tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55600924428861390632024-02-19T15:03:14.145+00:00News From NowhereNews From Nowherehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601745530908709542noreply@blogger.comBlogger169125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-56182456609154282592014-10-19T07:37:00.000+01:002014-10-19T07:39:05.032+01:00Does Your Role Have a Goal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I was a young thing my boss took me to the Groucho Club and asked me about my five year plan. Huh? Where did I want to be in five years. Did I want her job, or what? It was a very nice lunch but I didn't know what she was talking about. <br />
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A little more ambition would have been helpful. Now if there are ever any work perks I try to look beyond the venue and food but not the conversation: that is the important part. Driving 144 miles to spend an hour at Le Manoir Aux Quat' Saisons wasn't about the Zen-like effect of French luxury but to see what The English Garden magazine had to say about <a href="http://www.theenglishgarden.co.uk/news-events/the-english-garden-future-fund">The English Garden Future Fund</a>. </div>
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And it is a good story. A grateful reader left them "a considerable sum" in her will and the magazine is sharing it as a bursary every year. There will be up to £5,000 for somebody with a PLAN. An imaginative, horticultural idea. Have you got that? </div>
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The winsome voice of Chris Beardshaw talks you through the Future Fund in this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71o5wZtSsoI">short film</a>. Towards the end of the rhyming pentameters (yes it's a poem) you'll want to catch the lines about "goals" and "roles". It could be life-changing.</div>
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Entries are being accepted until the end of November.</div>
<br />News From Nowherehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601745530908709542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-23782796649746559272014-07-22T14:48:00.003+01:002014-07-22T14:51:04.652+01:00Fetes and Festivals<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Back to Cot'sbrooke last week to haunt it once again. The occasion was the garden fete, held on the south lawn. Besides a man on stilts wearing gold lamé trousers, there was juggling and a be-boatered man strolling around with an accordian. The usual crowds gathered around the bric-a-brac. A wurlitzer at one end pumped out 'Nice Work If You Can Get It' while the quintet in the courtyard played Artie Shaw. <i>And</i> there were meringues with double cream.</div>
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What I really wanted to see though was the garden in high summer. Phylip Statner the head gardener is a genius and he always grows the latest It plants, while pretending that they just arrived there by chance. <i>Dianthus carthusianorum</i> above, is typical of this. </div>
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Unlikely plant combos come together effortlessly; again it's nothing to do with Phylip and his amazing creativity. Above: The Dutch Garden, which is really a parterre of four untamed rectangles surrounded horizontally and vertically by brick.<br />
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A regular around the borders is<i> Verbascum chaixii</i> 'Album'. Here it mingles with pink Monarda and the purple foliage of the forest pansy.<br />
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Now sights are set on the festival this weekend at Port Eliot: the Fortnums tent, the Ancient Industries stand (shared with <a href="http://www.folkathome.com/">Folk at Home</a>) and of course the <a href="http://ancientindustries.co.uk/shop">canvas bags</a>.<br />
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News From Nowherehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601745530908709542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-67649924072437158822014-06-19T01:08:00.003+01:002014-06-19T01:08:29.525+01:00Think Black!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"When is Cottesbrooke Plantfinders Fair coming back?" people often wail. At least around here they do, where we in the East Midlands became used to hosting this very chic event. It was talked about in certain circles with as much anticipation as the Chelsea Flower Show and it was all ours.<br />
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Well it ain't coming back. But it's been resurrected as two new shows. One is the self-explanatory <a href="http://plantfindersfair.co.uk/about-borde-hill/">Borde Hill Plantfinders' Fair</a> in July, in Sussex. The other is now, this week, in the village of Hampstead. It has been set up by the people who made Cottesbrooke so special (Cottesbrooke memories can be found <a href="http://ladymuckdigs.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/cottsbrooke-characters.html">here</a>) and this time you don't have to drive up the M1. You just take the Northern Line or overground train to NW3 and <a href="http://growlondon.com/london/">GROW London</a> is there, on the Lower Fairgound Site on East Heath Road, in the tent left behind by the Affordable Art Fair.<br />
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Part of the reason that people loved Cottesbrooke was that it was an edited selection of goods. It was also in a ravishing setting and you could wander around the gardens, listen to speakers who were always amusing and you could buy things. No jostling around show gardens; no anxiety about being assaulted by tat. There is NO TAT.<br />
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I'd like to think of myself as Kay Thompson in all of this, the singing editor of Quality Magazine in Funny Face. But we're not talking about pink this time. Remember: "Think black, think black<br />
for the long, long road ahead." See the GROW London programme for details.News From Nowherehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601745530908709542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-2976125173667658582014-05-22T07:04:00.002+01:002014-05-24T16:55:13.244+01:00The Chelsea Cheer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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At 7 o'clock on a clear morning in May,
gardens look pretty good. Inside the Royal Hospital grounds, the
finest show gardens on offer are quietly shimmering at the Chelsea
Flower Show. With pale sunshine and hardly anyone around, they will
never look better than this, in their moment of judgement.<br />
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Since it's impossible to see everything
at once at the Chelsea Flower Show, the leafy nook that shelters the
Artisan Gardens is best saved until you are in need of escape from
Main Avenue. But don't forget to go; they are the most inventive and
useful gardens in the show. They're small, so people can relate, and
they're not flash. They have a story to tell, like the Potter's
Garden with WW1 bullets embedded in the soil or the Topiarist's
Garden with a bothy and cottagey parterre for indulging a head
gardener's personal topiary fetish (as if). </div>
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If you are lucky there will be a
Japanese moss garden as well, with a waterfall and lots of little
mounds. If you are REALLY lucky you'll visit with a photographer like
Howard Sooley. He'll tell you to go round the back and see what a
small show garden can do. This one had had considerable attention
paid to the sides, with a moss wall infiltrated by ferns and dangly
things. At the back: a planted wall with little acers growing out of
the top. It suited this woodland setting. And yet it was still neat:
the turf around the edge of the back of the garden was precisely cut
before giving way to real mud and weeds.<br />
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“Look at the back of this garden,”
said my other companion. “Then look next door.”<br />
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The Paradise on Earth garden won Best
in Show for the smaller gardens and as Kazuyuki Ishihara ran on stage
roaring, with both fists in the air, he and his crowd showed us a
thing or two about celebrating. After that we really wanted the
Italian winner of the Best Show Garden, Luciano Giubbilei, to
gesticulate and go a bit mad, but he's been living in England for too
long.
