Godinton House Delphinium Flower Garden

 Delphinium Flower Garden

Godinton House is famous English garden for its walled Delphinium Flower Garden. In mid-June, the long borders in the walled garden at Godinton House are a magnificent sight: a mass of indigo, blue, mauve, pink and white spires, all swaying back and forth, dancing to the melodic hum of the bees as they buzz from flower to flower. ‘This was the vision of Bob Carvill, a memberof the local Delphinium Society branch.

Running out of room in his own English garden, Bob saw the potential of the walled garden as the perfect new home for his precious blooms . ‘Protection from the wind was the main reason he chose it,’ says Vivien.
‘Delphiniums are so delicate, they are easily snapped in two in all but the gentlest breeze, which is just heartbreaking for any grower.’

Godinton House, Delphinium, flower garden, famous walled garden

The lovely mellow Godinton House 18th-century brick walls  didn’t go unnoticed either, providing as they
do such an attractive backdrop. The first delphiniums were introduced in the year 2000, and filled one bed. Over the years, the space given to them has increased and it now amounts to three long borders, packed with more than 200 plants. ‘Looking after them is a true labour of love for the local Delphinium Society group,’ says Vivien. ‘About seven or eight members meet here every Wednesday to tend the plants.’
This involvs waging an ongoing war with the slugs, which can be a real problem at the beginning of the growing season; staking the plants in spring, and dead-heading them after they’ve flowered in June to get a second, shorter flush through August.

‘We grow some delphiniums in the walled garden borders of the main garden and the cut flower beds,’
she laughs. ‘I feel awful as they get much less attention, but they do okay.’ While the delphiniums steal the show for a month or two, the walled garden is in the throes of an ongoing restoration project and is filled with a bounty of other delights. ‘We have cultivated one half of it as a potager, so it’s planted each year with a combination of cut flowers and vegetables,’ says Vivien. ‘It is really satisfying as the flowers are used each
week in the house, which is open to the public, and the vegetables are either used in the tea rooms, sold to the public or eaten by those of us who live and work here.

Given the Godinton House and garden’s history, it is really important to me that we keep the impression
of a working kitchen garden for visitors to see, even if we cannot maintain the entire area as it would once have been.’ In fact, some of the residents have even take n up growing their own vegetables in the walled garden, so plans are now being considered to extend the scheme and find more ground for them to cultivate.
The majority of the south-facing long border, which would at one time have been furnished with a number of greenhouses, was planted by Vivien and her team last year, with an ornamental selection of plants that
appreciate the warmth of this position.

Godinton House, Delphinium, flower garden, famous walled garden

Garden tips om walled garden

‘There is a big collection of iris supplied by a local grower, which look stunn ing in May, just before the delphiniums come into flower. They are inter planted with climbers, herbaceous perennials and shrubs to give
interest later in the year. We’re plan ting a collection of quince trees in the grassed area of the walled garden too.’

A fantastic new greenhouse is also situated along the south-facing wall, a replacement for the two old houses that were beyond repair . It is divided into three areas, all kept at different temp eratures: the warm
zone is mainly filled with ornamentals, such as orchids, palms, ferns, bougainvillea and veltheimia; seeds and cuttings, which require some heat, are raised in a cooler zone together with pot plants for the house while
tender plants are overwintered in the remaining cold section of the greenhouse.

Godinton House, Delphinium, flower garden, famous walled garden

The Godinton House Delphinium Flower Garden estate maintenance team have also painstakingly restored an alpine house and recently finished the north-facing greenhouse, which Vivien now hopes to use for her
collection of ferns.

Under her guidance, the English gardens have undergone a number of changes in the past 10 year s. ‘I will always aim to keep the architectural backbone of Sir Reginald Blomfield’s original design, which dates back
to the turn of the 20th century. ‘Of course, it is in the nature of a garden to grow and develop - for me, the joy of gardening is the constant change, and I feel so lucky to have a combination of formal and wild garden, plenty of scope for future projects and a lovely and unusual atmosphereof community here on the estate. I imagine that I will be gardening here until my fingers are prised from the gate latch.’

And, having seen the gorgeous Godinton gardens, who can blame her?

