphorbia marginata, Hibiscus grandiflorus and coccineus were all performing nicely, with not a single one showing signs of wilting in the sun. Unlike me.

Further from the house, the minimal formal areas give way to a more ruggedly naturalistic approach. A small pond amongst the trees adds an extra dimension to the garden - a setting for pitcher plants and Venus fly traps (Dionaea muscipula), introduced into cultivation by the Bartrams.

It also happened to be the setting for my very first encounter with a hummingbird. That special, fleeting moment just helped to confirm that gardens, even ones tasked with preserving a sense of past achievements as well as botanically important specimens, can never really be dismissed as mere plant museums.

There's simply too much life pulsing all around: iridescent flashes of light from feeding birds; flowers determined to put on a show for parched English visitors; or locals simply taking time out from city cares in a green oasis. And who can resist a rustic swing hanging from high up in an American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis)?

With its relaxed atmosphere, its imaginative and well-maintained planting, its emphasis on education and commitment to the local community, Bartram's Garden manages to strike that fine balance between being a memorial to the past and an engaging place to visit now. The historic buildings, the venerable trees, the plants associated with the Bartrams, all create a real sense of walking on hallowed botanical ground in a garden fully engaged with the modern world around it. It's a special combination that takes some beating.

More information here: https://www.bartramsgarden.org/

American Museum & Gardens

James Lennox — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 08:07:22 +0000

A transatlantic treat

23 February 2024
By: James Lennox

George II arguably has two claims to fame: he was the last British monarch to lead his troops into battle; and he was the amateur meteorologist who defined an English summer as “three fine days and a thunderstorm”.

He would have been taken aback by the Summer of 2022. By the time I paid a visit to the gardens of the American Museum just outside Bath, the country had endured almost three months of record-breaking temperatures, no rainfall at all and desiccating Saharan-style winds. I was afeared for any plant that hadn't already given up the ghost.

I needn't have worried. Not only was I welcomed with the reward of a free cookie for having somewhat foolishly walked up the long, steep hill from my boat temporarily moored on the canal below; I was also greeted by swathes of brightly coloured planting positively rejoicing in the heat.

Of course, it was the second George's grandson, George III, who has more of a connection to North America. He was the one who somewhat carelessly allowed the Thirteen Colonies to go their own way. But that's all water under the bridge now. Relations between the two countries have improved to such an extent that, in 1961, an Anglo-American couple decided to set up the American Museum at Claverton Manor to house their collection of decorative arts in the Regency pile at the centre of the 125-acre estate.

And it seems entirely appropriate that one of those art forms showcased here is the art of gardening. Well, that's my interpretation of the decision in 2018 to engage the US firm of Oehme, van Sweden (OvS) to revamp the main lawn into the New American Garden, which, together with the recreation of the garden at Mount Vernon created by yet another George (Washington) form the open air highlights at the American Museum.

The site of the New American Garden is almost as challenging as my own garden at La Corolla: here it's alkaline instead of acid soil, but otherwise similarly exposed, dry and sun-kissed. It's almost as if OvS could sense that a heatwave was just around the corner as they wisely chose to rely heavily on their favourite cast-iron plants, those “good doers” that resolutely refuse to give in when the going gets tough.

The firm's signature style bears more than a passing resemblance to the New Perennial plantings that we're familiar with from Piet Oudolf's work at Scampston and Tom Stuart's Smith design for Broughton Grange. Where the European approach is to include varied planting in a complex matrix pattern, OvS tend to simplify the design, restricting the plant palette and working in larger swathes and bolder blocks. The aesthetic could be summed up as “robust American prairie”.

It leads to a dramatic display of plants that they know can withstand the extremes of temperature common in the US and which gardens increasingly suffer in Britain as well. And so we have broad brushstrokes of Allium ‘Summer Drummer', Rudbeckia maxima, Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus', Acanthus hungaricus, Verbena bonariensis and Veronicastrum virginicum f. roseum, all laughing in the face of climatic adversity.

Elsewhere, paths are lined with Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker's Low' and Oenothera lindheimeri, interspersed with ornamental grasses such as Molinia caerulea subsp. caerulea ‘Dauerstrahl', Panicum virgatum ‘Warrior' and our old friend Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster'.

The flow along the serpentine paths, vaguely reminiscent of the winding walk at Jefferson's Monticello, is superb, the blocks of colour bold even under the harshest sun and the choice of plants beyond reproach.

The same assured plantsmanship continues in the Mount Vernon Garden. It's instantly recognisable as a Revolutionary-era garden - white picket fence, the ogee-roofed seed hut (seen to equally good effect at Dumbarton Oaks), the informal mix of ornamental and productive plants.