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News From Nowherehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601745530908709542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-8906301331077900062014-04-17T22:29:00.003+01:002014-04-22T10:41:41.684+01:00Bruce Weber's Porkies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Garden Museum in London was host to a 'fashion panel' the other night
which was impossible to resist: Amanda Harlech (muse); Sam McKnight
(legendary hairdresser) and Tim Walker (fantastical photographer). There
was also an erudite professor of fashion from Central St Martins called Alistair O'Neill.<br />
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Sam McKnight came to gardening later in life but has always been
infuenced by flowers. He showed us slides of 70s-style "dandelion frizz looks" as well as "twiggy, branchy looks" which reminded me of the picture of
Penelope Tree got up like a tree, with her long hair teased into a
birds nest with eggs in it.*<br />
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McKnight uses flower shapes and flower colours. But he would never have left Tree's nest as neat as it is: he likes to destroy a hair style as much as he can before it is photographed. So it is with flowers: <br />
"There's something about the decaying of flowers that I find most interesting of all."<br />
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Fawn-like Tim Walker started off by showing us a photograph that had been formative for him, from the book <i>Appearances</i> by Martin Harrison.** It was a Bruce Weber shot: a silk frock on what should be a mannequin but without head or arms. It is a collapsing dress with a bunch of roses for a head (except it doesn't look as though it's collapsing: I've always thought it was a model wearing a silk cape with a high collar and roses as a hat). Legend has it that this is a Charles James dress and that the shoot took place at Sissinghurst (home to all the roses shown here).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYqMIMvFosmN2vQPxVtdUWNyNACtLmUaYZHT-aUY_P1WVvMyfWa7a-8zgGDNQsd7lnxkYJB1JUnGI10NPZMfGV9tVlyqaIfNMz5GyXJ68zkT35titBjJ4Avxb-Nq9ltZ7zVeMduycejOjh/s1600/sissinghurst-rose-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYqMIMvFosmN2vQPxVtdUWNyNACtLmUaYZHT-aUY_P1WVvMyfWa7a-8zgGDNQsd7lnxkYJB1JUnGI10NPZMfGV9tVlyqaIfNMz5GyXJ68zkT35titBjJ4Avxb-Nq9ltZ7zVeMduycejOjh/s1600/sissinghurst-rose-2.jpg" height="400" width="367" /></a></div>
It is referencing a well-known Beaton shot which is synonymous with 50s Vogue: debs taking tea in pastel shades of silk in a large guilded salon. Dresses by Charles James.<br />
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Tim said he'd been asking the editor on that shoot earlier about the provenance of the dress and how Weber managed to track it down. Also, why he shot it at Sissinghurst. Patrick Kinmonth said that actually, it wasn't a Charles James dress but something by Victor Edelstein. "Bruce Weber is very naughty to have said that the photograph was taken at Sissinghurst," said Patrick. "It was shot in my mum's garden."<br />
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Tim ended by saying: "It's important that photographers lie." <br />
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*Photographed by Clive Arrowsmith<br />
**An excellent bookNews From Nowherehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601745530908709542noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-33016575624822207712014-02-23T22:57:00.003+00:002014-04-17T17:51:42.503+01:00On Living —With Taste<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF7kORHUd9yIsBRqQKcM7kgUo1tq3CY-jqCt5kSdNhzdClNemUtUx_1raedd_29X__59PKYUMuWZ60yQKQKI2lIovrYvw7Dzq4kOw-D6xsSomDPyFIoIS81VKedlBibXDCONcMhlc43Xug/s1600/Hicks+gothic+tent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF7kORHUd9yIsBRqQKcM7kgUo1tq3CY-jqCt5kSdNhzdClNemUtUx_1raedd_29X__59PKYUMuWZ60yQKQKI2lIovrYvw7Dzq4kOw-D6xsSomDPyFIoIS81VKedlBibXDCONcMhlc43Xug/s1600/Hicks+gothic+tent.jpg" height="230" width="400" /></a></div>
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The thing about good designers is: they are just trying to make sense of space. There is a logic.</div>
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Touring around the garden of an interior designer is an exercise in strict visual hierarchy. When the drawing room is configured, it is inconceivable that the view just outside should not be given lengthy consideration as well. This is certainly the case at The Grove, the garden designed by the late David Hicks, society decorator and taste polemicist.</div>
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"It is amazing how few people bother to cultivate their
taste," wrote David Hicks in 1968, "and how very many there are with no taste—whether good or bad." </div>
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Taken from one of my favourite coffee table books <i>On Living—With Taste </i>(is it the title?), what David Hicks is saying is that people ignore their innate taste and the decisions that taste
requires. Their lives are thus chaotic and less lovely. Hicks' garden
is about manning up to decision-making; a designer designing. The garden is all straight lines and vistas, always leading away from the house. The garden exists in terms of the people inside looking out.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1S1L8L86Ez4OWGud16GQ3vhEtfxW54vCgvRuU6N0NYid0yREH_2e4WG-CHEHYOh8gMg2KdVIbRO5BMBE6veWKMQ72Kdd36g3HitzzIppdsH6PVl-kLqPH8crbQnAtkMytkSpm0jt4eTX4/s1600/Hicks+cardoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1S1L8L86Ez4OWGud16GQ3vhEtfxW54vCgvRuU6N0NYid0yREH_2e4WG-CHEHYOh8gMg2KdVIbRO5BMBE6veWKMQ72Kdd36g3HitzzIppdsH6PVl-kLqPH8crbQnAtkMytkSpm0jt4eTX4/s1600/Hicks+cardoon.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
On visiting The Grove in Oxfordshire last week I was interested to see plastic pots, harbouring cardoons and tree peonies. Plastic has a place because it's more practical than terracotta and besides it's hidden in cubes of box, or in the case of the cardoons above, in clipped hornbeam. It's not beautiful in itself but as we know, there is beauty in utility.<br />
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"Attention to detail must be ruthless," said David Hicks and there is a ruthlessness about this garden.<br />
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One of my favourite details were the wooden boxes fixed on brick walls, built to cover "unsightly" garden hosepipes. The grid pattern on each varied from the last but all were distinctly Hicks-ian, like the garden doors and the miles of hornbeam, both hedged or pleached but always clipped.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7fgIRPp-teauUXd79h_U5XbNadbyGL2IsLsV1v3pJyK7oIcdhLj_iRXVsGVNpNq-8-ol_RJLAs25dZBaElk3XPqYj_2l3A_yCoA3EO9u9o2HYrSJoP-LLi4eecr9BwZFqhwdTJ2N5kskz/s1600/Hicks+hose+box+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7fgIRPp-teauUXd79h_U5XbNadbyGL2IsLsV1v3pJyK7oIcdhLj_iRXVsGVNpNq-8-ol_RJLAs25dZBaElk3XPqYj_2l3A_yCoA3EO9u9o2HYrSJoP-LLi4eecr9BwZFqhwdTJ2N5kskz/s1600/Hicks+hose+box+2.jpg" height="263" width="400" /></a></div>
For design appreciators, The Grove can be viewed by appointment via <a href="http://www.ashleyhicks.com/">Ashley Hicks</a>. He also has a lively <a href="http://instagram.com/ashleyhicks1970#">Instagram</a> account in which the garden makes a regular appearance.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The David Hicks hosepipe box.</td></tr>
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News From Nowherehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601745530908709542noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-7310243902449399652013-11-25T22:14:00.000+00:002014-10-21T16:34:59.481+01:00Stourhead for Man and Beast<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There is a moment on the Stourhead estate, post-visitor centre, pre-ticket kiosk, when you find yourself walking along a lower road, steep bank either side, bridge overhead. On your right are some pretty little houses and on the left an august inn. </div>
