If You Can Do It In Five Months...Hidcote

If You Can Do It
In Five Months...

HEDGE CUTTING AT HIDCOTE

August 2010

"If you can do it in five months, I will take you all out to lunch."

Glyn Jones, Head Gardener, Hidcote

to the gardening staff, July 26, 2010

If they can cut all those hedges in that amount of time, I think it will be a minor miracle.

I don't know if anyone has calculated how many miles of hedges exist at Hidcote, but no matter the number, it's a task that takes 7 to 8 people, half a year to accomplish.

What if these great historic gardens abandoned hedge cutting?

At Hidcote the hedges define the garden rooms. Without the hedges, the gardens would be a collection of plants in various areas, but they would not have definition and architecture.

These labor intensive gardens are in one sense UNSUSTAINABLE.  They rely on minimum staff and maximum volunteers.  These gardens were created for and by ladies and gentlemen who had a never-ending budget and an inexhaustible amount of people power.

In 2010, can these gardens survive, when none of these conditions exist?

Before

The Process

After

The National Trust, English Heritage and other organizations (as well as English people) are devoted to sustaining these gardens. The gardeners, whose task it is to do the work, recognize the necessity and the people who enjoy it, appreciate the immensity of the feat. Hats off to Queen and Country!

When it comes to gardening, occasionally, there are some advantages to being an American. 

We have to reap what WE sow and NO MORE.

my window at Hidcote... from which I observe all.


Sustainable Gardening Fellowship
Royal Oak Foundation
National Trust
2010

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS COPYRIGHT PHYLLIS ODESSEY.  USAGE WITH PERMISSION ONLY.

Clothing For The Garden: Cotoneaster

CLOTHING for the GARDEN

Cotoneaster

The northwest side of my house is death to plants.  I have tried woody shrubs, herbaceous material and various groundcovers.  Nothing has worked.

I was about to give up and throw some grass seed on this woeful corner, but I decided to give it one more chance.  I planted a cotoneaster and it survived, even thrived.

Two weeks ago in Kent, walking around the gardens at Pashley Manor Gardens, I was talking to one of the gardeners.  He was cutting back some euphorbia characias subsp. Wulfenii and next to that euphorbia was a cotoneaster.  

I remarked on how many uses I had seen for cotoneaster in the UK.  

"Yes, they are good clothing for the garden."

Cotoneaster is a shrub I used to dismiss.  

I have gained new respect for its beauty and its utility.

All photos copyright Phyllis Odessey.  No usage without permission.

Queen For A Day: Sudeley Castle

QUEEN FOR A DAY

Sudeley Castle

The Queens Garden

I followed Hillary Clinton's campaign eagerly.  I wanted her to be President of the United States.  I wanted a woman to be President.  I realized walking through the Queens Garden at Sudeley Castle that British woman feel quite differently about women in politics.  They have had women in power for hundreds of years.

The sign at the entrance to the Queens Gardens says that:

Katherine Parr

Elizabeth I

Lady Jane Grey

enjoyed many pleasurable hours in the garden.

and so did I.  It was a little like being Queen For A Day.

The Underneath of Things: Snowshill Manor - Charles Wade

The Underneath of Things

CHARLES WADE

Snowshill Manor and Garden

An unhappy childhood can change your life forever.  It did for Charles Wade.

Charles Wade was shuttled off to his granny's house at age 7.  His grandmother was a Victorian woman with Victorian ideas. She did not allow Charles to play with other children or play at all.  On Sundays, she opened her chinoiserie cabinet filled with small treasures for her grandson.  This was the highlight of Charles's childhood and his savior.  It informed his entire life.

The garden terrace outside Snowshill Mannor.

One of the 22,000 objects Charles Wade collected.

Charles bought Snowshill Manor for his collection.  He had no interest in living in the house.  He  lived in a very small pared down house next to the Manor house.  He preferred it that way.  He spent all his time either acquiring more objects or just being around them.  What distinuguishes Wade's collection:  his absolute joy in the handmade from any place in the world. 

The object in the front is an early device for teaching a child to walk.

Wade loved the craftsmanship and inventiveness of these objects.  He cared for the underneath of things.

I have always been attracted to handmade objects.  There is a special joy in holding a ceramic pot made by an artist, that you don't get from a mass produced object.

I understand Charles Wade's affection for these

things and his desire to surround himself with them.

Don't Tell Until I Ask: Plant Labels

The donation box at The Garden House for plant labels

Don't Tell Until I Ask

The BATTLE over LABELS
Hidcote vs. Nymans
and a word from Christopher Lloyd

Only one of the reasons I was extremely happy when I got to Nymans, is relevant to readers of this blog.

On my first walk around Nymans with Head Gardener, Ed Ikin, I noticed every plant was labeled.  I was elated.  I would be able to learn the names of plants, without asking anyone.

Nymans

When I arrived at Hidcote and walked around the garden with Head Gardener, Glyn Jones, I noticed none of the plants had labels.  Plant anxiety set in.  I would have to ask for help and within one minute I was sure help was needed.

I asked Glyn about the lack of labels.  "We don't believe in labels.  We think it takes away from the experience of the garden, of looking at plants individually and in the context of the overall garden design."

Hidcote

I started to think about what he had said over the next three weeks.  Was it true that plant labeling takes away from the experience of "looking and seeing?"