In fact, it's not a million miles away from the archetype of the traditional English cottage garden - straight and narrow paths, a profusion of herbaceous plantings and always something for the pot. It's only the fleur-de-lis box parterre, designed by Washington as a tribute to his friend the Marquis de Lafayette, that strikes a distinctly un-English note.

The juxtaposition of the two gardens highlights just how far American garden design has come in the last two centuries, from humble domestic (albeit presidential) origins to grand-scale public schemes. While there are elements that are only just starting to pull their weight (the young tulip trees barely break the horizontal plane of the herbaceous planting), it's astonishing how mature the New American Garden already looks.

Even at the end of a heatwave, with no royal thunderstorm in sight, the muscular, confident, authentically American planting was more than holding its own. As a result, I'm mightily tempted to introduce a flavour of the New World into my own parched hillside and see how it copes under a Spanish sun.

More information here: https://americanmuseum.org/

Stoneleigh

James Lennox — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 13:33:38 +0000

The future of the country house garden?

21 February 2024
By: James Lennox

I almost missed Stoneleigh on my whirlwind tour of East Coast gardens. I'd been all set to visit Longwood, but an escaped convict had decided to hole up there for the duration. I couldn't help but admire his choice of hideout - a thousand or so acres of fountains, conservatories, herbaceous borders, woodlands and meadows, all to himself pending re-capture. Longwood's temporary closure left me with time on my hands. Much like a felon serving life.

And so I stumbled across Stoneleigh, the more modest 42-acre estate outside Philadelphia gifted by the Haas family in 2016 to the conservation charity Natural Lands. A retreat from city life, the grounds were originally laid out along traditional lines: a blend of native and exotic trees (including now towering ginkgos and katsuras), sweeping lawns and more intensively gardened areas, with input during the first half of the 20th century from the Olmsted Brothers' design practice, the most prestigious in the country at the time.

So far, so predictable. Where the garden's story takes a turn is with the shift in focus to ecological conservation and towards managing the space with the aim of increasing biodiversity. I can't be the only gardener slightly apprehensive when I hear about such developments. Far too often it seems to be an excuse for cash-strapped organisations to ease up on the maintenance.

Or even worse, it can tip over into a misguided attempt at re-wilding, where a survival of the fittest-style contest between re-introduced carnivores, omnivores and herbivores leaves a few straggly clumps of gorse, a three-legged wolf and a couple of mangy beavers chomping through the remains of a Victorian pinetum.

Have no fear - Stoneleigh is not one of those experiments. It is, in fact, very much an example of best practice - preserve the finest elements of the past, blur the edges and monitor the results very closely. A metaphorical loosening of the corset laces, if you will.

At the risk of coming over all post-modern, there's more than a hint of deconstruction going on here. Take the setting of the house itself. Rather than standing at the end of a sweep of manicured grass, the Great Lawn has been let off its lead. It's now a no-mow area, with only a six foot strip alongside paths kept short to highlight the deliberate decision-making at play. Moreover, right in front of the house there's a dead London plane, monitored for safety but otherwise allowed to stand for the benefit of whatever critters take a fancy to nesting, perching or munching on it. A bold move in such a prominent spot.

But the no-mow policy has, mercifully, not been applied throughout. This is no zero tolerance, Cultural Revolution-style overthrow of the past. There's still a fine lawn in the sunken Circle Garden, the centrepiece of the formal Beaux Arts-style garden areas, where the value of traditional elements has been acknowledged.

It's a quiet green space, surrounded by evergreens including a marvellously contorted Thuja occidentalis, the limbs of which have been cleared to provide a sculptural moment.

Elsewhere, a redundant tennis court has been converted into a raised pond, the crystal clear water a point of pride for the young gardener charged with finding the exact balanced mix of aquatic plants to remove the need for chemicals.

The change in purpose of the garden from providing outdoor recreation for a young family to becoming a naturalistic space for human and animal visitors alike necessarily leads to a re-imagining of the use of certain areas without discarding the best of the past (here, a state champion Catalpa bignonioides, 82ft tall with a spread of 63 ft). It also happens to be the third such re-thinking of a tennis court I've noted recently (see Dumbarton Oaks and Kiftsgate Court). I sense a trend afoot.

Likewise, the space once occupied by an artificial swimming pool, hard to justify in an ecological garden, has been re-purposed to display pitcher plants, both alone and combined with other more conventional perennials, natives all.

It's a perfect example of the subtlety of Stoneleigh. A policy of only using native plants in new plantings doesn't have to mean settling for the standard species if there are more garden-worthy alternatives of equal benefit to wildlife and perhaps of more interest to the gardener.