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It's a picturesque setting. As with so many National Trust properties a suspension of disbelief takes place, at around this moment. Is this place for real? Yes, it has always been quite real, though the NT version is more thoroughly sign-posted. The house, garden and inn were built 300 years ago with the visitor experience very much in mind. Garden pride led to garden showing-off: What was the point in having a fabulous place if nobody saw it?</div>
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Richard Wheeler, who spoke at the <a href="http://www.gardenmuseum.org.uk/page/talks-2">Garden Museum</a> last month, is National Specialist in Garden History for the NT and his brief covers over 100 gardens. He knows his stuff. He may not agree with the idea that gardens evolve after their creator has gone ("Can we do better than Vita? No") but this might be because in his view, things haven't changed much. </div>
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The cult of celebrity was in full swing 300 years ago and gardens were visited out of curiosity for Georgian lifestyles of the rich and famous. The stories behind the buildings at Stourhead would have gone over the head of the hoypoloy then as they do today. More of us are educated now but few have a good grasp of Latin. This can also be said of garden design and horticulture: All very nice I'm sure but—is that the tea room over there?<br />
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There were three classes of visitor, like the three classes of train travel persisting well into the 20th century. Top people visited their friends on their estates, like be-wigged Bertie Woosters. The middle-classes, the biggest group of garden visitors (who also read Latin) hired a post chaise and stayed at a place like The Spread Eagle Inn, bang in the middle of Stourhead. The third class went by coach or flooded in over the ha-ha.</div>
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Keeping people out became more important in the 19th century, with the beginnings of the 'fortress mentality' which is so prevalent today. Even before those days, according to Richard Wheeler: "You had horrific vandalism." The Watch Cottage was built near the Pantheon for just that reason, "But still it got done over."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhus28UsNoh9U3NlC513gSQPk7FbbFPbo8Ew3HjWx4HSiofhxgViqd-AoYhCD1GVSJmt6OSpebd4ADe9UIH2c6Z7GKr1P9lEq-KYfJLKK1dmaZBuppbFiaju8ghbFqW5cYaJjzUrs-sdDoc/s1600/bridge+stourhead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhus28UsNoh9U3NlC513gSQPk7FbbFPbo8Ew3HjWx4HSiofhxgViqd-AoYhCD1GVSJmt6OSpebd4ADe9UIH2c6Z7GKr1P9lEq-KYfJLKK1dmaZBuppbFiaju8ghbFqW5cYaJjzUrs-sdDoc/s1600/bridge+stourhead.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
The garden boy, notoriously "a mine of misinformation," was tipped a small amount for a garden tour. The butler could be persuaded, for considerably more, to open up the house to a better class of person. Things were changing though: Blenheim Palace and Wilton formalised the visitor arrangements soon after being built, with the family living in one set of rooms and the public shown around another. The days of gamboling up the drive and trying your luck with the housekeeper, like the trio in <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>, were numbered.</div>
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A classic visit to a place like Stourhead involved three days: for house, garden and park. Each day would begin from the nearby inn, instead of a train station in London, and visitors would be equipped, naturally, with riding gear. The best was left till last. A day exploring the park meant a freedom to trot, canter or gallop from a few feet higher up: so much more exciting than earth-bound, nylon-clad rambling. The landowner's arcadian vision, seen from between the ears of a horse, was mapped out before you. It could almost feel like yours, for that third day.<br />
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Richard Wheeler's reaction to complaints about gardens under his watch looking old and tired is: "Good." For the staunch traditionalist at the National Trust then: bring back the grand tour on horseback.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-91238645195557049802013-08-09T11:47:00.000+01:002013-09-05T15:38:33.128+01:00It Plants: World's Best List<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtE5q8ihyphenhyphenhPB1nF9C1CLnNQAnVUKmKfnTgjhAkqz57woKckIxNdqwKvQYYYW52PT0ZIonmEIJ6MT-8o9mmBQz7PMN0rI8AC8BmkxhcpRvhyphenhyphenovkWGXXXllzslTLLk5P4_wwqDc8qZS1bQg/s1600/beech+man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtE5q8ihyphenhyphenhPB1nF9C1CLnNQAnVUKmKfnTgjhAkqz57woKckIxNdqwKvQYYYW52PT0ZIonmEIJ6MT-8o9mmBQz7PMN0rI8AC8BmkxhcpRvhyphenhyphenovkWGXXXllzslTLLk5P4_wwqDc8qZS1bQg/s400/beech+man.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
On writing about Derry Watkins and the experience that is <a href="http://www.specialplants.net/">Special Plants</a> near Bath recently, I mentioned in passing that she has a floral
crystal ball. Seek her and your garden will be hot. The same could be
said for Chris Marchant, the fragrant soothsayer from <a href="http://www.orcharddene.co.uk/">Orchard Dene</a>, but
you have to be 'in the trade' to access her wisdom.<br />
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didn't get round to talking about many plants (in the aforementioned
<a href="http://www.gardenista.com/posts/special-plants-nursery">post</a>, published by Gardenista) but the following have been linked with
one or both of them and once these It Plants have been remarked on, you'll notice them in all the right places.</div>
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Above: our reporter goes incognito at Cottesbrooke Hall, Northamptonshire.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSJOIAQwDhcJsaV-J6sWjBytqlP_Xd5ooKX4W08MtG_B4UtA3S0z1cCV-CsIA3nlgDl7jKtFioNjdDYJACB9G5K74Ex9suY_Cfo52VF-Cyg99-jeauRYy1SmZ8unPq_D_BqMbNs68C-0I/s1600/aster+divaricatus_chatto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSJOIAQwDhcJsaV-J6sWjBytqlP_Xd5ooKX4W08MtG_B4UtA3S0z1cCV-CsIA3nlgDl7jKtFioNjdDYJACB9G5K74Ex9suY_Cfo52VF-Cyg99-jeauRYy1SmZ8unPq_D_BqMbNs68C-0I/s400/aster+divaricatus_chatto.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>Aster divaraticus</b>, spotted at Beth Chatto's last September, comes highly recommended by Chris Marchant. It doesn't get too tall, it doesn't flop, it's a kind of ground cover, it has dark stems and a fresh foliage when other plants are looking a bit haggard. It's an It plant.<br />
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Ultimate zeitgeist contender, except that there are two variations. <b>Dianthus carthusianorum</b>, in the Great Dixter-inspired 'Hot Stuff' garden at Hampton Court, is the taller, more magenta one. <b>Dianthus cruentus</b>, dark red and fringed, was pushed into the limelight by Tom Stuart-Smith at Chelsea a few years ago. His new meadow at the Barn Garden (developed with James Hitchmough) is full of it, growing happily out of sand and punctuated with curving grass paths.<br />
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<b>Valeriana</b> might test the endurance of tidy gardeners as it self-sows with abandon. But this list has more to do with fashion than tidiness. As seen in the elegant wildflower-strewn Chelsea garden of Sarah Price last year. <br />
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<b>Gaura lindheimeri</b> 'Summer Breeze', in Derry Watkins' yard, waiting for the next discerning customer.<br />
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<b>Pulsatilla </b>(Pasque flower) grows out of Cotswold chippings at Cottesbrooke Hall and at Beth Chatto's Gravel Garden. The flowers are jolly but the seed heads are what it's all about.<br />
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<b>Sanguisorba</b> at Beth Chatto's garden. Looks good with wavy things, thistly things, flowery things. If you love the colour of Knautia macedonica or Cirsum rivulare, choose this; it is more agreeable.<br />
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<b>Ladybird poppy</b> (papaver commutatum) in Derry Watkins' garden. Seen at the entrance of Cleve West's Chelsea garden last year, it mingled with Nigella and Geranium 'Bill Wallis', all provided by Orchard Dene.<br />