Plant label at Sissinghurst

In a single day, visitor after visitor ask the gardeners what a particular plant is.  The gardeners have been trained to stop what they are doing and answer visitor questions, and when they don't know the answer to find someone who does.  I have seen gardeners take the email address of a visitor who is interested in purchasing a particular plant or receiving seed from a unusual plant.  Gardeners in the UK are overwhelmingly generous with their knowledge.

Great Dixter no labels 

Christopher Lloyd on Labels:

The plants at Dixter are unlabelled.  I know this is a bore, when you quickly want a plant's name.  Generally there is someone to ask.  

Plant Label - Nursery - Great Dixter

Here are some of the reasons for my not labelling:

1.  This is my own, personal garden; I do not have the obligations of an institution like a botanic or National Trust garden. 

2.  I hate the look of labels.  Like a cemetery.

3.  They are expensive in terms both of materials and the time needed to list the plants and to write and place the labels.

4.  Plants (as against shrubs) need labels that are stuck into the ground.  The public removes them, the more easily to read, but does not replace them firmly or even int he right place.

5.  It is easier to pop a label into a handbag than to try and memorise it on the spot.

6.  The wrong label is read for the name of the plant to be identified.

7.  Visitors dart into the border, oblivious of footprints, the better to read a label that is out of reach from the front.

8.  If all labels are for that reason placed at the front, misapplication of names will be aggravated.

9.  Even when plants are clearly labelled, the public will still ask their name if anyone is around to talk to.  They're on an outing.  We're trying to work.

Sorry!

Christopher Lloyd

- from A Guide to Great Dixter

Nymans and Hidcote have differing approaches to plant labels.  I remain in the corner of labeling. I know that one day, the garden will become like the museum.  We will be attached to headphones, listening to podcasts about plants and garden design.  In the meantime, I enjoy having the information in front of me.

 

AS Steep As You Can Go: Upton House

 As Steep As You Can Go:

UP

TON

HOUSE
Ratley, Warwickshire

You don't go to Upton House for 
the porcelain, 
the paintings, 
the furniture

or art deco bathroom. 

You head for the backdoor,
walk down the lawn

and take in the view of the meadow

 or so you think...

Art Deco Bathroom

Copyright Peter Mauss.  No usage without permission.

Upton House from the back

Copyright Peter Mauss.  No usage without permission.

Looking from the House to the view or so you think

Copyright Peter Mauss.  No usage without permission.

A staircase...

Copyright Peter Mauss.  No usage without permission.

the steepest garden i have ever seen- like falling off a cliff into paradise

Copyright Peter Mauss.  No usage without permission.

Borders vertical...

Copyright Peter Mauss.  NO usage without permission.

Borders horizontal lead to the vegetable garden

Copyright Peter Mauss.  No usage without permission.

The Bog Garden at the bottom of the garden, looking towards the vegetable garden

Copyright Peter Mauss.  No uage without permission.

Looking back to house, you can see three small chimmneys at the top of the picture.

Copyright Peter Mauss.  No usage without permission.

When you are down at the bottom of the garden, you look up anticipating the climb back up.  You admire the guts it took to make a garden on such a steep slope, a garden of perennials, annuals, small trees, shrubs, and vegetables.

To Die In An Interesting Way: Sussex Prairies

TO DIE 

IN AN INTERESTING WAY

Sussex Prairies

6 acres of garden

Garden Designers:

Paul & Pauline McBride

"Starting from scratch 
is always a thrilling thing." 
were the first words Pauline McBride said at the beginning of our interview.

And she should know.  Paul and Pauline McBride left Luxembourg and a garden design practice to move to England and begin a new garden:  SUSSEX PRAIRIES

During my time at Nymans, Head Gardener, Ed Ikin arranged for the garden staff to help out at Sussex Prairies.  The night before, I googled prairie, curious that an English garden has such an American name.

"The French got there before the English, and they had a word for it: prairie, their name for meadow.  But what they encountered, in what is now Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and points north and west, was more than your everyday meadow.  It was a seemingly endless sea of grasses as high as a person's head, teeming with flowers and bugs and other critters.  And not a tree in sight."   -from Answers.com

When I arrived at Sussex Prairies, I understood the name.  The landscape (flat and open) lends itself to the style of planting the McBrides are passionate about.  Each plant and planting combination (dream partners as they like to call them) have been carefully chosen. 

I asked the McBrides why they made the garden?

1.  It's a showcase for our garden design business

2.  We do so much propagation, we might set up a nursery

3.  It's a visitor attraction - we hope to have garden travel companies, horticultural societies, etc.  

4. We are evangelists for this type of garden design

5. It's an experience for the people who stay in our Bed and Breakfast

"They have to merit a place in the garden." 

The McBrides have requirements for their plants.  They must have interesting structure, texture, foliage, seedheads and simplicity of flower.  

As Pauline said "We are interested in the way 
the whole plant works."

And lastly, "all the plants in the garden need to go out with a bang, rather than a flutter. "

And so does the visitor when he leaves Sussex Prairies. 

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee.

One clover and a bee.  And revery.

The revery alone will do, if bees are few.

Emily Dickinson

Sussex Prairies

Morland Farm

Wheatsheaf Road

Henfield, West Sussex, BN5 9AT

http://www.sussexprairies.co.uk/

All photographs copyright Peter Mauss.  No usage without permission.