Striking choices have been used to demonstrate the almost limitless possibilities open to local gardeners. And so we find the eye-catching Rudbeckia subtomentosa ‘Henry Ellers', Cladastris kentukea ‘White Rain' (a drooping sport) and, in amongst a fine collection of redbuds, the weeping Cercis canadensis 'Ruby Falls’ and my personal favourite in name and form C. canadensis 'Alley Cat'.

Another innovation is in hedging material. Instead of a single species line-up, Stoneleigh takes the Hidcote-style tapestry hedge to the next level, combining Ilex opaca 'Portia Orton', Viburnum dentatum, Leucathoe fontanesiana, Liquidambar styraciflua ‘Oconee', Euonymus atropurpureus, Fagus grandifolia, Illicium anisatum 'Pink Frost' and Magnolia grandiflora. (Thank heavens for botanical Latin. The local names have undoubted charm, but left me none the wiser - doghobble, Eastern wahoo?) And why not plant the lot along a prominent path in a traditionally designed section of the garden?

So many gardens have a tendency to play it safe, to stick with the tried and tested. Perhaps it's time we all embraced a spot of experimentation to liven up our green creations. We still get to enjoy all the historic features of a substantial country house garden but with a couple of significant twists. Ecological considerations are championed but there is no compromise in design, plant choice or maintenance.

A case in point is the historic pergola, now covered in an inventive mix of native climbers (Passiflora lutea, Aristolochia macrophylla, Wisteria frutescens) and furnished with a stylish modern bench. I can vouch for it as the perfect coffee spot, somewhere to acknowledge that the baby has definitely not been thrown out with the bath water.

There are several firm hands at work, controlling overly exuberant growth and unafraid to show off horticultural skills with espaliers, topiary, raised canopies and fantastically pruned limbs everywhere.

There are valuable lessons here for owners of large historic gardens. A new approach can be rewarding both visually and ecologically. It is possible to combine elements from the past with a more biodiverse present. A plantaholic's paradise can co-exist with nature. You don't have to confine yourself to plain, unadulterated species - do owls really give a hoot if a tree is variegated, weeping or upright?

Plant as densely as you can afford - it saves on maintenance (the native plants formerly known as weeds won't stand a chance) and it creates a variety of habitats to support wildlife year round. And remember that you're under no obligation to invite the more destructive elements into your garden. After all, it is still a garden, not a smorgasbord for deer.

Stoneleigh is very much a garden at the forefront of modern horticulture, in tune with the biodiversity Zeitgeist but without forgetting the human factor. It’s a perfect synthesis of traditional country house garden design with a modern and adventurous sensibility. To paraphrase Thomas Church, gardens are still for people, it's just that with a little bit of imagination they can encompass so much more life than we once thought possible.

And don’t worry, thanks to law-enforcement eventually coming good, I finally made it to Longwood for yet more inspiration for my own garden back at La Corolla.

More information here: https://stoneleighgarden.org/garden/home/

Kiftsgate Court

James Lennox — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 16:22:10 +0000

A kaleidoscope of colour

14 February 2024
By: James Lennox

The garden visitor is constantly confronted with dilemmas that would flummox lesser mortals. Is it ever permissible to wear pillar-box red in someone else's garden? (Answer: only at the height of dahlia season, when it appears that anything goes, colour-wise.) Is any garden worth visiting in February? (Answer: only those that specialise in one of the 3 S's - structure, stonework or snowdrops. Stowe, for example, does a nice line in all three.) And at a particular crossroads high on an escarpment on the edge of the Cotswolds, should I turn left or right?

One route, uphill, leads to the grand-daddy of them all, the fabled Hidcote, home of the garden room, the unexpected vista, the red border. A jewel in the National Trust's somewhat tarnished crown, it sees busloads being disgorged straight into the jaws of a slick commercial operation, very much the “tea shop with a garden attached” model.

The other route, the path decidedly less trodden, brings the curious gardenista within the ambit of an entirely different operation. 9 times out of 10, the answer to my third question is: head to Kiftsgate, you won't regret it. (After all, everyone should go to Hidcote once at least.)

Over the course of a century, three generations of women gardeners have wrestled a sequence of plant-filled spaces from an unpromising site surrounding the family home. With the help of a shelter belt of pines (including some enormous Monterey pines, Pinus radiata, tottering on the top of a rocky slope), they have managed to tame what must have been a rather bleak, cold, exposed hilltop.