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<b>Verbascum blattaria albiflorum</b>, at Special Plants. A far cry from its cottage garden cousins, and caterpillars, in my experience, are intimidated by it as well. Executive.<br />
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Say "species tulip" to any of the taste makers and they'll think of only one: <b>Tulipa sprengeri</b>. The latest to flower, it is worth the wait as the inconspicuous green bud opens to reveal a gorgeous, delicate scarlet. Seen here at Christopher Bradley-Hole's garden at Chelsea this year.<br />
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The not-so-humble umbel shows no sign of retiring from the top ten lists. <b>Ammi visnaga</b> is appreciated as much by pollinators as people as are its many variants including orlaya grandiflora. For a perennial version, Chris Marchant says: Go with <b>Silenum wallichianum</b>.<br />
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Or, you could forgo the above list and just plant <b>Stipa gigantea</b>, seen waving about at Beth Chatto's Gravel Garden, with anything you like. Honorary mention: <b>Stipa tenuissima</b>. They both hold their own and can give hours of pleasure if you are in a sedentary mood.<br />
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<span id="goog_382384581"></span><span id="goog_382384582"></span><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-16815360642120371702013-07-05T13:45:00.001+01:002014-04-23T18:15:12.997+01:00I Capture the Castle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For a person of such slender means I have been motoring up a lot of drives lately, sometimes to the front door but equally happy with the tradesman's entrance. At the moated Helmingham Hall in Suffolk the other day, the drawbridge was down but we did not cross it. We were there to see the gardens of Xa Tollemache, care of the <a href="http://www.gardenmuseum.org.uk/page/events-2">Garden Museum</a>.<br />
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There is a walled garden at Helmingham that is double-dug by Roy and two helpers. Roy has been there for longer than Xa, who arrived in the 70s. He is standing in a fruit cage hoeing, talking about the weather, addressing our hostess as "m'lady". She knew nothing about gardening before arriving at Helmingham, which was built by her husband's family at the turn of the fifteenth century. Lady Tollemache is now a leading landscape designer, and Roy is a treasure.<br />
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The most astonishing thing about the very romantic gardens at Helmingham is for me the Wild Garden. I mean the tennis court. Or - whatever it is.<br />
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The wildflower meadow—an unusually successful one this—is teeming with luxuriant quantities of orchids, mingling with commoner cranesbill, scabious and oxeye daisy.<br />
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In the middle of this flower-laden meadow is an asphalt tennis court; the most counter-intuitive arrangement I've ever seen. Some very careful tennis playing would have to go on here...</div>
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The solution is obvious if you re-imagine the space as a four-poster bed. Tennis, anyone? Just draw the curtains, will you.</div>
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More Helmingham Hall over at Gardenista: <a href="http://www.gardenista.com/posts/10-tips-every-gardener-should-know-from-xa-tollemache">Shouldn't Every Garden Have a Moat? </a></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-22035961062922555682013-06-15T19:16:00.000+01:002014-04-17T17:59:41.223+01:00I Beg Your Pardon?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last week I found myself at Southill Park in Bedfordshire, owned by the Whitbread family. I was there by accident, having booked a tour via the <a href="http://www.gardenmuseum.org.uk/page/events-2">Garden Museum</a> without realising it. And what a lovely day it was, in the presence of the divine Tom Stuart-Smith. <br />
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A gardening giant without an ego (see tall person above), he sees himself as the hired man in any design commission. The worst thing is when he is asked to 'do a Tom Stuart-Smith garden'. He brings with him a talent for drawing out a project as a fully-conceived pastoral scene, the garden settled in its landscape, a few years hence. "It's easier to figure it out as an aerial," he says. The need for computer graphics or wishy-washy watercolour blobs is completely done away with.<br />
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The beautifully rendered pencil drawings are, he explains, "like a
Renaissance miniature of a future wife," to show a prince what he may be
getting with the dowry. No unpleasant surprises. "The gardens usually
end up as they have been drawn."<br />
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Stuart-Smith doesn't do detailed planting plans; he doesn't have someone taking minutes between designer and client. He likes to develop a conversation.<br />
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"It restores your sanity if you work with people who know what they want," he says.<br />
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We were in Bedfordshire to look at Glebe House, a dower house for the parents of the current incumbents of Southill Park. They hired Tom as a talented beginner, before he'd designed anything at Chelsea. He hasn't been back for five years. <br />
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The spaces are laid out in a very TS-S way, though there are a few surprises. A rose garden, VERY traditionally laid out in fan shaped beds, enclosed in a yew circle, raises my eyebrow.<br />
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"I guess that's not your rose garden," I suggest.<br />
"Yes, it is."<br />
He continues: "I love roses. Lady Whitbread wanted a rose garden so I made one.<br />
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"I've made a few," he laughs, "though I don't advertise the fact."<br />
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He also mentions that he made a rose garden for himself but as visitors to the Stuart-Smith garden* will know, the area that is called The Rose Garden is in fact anything but, having been rubbed out and re-drawn several years ago.<br />
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*Open for a Garden Museum <a href="http://www.gardenmuseum.org.uk/page/garden-literary-festival-29-30-june-at-the-barn-garden">Literary Festiva</a>l on 29-30 June. <br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-58734198620247104882013-05-29T19:07:00.001+01:002013-05-29T19:07:37.503+01:00The Last Word on Slugs and Snails. Ever.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last week began with the big bean-o that is Chelsea Press Day and ended on the edge of Wales at the Hay Festival. Both events were punctuated with the pitter patter of rain drops on canvas. The latter event was a talk between Monty Don and Lucy Boyd, daughter of the late chef Rose Gray, of River Cafe fame. She is head gardener at Petersham Nurseries and has an enviable knowledge of vegetable varieties: what to grow and how to cook.<br />
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Questions from the audience inevitably focused on Monty and had nothing to do with the guest whom he was interviewing. What do you think of the Chelsea judging row? What row. Would you like to know about my vegetable company? No I would not. What about slugs, Monty?<br />
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"I've never been anywhere without someone asking me about slugs," said Monty, not without humour. But the question did not go away. What about Lucy, what does she do about slugs, he asked?<br />
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"Me? Slugs? Nothing really..." she trailed off.<br />
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Monty filled in the gaps briskly: "My intention is to run an organic garden that's balanced, with prey as well as predators. If you get rid of slugs then there is less for their predators to eat and you upset the balance," he explained. "Slugs prefer to attack very young, diseased, damaged or stressed plants. Over-fed plants, by the way, are stressed." Monty does not have a slug problem because he has a healthy garden. "Healthy plants are not bothered by slugs." End of.<br />
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A national collection of hostas is held at Prince Charles' organic garden, Highgrove, by way of slight digression. They are proud specimens, as are Monty's. <br />
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"Now can we move on from slugs please," said Monty, ever the pro. "It's almost time for lunch."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-39457147320236938172013-05-18T07:42:00.002+01:002013-05-18T22:32:16.423+01:00A Pocketful of Rye<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I spent four days in Rye when the weather was magical a few weeks ago. Presenting Gina from <a href="http://www.folkathome.com/">Folk at Home</a> with a hot list of places to go we set off, leaving families far behind. It wasn't exactly a holiday but there was definitely an element of the spree about it.<br />
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On the least research-heavy day we found ourselves at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/A-G-Hendy-Home-Store/251876201555284">Hendy's Home Store</a> in Hastings, eating whelks with wild garlic. Alastair Hendy was playing maitre d', head chef and head waiter to a full house and he was quite gracious about my uncontrollable urge to walk into his kitchen with a camera. This part of England is clapboard heaven with flint. Unlike the New England version which is more familiar to me, a lot of the wood here is painted black.<br />
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We motored through the wooded lanes of Sussex with their hedgerows of wild flowers, featuring the anemone and cuckoo flower (above).<br />
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Next stop: Great Dixter, where we were greeted with a "When I said 4.30 I meant 4.30!" bellowing from the medieval porch. Drinks were being served on the terrace but since this was a research trip I wandered around the deserted gardens. The terrace itself has so many green things growing out of the cracks that if you squint your eyes it could look almost semi-derelict. Except that all the green things are precious. "Don't step on the flowers love," I was told as I clomped over a primrose on the way to the steps which lead down to the meadow.<br />
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The Exotic Garden (above) was still under wraps, looking peculiarly Wealdean and medieval, with some exotic promise. As we left, the dachshund Conifer was scampering down the front path to the house; such a joyous image. Aaron our host writes a succinct <a href="http://dixtervegetablegarden.wordpress.com/">blog</a> by the way on the progress of the kitchen garden at Dixter.<br />
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Next day, Sissinghurst. We landed back to earth with a thump as we joined the coaches in the car park and a sign on the camomile seat bore the legend: "Please do not sit here."<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-47552988352593465532013-02-24T09:23:00.000+00:002013-05-18T22:39:04.543+01:00All Change<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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When I arrived at Chatsworth on Tuesday there was a circus atmosphere, with horse muck being swept away after a hunt meet and crowds of families surging up from the car park toward the adventure playground. In the stable yard, the tables were adorned with very peculiar-looking purple plastic chairs. Anything a bit different and nutty like that I usually like, because it's the opposite of what the National Trust would do. But, oh dear, Elisabeth Frink's War Horse, and indeed her "Head" were both plonked in there too, with people taking turns to sit on the horse. The life-sized animal used to stand proudly by the canal, looking over Paxton's incredible jet of water with the South Front of the house beyond. Things have changed.<br />
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"Future generations will no doubt change much of it," writes the Duchess of Devonshire (now the Dowager Duchess) in her entertaining book <i>The Garden at Chatsworth</i>. "Inhabited by its own family who have ensured that it is unfrozen and malleable is the reason this house and garden have stayed alive over the centuries." How true. I am met by the garden administrator and we pass through a door, down a passage (nicely frozen: painted in gloss buff to the shoulder line, with a narrow black band and pale pink above). Out of another door is the garden: empty, vast, sunny, peaceful.<br />
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Because I am sent around by a "well-to-do magazine" I sometimes find myself in these amazing spots. It doesn't matter that there are no flowers besides a few snowdrops. The "genius of the place", to coin a phrase, reveals itself. This is also possible with crowds of people but it is a different kind of experience. Since these were made as pleasure gardens it follows that there should be people looking around. When I was gardening at Cottesbrooke last year I felt sad that the garden was almost always empty, except for the people grooming it. As DD says in her book: "It is the visitors who make a cheerful atmosphere."<br />
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Even so, without people I have a soul-enriching tour. By the gardeners' workshop I find some discarded bits of statuary and immediately take a picture of the pair of bunnies: new garden ornaments could take something from these simple lines. Next to them are some very ornate but equally charming lion heads, which seem to have a story to tell. On opening the <i>Garden</i> book at home, they are the first thing I see on the frontispiece: a lovely informal vignette of self-seeded flowers in front of a stone bench. On either side of the steps leading up are these same lion heads, in pride of place.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-18563848421747814992012-11-28T11:01:00.000+00:002014-04-17T17:57:45.848+01:00A Cold Collation<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1wKoSmkKHGfHtWC1pmG0TvsKOL4NbWHVYa_6HTzwuyi7IDqAvShxhJv1DoHQfBwzzl5-Ax5L437f5y-3ijBFd3_t2indM-l1tGWQk_26BC7gv4-40-5myWzd4c7t8ic2cMMUdRCFjGcM/s1600/dixter_compost.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1wKoSmkKHGfHtWC1pmG0TvsKOL4NbWHVYa_6HTzwuyi7IDqAvShxhJv1DoHQfBwzzl5-Ax5L437f5y-3ijBFd3_t2indM-l1tGWQk_26BC7gv4-40-5myWzd4c7t8ic2cMMUdRCFjGcM/s400/dixter_compost.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Great Dixter chimneys as seen from the top of a high compost heap.</td></tr>
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On Monday I found myself peering into a store cupboard in the kitchen yard at Great Dixter. From the floor to the ceiling were rows of jars, some still holding preserves from the time of Christopher Lloyd's parents, who moved there in 1912. Like the rest of the house, this cupboard has never been subjected to a 'clear out'.<br />
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The British have long been a nation of growers and preservers, and the Dig for Victory instinct continues. Brits have not always been a nation of good eaters, of course. It might be that until recently the need to shore up was the driving force in domestic food production. Potatoes and apples stored, jams and jellies made: food shortages kept at bay. The eating experience was at its best about good plain British cooking, without ideas from Abroad.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The kitchen garden at Great Dixter.</td></tr>
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At its worst, as we know, British cooking could be pretty dire. The exodus of domestic help after the 1930s cannot have helped, as people were forced to boil the life out of their cabbages themselves and in the absence of properly-made mayonnaise there was an over-reliance on salad cream.<br />
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Now, people who cook also like to grow things and people who grow things
are learning to cook. At Great Dixter there was a cook until the 1970s but when he died Christopher Lloyd decided to learn to cook himself.