On the levelled ground around the house are found perhaps the most conventionally designed areas of the garden. That Edwardian standby, the sunken garden, is put to good use on either side of the house. The first on entering is divided into four box-edged squares filled with a billowing mass of shrubs, roses and perennials, a dazzling mix of scarlets, lavenders, pinks and blues. (The mid-20th century roses ‘Frensham' and ‘Lili Marlene' certainly pack a punch and aren't for the faint of heart.)

The second sunken garden is a much more restrained affair, white in the main with spots of colour provided by the blue metalwork seats, a unifying shade repeated on furniture and doors throughout. Mock oranges, flowering dogwoods, white geraniums and, for me the stars of the show, an entire border of hydrangeas, from H. arborescens ‘Grandiflora’ to H. heteromalla f. xanthoneurea wilsonii via H. cinerea and H. seemannii to name a few.

And it is the use of colour at Kiftsgate that has been praised by everyone from Graham Stuart Thomas downwards. The Wide Border linking the two sunken gardens is a perfectly composed exercise in colour grading. A profusion of herbaceous growth is barely held in check, a perfect display of gardening skill that knows just how far to let plants enjoy themselves before intervening.

The Yellow Border does exactly what it says on the tin. Crocosmias, euphorbias, geums, heleniums, hypericums, ligularias and roses all conform to the theme, with the occasional delphinium for contrast.

And of course there's a rose border, the slightly dated red brick path lined on either side with R. gallica ‘Versicolor', the beds filled with trusted stalwarts.

The roses are interspersed with a lush planting of asters, astilbes, geraniums, penstemons and salvias, among other fillers, all overseen by the eponymous R. filipes 'Kiftsgate' scrambling high in a copper beech.

All of these areas have been developed and tweaked over the years by the successive owners, a pool and fountain added to the white sunken garden, newer varieties of roses and perennials inserted into existing planting schemes to refresh the palette. The garden as it exists today is very much a product of evolution rather than revolution. There's no suggestion here that a long-established rose garden might suddenly be discarded in a fit of pique.

Instead, Kiftsgate exemplifies a rare continuity of purpose, preserving the best of the past without shying away from introducing new elements. Two areas demonstrate this best. The Lower Garden sits at the bottom of a terrifying slope, the descent of which would provide the perfect opportunity to bump off an aged relative who has just made a generous will. The slope itself is softened with plants that don't mind a bit of dry heat under the pines: a good range of ceanothus, cistus, escallonia, olearia and pittosporums to distract the eye on the way down.

Thankfully, the Lower Garden itself is level, a thrust stage projecting out into the countryside and bounded by a ha-ha. In the centre is a semi-circular pool, painted black, a bold innovation by the second owner. The clean lines and simple geometric shape, backed by a classical folly-cum-changing room, serve as the perfect foil to the jumble of rocks leading back up to the house.

The second area to be reimagined, this time by the current owner, is the Water Garden. It's a novel, thoughtful, stylish response to the conundrum of what to do with a disused tennis court. At Dumbarton Oaks, the solution was the pebble garden. At Stoneleigh (the subject of my next review), the tennis court was replaced by a raised pond. Here, surrounded by a mighty yew hedge, the sunken pond with sculpture (Philodendron leaves spouting water by Simon Allison) is just what Kiftsgate was lacking - a green void where the eye can rest for a moment, a place of respite from the complexities outside.

What makes this newish area even more of an achievement is that it was, like the rest of the garden before it, created without the input of a professional designer for hire. Resolving particular design problems, unaided, in our own gardens can be a challenge. When it works, it's as if the solution was staring us in the face the whole time. When it doesn't, the result can be slightly awkward.

Less successful here, perhaps, is the Mound, a rather unsatisfactory raised horseshoe that doesn't quite seem to have a purpose yet. The avenue of tulip trees beyond should only improve over time, although I query whether the sculpture at the far end is quite strong enough to hold the eye. (I shan't always be available to act as an additional focal point.)

But these are minor quibbles that would pass unremarked in a lesser garden. This is after all a personal creation of past and present owners, full of character and individuality, with no intrusive, institutional plant labels to break the flow. As befits a plantswoman's paradise, an exhaustive plant list is produced each year to assist with identification.

There's no such thing as overplanting in my book, so you'll find no complaints from me about the density of the borders or the narrowness of the paths. And experimentation, sheer exuberance even, whether in planting or design, is what keeps a historic garden alive.

There's minimal hard landscaping. There are barely any views beyond the garden thanks to the windbreaks - it's very much its own island of horticultural excellence in a sea of farmland. There's a steep hill with a treacherous climb. And no professional designers were harmed in the making of the garden. The parallels with La Corolla are uncanny...