"Christo was very greedy. He LOVED food," says my guide. Dinner might
start with whiskey and walnuts, and after pudding there would be
chocolate and coffee. It's very easy to imagine when you are at Great
Dixter, with its comfortable kitchen and open fires. And yet home-grown and home-cooked is
still quite a new idea: Christopher Lloyd's book <i>Gardener Cook</i> was published within fairly recent memory. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Well-tempered leeks and bulbs for sale at the Great Dixter Fair last week.</td></tr>
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Lloyd's friend and neighbour Vita Sackville-West, who died 50 years ago, had a complete lack of interest in food, shared with many people in her generation. She and her husband Harold Nicolson wanted to be alone in their small cottage at Sissinghurst Castle and didn't want servants around at night. According to former head gardener Sarah Cook, the housekeeper at Sissinghurst would go home after leaving them a thermos flask and a "cold collation". Brrr.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-13424567121348103402012-11-14T18:52:00.001+00:002013-01-07T10:42:47.153+00:00More Cuts and Some Growth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;">During my fortifying year as an under-gardener at Brooke Hall in Northamptonshire I treasured my rare moments in the potting shed. I was only invited over there if the weather was <i>really</i> foul. I would quickly rummage around the ancient equipment before being turfed out again. These scissors hung on the wall, only ever examined by me.</span> They were so well designed: perfect for snipping the thousands of chrysanthemums required by her ladyship on winter days gone by. The handles were roomy enough for even the biggest, gruffest head gardener to get his fingers through, with gloves on.</div>
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The old scissors were not sharp and sadly, chrysanthemums were no longer required. But a new wave of gardeners, whether head- or under-, appreciate showy flowers, briefly considered to be so gauche. Glads, dahlias, chrysanths will all gladly submit to a quick sharp snip with these scissors from <a href="http://ancientindustries.co.uk/">Ancient Industries</a>. The smaller ones are good for twine and the subtle flowers which we know we are allowed to like.</div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-32673594860097135252012-10-28T17:23:00.001+00:002012-10-28T17:23:52.639+00:00Say it with Flaars<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMiv07oXHhB6cD4jF-Jy-VDHQCnMzu6Uip-3pQ853x7dRa75MEy-b-GVhauWzBPUyy-e8S4ddPsVszeYzctXXPjxpK25NF2dptz2YB12HfZpOtC0O38cMD1Vav-XnT8X76MDswg0ITa3o/s1600/dahlia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMiv07oXHhB6cD4jF-Jy-VDHQCnMzu6Uip-3pQ853x7dRa75MEy-b-GVhauWzBPUyy-e8S4ddPsVszeYzctXXPjxpK25NF2dptz2YB12HfZpOtC0O38cMD1Vav-XnT8X76MDswg0ITa3o/s400/dahlia.jpg" width="373" /></a></div>
How do you say "flowers"?<br />
I say it phonetically, being a part-time American, and everyone knows that Americans pronounce words in a more logical way than the British. I don't forget my "r's". I've noticed, though, that a lot of people here, irrespective of background or accent, say "flaars". With that one word they become like the lady of the manor in Mrs Miniver who hands out prizes at her wartime flaar show. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHuuXnKSFz6D8SouuFC9qnjvEcYURIa0vIHuil63Kb7UEqr2foAsydL151rMbtRR3yw-Hdwx01NuWl3Q8WZyQmO_rsRiLhOZluvzNnn3hOb2xlMzbSvmrje2VvD9_A7MJ_3YbqWIVxduQ/s1600/one_jar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHuuXnKSFz6D8SouuFC9qnjvEcYURIa0vIHuil63Kb7UEqr2foAsydL151rMbtRR3yw-Hdwx01NuWl3Q8WZyQmO_rsRiLhOZluvzNnn3hOb2xlMzbSvmrje2VvD9_A7MJ_3YbqWIVxduQ/s400/one_jar.jpg" width="347" /></a></div>
It is as if when a person and a flower connect, that person becomes somebody else.<br />
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"Flowers do take people out of themselves," says my friend Georgie Newbery, also known as the Flower Farmer. "They are completely transforming." <br />
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Flowers have always been linked with the rites of passage in a person's life: "Everyone has a relationship with flowers whether they know it or not," she says. Georgie cuts flowers and sends them around the country or does weddings and parties with <a href="http://gardenista.com/posts/diy-secrets-of-growing-your-own-wedding-flowers">home-grown flowers</a>. They can be informal or elegant, but they are always "flaars". <br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-36117168707162785752012-09-08T18:31:00.000+01:002012-10-28T17:26:05.178+00:00Further Reports from Essex<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilu8x4Ye983nNdpo6dyVg7LiVkdTvv1cOTkhm3hl0uf2rysVoE0EjiQmR1Qn8dqVqdKiqZUKarj-1eyoyxzanbMtZyfGaQCsiFu9clmX2vKgCqpTu3xHCv7NMxzyGk-GIbZVfjcto3U7o/s1600/glory_plant_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilu8x4Ye983nNdpo6dyVg7LiVkdTvv1cOTkhm3hl0uf2rysVoE0EjiQmR1Qn8dqVqdKiqZUKarj-1eyoyxzanbMtZyfGaQCsiFu9clmX2vKgCqpTu3xHCv7NMxzyGk-GIbZVfjcto3U7o/s400/glory_plant_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The Glory Flower, glorious at every stage. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOtrHz5YadMm-qX8nGt2J1AXJDKyM7WkqieqZ_SB10SZXtBNYcW2jVkJcmRxUI_soYFfyvGC-Ie-Q1sFz8f41nW8O8hpRBKuM5H9_tL46z17EhFoxJy7yk_7mDpcxgR8dQViFwWXeh3I0/s1600/glory_plant_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOtrHz5YadMm-qX8nGt2J1AXJDKyM7WkqieqZ_SB10SZXtBNYcW2jVkJcmRxUI_soYFfyvGC-Ie-Q1sFz8f41nW8O8hpRBKuM5H9_tL46z17EhFoxJy7yk_7mDpcxgR8dQViFwWXeh3I0/s400/glory_plant_2.jpg" width="400" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJZiEpv1c2Bn2yArZtChVBQdm1116ubcIvstJzLmzOcastV4B2EPbhFQwgqKuhBX_VLbE0LKybTZCZuOO4vnsztpmj_P5FXhwnj_Z9ifZ0cFuSS9Q4SL2EXyGltvmM_bMHZSFxEOqXbJE/s1600/glory_plant_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJZiEpv1c2Bn2yArZtChVBQdm1116ubcIvstJzLmzOcastV4B2EPbhFQwgqKuhBX_VLbE0LKybTZCZuOO4vnsztpmj_P5FXhwnj_Z9ifZ0cFuSS9Q4SL2EXyGltvmM_bMHZSFxEOqXbJE/s400/glory_plant_3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Beth
Chatto speaks in perfect sentences. She could be reading aloud from one of her
brilliantly written books. Sometimes she digresses to talk about
well-known friends who have helped to formulate her ideas, but it's
the plants she wants to talk about: she is all about plants and
plantsmanship.</span></div>
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"Form and texture is more important to me than colour," she explains. "I've always had grasses. People want petals and colour but I think: 'What would grass add?'"</div>
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Hers is a colourful garden however. The glory flower (clerodendrum bungei), above, pops up unexpectedly in a shady area and it stopped me short on my visit. Yes, it has good fresh green foliage for this time of year but its flowering habit is amazing and intriguing. </div>
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"Until the flower arranging movement [post-WW2], gardens were full of cultivars," continues Mrs Chatto. "Hemerocallis and chrysanthemums were bred to have small stems and big flowers. To me," she says with some determination, "those flowers were <i>not</i> elegant." </div>
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Beth Chatto filled a need with her new ideas. "People kept asking me about my unusual plants," she says about the flower arranging years. She had sympathy with Constance Spry and they shared an appreciation of foliage, with Spry famously elevating kale into a vase-worthy plant. 'Radical' is not a word that Beth Chatto has a problem with.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-82713812077005165682012-09-03T10:44:00.001+01:002012-09-04T07:10:14.588+01:00News from Essex, with Beth Chatto<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjyEfqH5eE4vkFCiHX48vwJSBwsWPPvccZYX_n3qE_SukeRYv2zBYTSdj4_qKjQcQ9DxzlQ4FnbRDKTmyJVAS3c1VFJ9NX2YyHHnVPzbt_KJXP-zcIuUvkL5LPhdYF1G1s24tpN0U4UwA/s1600/house.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjyEfqH5eE4vkFCiHX48vwJSBwsWPPvccZYX_n3qE_SukeRYv2zBYTSdj4_qKjQcQ9DxzlQ4FnbRDKTmyJVAS3c1VFJ9NX2YyHHnVPzbt_KJXP-zcIuUvkL5LPhdYF1G1s24tpN0U4UwA/s400/house.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">Crossing the border into Essex last week the skies were noticeably brighter. I walked into Beth Chatto's garden before opening time and wandered on my own around the calming lakes in the water garden. There was a 1960s house in its midst, and a slim lady of a certain age walking around with a watering can who didn't see me. I tiptoed around the carpet of turf.</span><br />
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Even after the gardening public began to step gingerly around, talking quietly, the garden retained this feeling of being private, completely imbued with the personality of the woman who created it. No gardening by committee here: the acanthus above is allowed to flop because it looks interesting. It makes a good picture.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEispGIfkKg_N31EaEDgGtJ5v8ilnIZOuhOic5-SdnpT83HMhvWcdgTqUDiaNivv9mA9Wko9WSTaDgeE3DJ-px2LNnLhRi910hyXZiLogRraEXn51hcJSiGTbTHnhl8QPPq9kJiFqtkIpSU/s1600/asters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEispGIfkKg_N31EaEDgGtJ5v8ilnIZOuhOic5-SdnpT83HMhvWcdgTqUDiaNivv9mA9Wko9WSTaDgeE3DJ-px2LNnLhRi910hyXZiLogRraEXn51hcJSiGTbTHnhl8QPPq9kJiFqtkIpSU/s400/asters.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">"I aim to make pictures with form, texture and colour,"
says Beth Chatto later as we sit on a bench in the Gravel Garden. The sense of peace and quiet has long gone and children are charging around. The world famous Gravel Garden is a former car park and even now it seems to be the main route for deliveries.
A parcel van reverses towards us, beeping loudly.</span> <span style="font-size: small;">"I don't mean a picture hanging on a wall, with a frame," she continues serenely. "It's an evolving picture... Which means there is a lot of editing. Trees and shrubs double in size; you put things down as ground cover and then they take over... Just this morning we were going around and I was saying 'let's start again with this.'"</span></div>
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There was no garden or house here before 1960, just dry Essex land. The layout does not follow Victorian guide lines but is free and fluid and yet curiously of its time. The planting follows the Japanese 'line of beauty': "The structure of the bed forms a triangle, and within that triangle there are more triangles." They are essentially giant island beds and what could be more 1960s than that.</div>
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The garden is very neat, without being 'tidy'. "I like a certain amount of freedom but there needs to be control as well," says Beth Chatto. Although many of her ideas have caught up with her over the years Mrs Chatto has always been a radical. She is completely immune to gardening fashions. "Nature is not distracted by fashion," she says, almost indignantly. There are plants here which have earned their place and are outside the zeitgest. Right plant for the right place: it's her thing - she may even have invented the idea. If it works, it works. And by the way, she used grasses fifty years ago.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-69714472636901116862012-08-27T09:49:00.001+01:002012-08-28T07:27:30.848+01:00The Naturalistic Look<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Are you leaving the garden?' asked my aged neighbour, a propos of nothing. I wasn't sure what she meant so carried on shouting whatever it was I was shouting. "Are you letting it go?" she interjected again. "I was looking over the fence and I thought, 'Kendra's decided to let her garden go.'" Now I got it. I pointed out that we'd been away for a few weeks and you know, we're all a bit busy to be gardening all the time.<br />
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On my way to the west country the next day I got a message from a production company saying they wanted to use the front of our sweet little cottage for a tv programme. They'd spotted it a month before and its slightly rambly front porch would be perfect. Ha, I thought, can't wait to tell the neighbour.<br />
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Self-seeded, relaxed, 'naturalistic' gardens are good for modern people without help. People born before World War Two might favour dahlias strapped against bamboo with white string but that is because they are following the old head gardener model. These days we don't like to tell the garden who's boss in such a bullying way. Design brings order out of chaos. But gravel is best without grass growing through it; a green path really shines when it's been edged, and a lawn should be of a determinate length. Grass which is just long, with nothing growing in it but grass, drags down the whole picture.<br />
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Suddenly our garden has started to sink into the long grass. The meadow under the fruit trees is the same length as the lawn, with circles here and there where cats have been bedding down. After nine years of brilliance the lawnmower broke down, to coincide with the arrival of the film crew. (They filmed elsewhere).<br />
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Monty Don said on twitter yesterday: "The most interesting line a garden can walk is the one that marks the point between being and not being."<br />
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Or is it all about tidy grass?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-67434237229753880812012-07-27T19:08:00.001+01:002013-02-24T07:42:16.610+00:00The Last Word in Brick...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;">…Is ‘Elizabethan’. Better still, Elizabethan brick
with Elizabethan pointing. I found myself poking around Vita Sackville-West’s
bedroom the other day, with Sarah Raven as my guide. She pointed out that one of the walls had been messed about with in the 1930s and it was not quite as lovely
as the untouched Elizabethan wall, below.</span></div>
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Here, the Elizabethan wall is reflected in a hand-painted mirror leaning against a 1930s brick wall.</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Sissinghurst is a brick fetishist's dream. Plastered walls reveal their underpinnings; brick garden walls are accompanied by brick garden paths; stone alpine sinks are held aloft on brick legs. It's a pinky-reddy-brown Kentish brick and it provides a warm backdrop for the yellow of a Mermaid rose or the pink of Blossom Time. It's so magical, this brick, that it puts red hot pokers into a different context, and they look really very fetching.</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-45376359269836831202012-07-23T13:02:00.000+01:002015-10-08T13:01:58.401+01:00What to Grow Against a Brick Wall, Part Two<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://gardenista.com/posts/design-sleuth-what-to-grow-on-a-brick-wall">Gardenista</a> is a nice American online sourcebook and the week before last there was a post on brick walls - what to grow on them. I was at Sissinghurst on Thursday and it's all about brick. So here is chapter two to that particular story.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The brick at Sissinghurst is narrow, sometimes curved and often 500 years old. And yet a lot of it is smothered and covered. This is part of the look: Harold Nicolson's rigid lines and vistas are tempered with Vita Sackville-West's romantic effusions. Above: Baby's Tears, feared by some. This is where it belongs, adding blur to the perpendicular.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">There is a tall and wide curved wall at Sissinghurst which is not ancient, but was built in the 1930s. Vita and Harold arranged for the construction to be carried out when they were away but despite the carefully sourced brick there was dismay on their return. Too much mortar! Now, there is a drape of purple clematis covering almost all of it. Different wall here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">But the other walls look best, in my opinion, when they are allowed to show through</span><span style="font-size: small;">. The planting can draw attention to their beauty, instead of disguising it. Above: cobaea scandens, the cup and saucer vine, does some polite covering, before exploding into Mexican exuberance later on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The semi-private living quarters, in which a small amount of sandstone mingles with the brick. And the new-looking terracotta pots: would Vita have tolerated them?</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-53080474729543074482012-07-15T12:33:00.001+01:002012-07-15T21:49:46.873+01:00Science with Peter, the Comeback<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Science with Peter has always been a popular item here at News from Nowhere, but recently we have been busy reporting news from elsewhere. It is with great joy then that we can reveal that Peter and his scientific ideas have found a glamorous new home over at the Sarah Raven blog, Garlic and Sapphire. As his press agent, I'd like to point out that he is featured over there on MY corner of the blog, which has had top billing all week. It is called <a href="http://garlicandsapphire.com/2012/07/10/the-why-and-the-wherefore-comfrey/">The Why and the Wherefore</a>. Why indeed? Don't ask me, ask Peter.<br />