Now all I need to do is produce my own plant list and I’ll be in business.

More information here: https://www.kiftsgate.co.uk/

Fern Gully

James Lennox — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 08:14:43 +0000

Or: how I almost bit off more than I could chew (part two)

9 February 2024
By: James Lennox

February is when galanthophiles are brave enough to venture out. What they do for the rest of the year is a bit of a mystery. I have my suspicions - perhaps they're all trying to outbid each other in online auctions for the latest mutant snowdrop; or possibly they're just planning daring nocturnal raids on each other's rarities.

Either way, this is the month to catch them outdoors, nose to ground - unless it's snowing when there's not much point braving the elements and missing the little darlings in the mush. It's a puzzling fascination, to say the least, and one that I didn't fully appreciate until I'd spent a good few Februarys in England.

This is, hands down, the most miserable month of the entire year. The sky varies all the way from dark grey to black and never seems to lighten. Driving rain is a speciality with only the occasional flurry of snow to brighten the mood. Gardeners have to entertain themselves somehow and, if they haven't reconciled themselves to a month on the sofa eating bonbons and reading trashy novels, they feel obliged to admire any old plant that pokes its head up at this time of year.

Good ol' galanthus-worship almost makes sense in that particular context. Unfortunately, I struggle to spot the subtle differences between G. ‘Galatea', ‘Hippolyta', ‘Ophelia' and ‘Desdemona'. It probably doesn't help that I don't get down on bended knee but just peer at them myopically from 6ft above. But credit where it's due, the discoverers, breeders and owners of these beauties certainly deserve full marks on the naming front.

Pteridomania, on the other hand, is much more my thing - botanically diverse (i.e. more than just one genus, galanthophiles!), out of fashion since Victoria's day and remarkably affordable. All admirable traits. And it was my growing obsession with ferns that led me to embark on yet another project at La Corolla.

Spain is not generally renowned for its cool, moist growing conditions. La Corolla is no exception. Although I'm slowly creating my own shade-filled corner of Asturias, I've always hankered after a spot to satisfy my craving for ferns - somewhere that'll never dry out or be scorched by harsh sunlight, humus-rich and permanently damp. In the end, I didn't have to look far.

All this time, we'd been sitting on a ferny goldmine, just over the tumbledown fence at the edge of the American Woodland. During the purchase of the new field, it transpired that we had first dibs on an additional quarter acre derelict strip of land. It would be perfect for ferns - a mini-ravine, with sheer rock walls on either side, protected by overhanging oaks, ash and bay trees, with dappled shade all day long.

As luck would have it, there were ferns growing there already - mainly Dryopteris filix-mas and Polystichum setiferum. Nothing to set the world on fire, but a useful hint as to how the area could be planted up. It’s very much a transitional space between intensively cultivated garden and open countryside, the ideal spot for a blend of native and exotic ferns, gradually giving way to local flora only on the far side of the ravine.

The only problem was that it had been used for years before our arrival and the advent of organised rubbish collections (unconnected events, I assure you) as the village tip.

Of course, the accumulation of decades of leaf litter had disguised the worst. As with most projects, ignorance is bliss. Chopping up a couple of fallen trees to create an entrance was child's play. After all, give a man a chainsaw and every tree turns into potential firewood. On this occasion, I was the model of restraint itself - I was trying to preserve the shady conditions, after all.

The worst, most disheartening phase was removing the mountains of detritus by hand, hoping that my latest tetanus jab was still doing its thing. Everything that couldn't be burned had been buried there - glass bottles, tin cans, car tyres, toilets, mattresses. I've seen enough TV police dramas to be fairly sure that the piles of bones we found weren't human, but they were an unsettling discovery nonetheless.

In the end, it only took a week of solid effort and was arguably a better use of my time than aimlessly scrolling through Instagram. Future archaeologists might want to excavate deeper, but I was happy to call it a day when I'd reached evidence of the early 20th century and had already dealt with the big ticket items.

Transplant a few ferns from holding patterns elsewhere, upcycle an old picnic table, decorate with a few of the choicer finds in a shameless homage to the installation we'd seen in the ravine at Hunting Brook in Ireland (subject of an upcoming review) and, hey presto, another clear-up was complete.

Mysteries remain. Is the gully a natural feature or the result of quarrying? There's no running water there now, nor are there signs of stone having been removed by man. Was it perhaps a defensive dry moat-type feature of an ancient settlement, as with so many other prominent hills in the area? And why had we not got round to tackling this area and expanding the empire sooner? Just think of the size of the tree ferns by now if I’d started this whole business 20 years ago.