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I love asking Peter 'silly' questions. The other day I was at a friend's, drinking tea outside and looking in the direction of some bindweed silhouetted against the sky. It had climbed to the top of its host and now, reaching ever higher, it seemed to be giving us a cheery wave. "Why don't slugs eat bindweed?" my friend asked with disgust.<br />
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As everyone has noticed, slugs are a very successful monoped at the moment, slithering up windows and stealing into kitchens, racing towards the front door whenever one opens it...<br />
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Peter has a maddeningly simple answer: "Bindweed is toxic to most things, including us and slugs." One small nibble is all they need to send them off towards something which is valued. In a world facing domination from slugs and snails, weeds as villains come a poor second. So, while no-one's looking, what if tenacious ground elder and toxic bindweed had a fight to the death? Which one would win?<br />
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King Kong v. Godzilla or, the attractive flowers of aegopodium podagraria in mid-embrace with convolvulus arvensis, in Northamptonshire.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-58320934072521820142012-07-04T15:34:00.001+01:002012-11-18T22:37:45.413+00:00The Last of the Garden Clichés<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Ahem. A weed is a plant which is in the wrong -- A weed is a plant which no-one has found a use -- Please. Why not sidestep the matter entirely by planting everything in grass, and let the peonies fight it out with the buttercups. It doesn't matter how the latter behave because they look lovely with Welsh poppies, and with ragged robin, and campion. They mingle with the green and provide welcome accents of colour. The green floor is a very forgiving background for any plant and though it might get long and rough you could argue that your peonies have never looked better, putting on a shorter, stouter appearance. The same can be said for achillea and centaurea: they will flop no more. And in grass peonies are not nearly as irritating for the ten months in which they do nothing.<br />
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At Cottesbrooke Hall Gardens tall plants are an important part of the whole idea. It is a garden with height. One of these plants which has made itself very at home in the borders is valeriana, recently seen in bud in the gold-winning meadows of SW3 (above, photo by <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/jim-powell">Jim Powell</a>) before blooming slightly further north around the Terrace Border in Northamptonshire. Actually, it pops up everywhere, even amongst the classical statuary in the ultra-formal Forecourt, far away from where it was intended.<br />
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This is why it is making a steady march down toward the Wild Garden, with human help, where it can scatter itself amongst the buttercups and devil's bit scabious. It looks good there; it looks good everywhere. But there are so many fascinating plants in the formal gardens that they need more space to perform and I'm not sure whether valerian would be described as fascinating, though certainly useful in bringing the planting up to eye level. The question is, now that valeriana has found a home among the wildflowers, what is it exactly? And do stop going on about weeds!<br />
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For more lower-upper class plants see <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/allotment/2012/jul/04/allotments-gardeningadvice">The Observer Organic Allotment Blog</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-58656646696121865062012-06-25T08:02:00.000+01:002012-06-25T14:59:48.769+01:00Cott'sbrooke Characters<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://specialplants.net/">Special Plants</a>' Derry Watkins, with purple accessories.</div>
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Rosie Bose of Glendon Hall lets down her hair.</div>
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<a href="http://ancientindustries.co.uk/">Ancient Industries</a> ingenues are recommended.</div>
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<a href="http://carriercompany.co.uk/">Carrier Company</a> Tina plus Hepburn cheekbones.</div>
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Gina Portman of <a href="http://www.folkathome.com/">Folk at Home</a>.</div>
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<a href="http://www.blackpitts.co.uk/">James Alexander-Sinclair</a> with his new wooden spoon. </div>
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Cotts snapper <a href="http://www.jamescorbettphotography.co.uk/">James Corbett</a>. </div>
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Swing Seat Des and <a href="http://www.niwaki.com/">Niwaki Jake</a>. </div>
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Turned out nice: a sunny late afternoon in Northamptonshire.</div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5560092442886139063.post-247253657881608342012-06-02T08:17:00.000+01:002012-06-02T22:45:13.214+01:00The Thirteen Clocks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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On a fine, sunny day last week I visited Cottesbrooke Hall. Formerly known as Brooke Hall on these pages, it was the setting for my year-long training with the <a href="http://www.wfga.org.uk/site/">Women's Farm and Garden Association</a>, a good excuse to drive down the farm tracks of Northamptonshire at dawn before many long days of labour and toil. In a completely inspiring setting. I went to see my old friends in the Gardeners' Mess Room and then was allowed out into the park and 13-acre gardens.<br />
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Because every inch is combed through by the three and a half gardeners there is a lot more garden per acre than most people have with no acres. The planting density is higher. The Terrace is a classic double border in the country house style: the garden-visiting public demands this in a place with 'Hall' in its address. Ribbons of smart tulips were still flowering away thanks to the well-irrigated spring, but meadow flowers like corn cockle (below) are becoming a presence and they have crept and then marched into all the formal borders.<br />
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As always, it is the unplanned combinations that really sing in anyone's back yard. I was particularly struck by the dandelion clocks on a bank in the Wild Garden, mixing with camassia. The white globes crowding around the Chinese pagoda were like a mass of lanterns, making the place look like a storybook version of the East via the East of England.<br />
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Other choice weeds were planted at Chelsea this year, on purpose, and with their good friends the native wild flowers, they did not let the side down. For more raving about weeds and friends do visit my very own Way of the Weed, over at <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/allotment/2012/may/31/allotments-gardeningadvice">the Observer</a>, including the reliably lively comments section.<br />
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Herbalism inspired by Julia the herbalist, also known as <a class="account-group js-user-profile-link" href="https://twitter.com/#%21/Julia_Herbalist"><span class="username js-action-profile-name">@Julia_Herbalist</span></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0