Godinton House, Godinton Lane, Ashford, Kent
TN23 3BP. The gardens are open daily from
1 March to 1 November; 2-5.30pm. See over the
page for details of the Delphini um Festi val,
taking place on site at Godinton House from 14
to 21 June. The house and tearooms open Friday,
Saturday and Sunday from 10 April to 4
October; 2-5pm. Tel: +44 (0)1233 620773 .
www.godinton-house-gardens.co.uk

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Famous English gardens visit: Alnwick Garden

Famous English gardens visit: Alnwick Garden

Alnwick Garden is dafinatelly one of the famous English gardens to visit and, according to its noble patron, has so much to offer visitors - especially serious gardeners. Alnwick Garden is a large-scale public garden in England with rich horticultural areas

Famous English gardens visit: Alnwick Garden
 The banks alongside Alnwick Castle are a sea of golden daffodils in spring

Alnwick Garden

Everything about the Alnwick Garden is on a truly grand scale. The 60-acre layout is the Duchess of
Northumberland’s dream of transforming a derelict site, and it draws 800,000 visitors a year. Alnwick Gardens  design by Jacques and Peter Wirzt has so far cost £42 million implement. By raising a further 15
million, the Duchess aims to finish it by 2015. She will then step back and let it be run by a management company. It will have taken her 20 years to complete.

Famous English gardens visit: Alnwick Garden

‘What I am really interested in is people,’ says the Duchess. ‘The garden would be dead without people. I love to hear children shriek with joy when the water jets hit them. You can build a garden: so what! It’s people that bring it alive. Families with disabled children come here to have fun; schoolchildren learn to grow vegetables and then to cook them. Older folk, who call themselves the Elderberries, come to have their feet pampered!’

Alnwick Garden design

The garden is multi-faceted, embracing art, theatre, music, Tai Chi, martial arts and light displays. Yet behind the spectacle of the central grand cascade or the poison garden, where guides tell grisly tales of deadly plants, there is a rich horticultural seam. The mellow brick walls of the ornamental garden give that feeling of
security and calm that envelops old kitchen gardens. There’s a wide range of perennials to satisfy the keen gardener, set within strong axial lines and formality.

Roses put on growth and bamboo wigwams wait to support emerging delphiniums by the rill that bisects the ornamental garden. Famous English gardens visit: Alnwick Garden

Echoing the layout of the paradise garden, water spills from a large square tank to ripple over pebble lined rills between box edged borders full of well-labelled planting. Elevated above the paths floats a second layer of formality: pleached crab apples creating a lacy fretwork against the clear northern skies. In spring, their dark pink buds open to blush white flowers, while the geometric beds beneath are massed with tulips, planted each year by the 14-strong garden team under head gardener Trevor Jones. ‘We have a really good working relationship,’ says the Duchess. ‘Trevor makes all the right decisions and keeps his team happy.’

Alnwick Garden plants

‘If summer is given over to children,’ Trevor says, ‘then spring is when serious gardeners come here.’ Choice plants bloom in the ornamental garden: Pasque flower, snowflakes, daffodils, epimediums,
euphorbia and exotic-looking Crown Imperials, shielding their perfect drops of nectar. The paths are edged with Anemone blanda, emerging peony leaves shine in beetroot colours and Clematis alpina scrambles over tall pergolas.

Famous English gardens visit: Alnwick Garden

A delicate erythronium bloom; the blossom of crab apple ‘Red Sentinel’, which adorns the pleached trees that frame geometric beds of flowers in the ornamental garden; Euphorbia polychroma; tulip ‘Mistress’, responsible for the pink waves under the trees in the cherry orchard.

Yet it is on a slope outside the old walled garden that spring is truly epitomised. The breathtaking sight of the cherry orchard in blossom carries an emotional resonance that moves visitors. Its simplicity is key: 300 white-flowered ‘Taihaku’ cherry trees underplanted with 600,000 pink ‘Mistress’ tulips. These two colours are then subtly enhanced by the bronze leaves of the cherries. ‘It is staggeringly beautiful, like falling snowflakes,’ says the Duchess.

The Wirtz original idea was for a wide variety of trees in the Alnwick Garden, but the Duchess felt that a single cultivar would have more impact and magic. ‘I wanted a cherry orchard that would blow you away,’ she explains. ‘Nobody had used ‘Taihaku’ on this scale before.’ Known as the ‘great white cherry,’ the full-flowered yet serene ‘Taihaku’ was presumed extinct in Japan. It was recognised and saved by the great cherry expert Collingwood ‘Cherry’ Ingram from a single tree in Sussex in 1923. Every tree comes from that one specimen. It was reintroduced to Japan in 1932.

Famous English gardens visit: Alnwick Garden

Pleached crab apple trees Malus x robusta

‘Red Sentinel’ form a blossoming enclosure around beds of tulips.

Awarded an Award of Garden Merit by the RHS in 1993, ‘Taihaku’ is a tree that needs shelter and deep, well-drained soil, both of which it has at Alnwick Garden, on an eastfacing slope. The branches fan out at the top in a spreading canopy. Grafted and grown in Holland, the 15-year-old trees took a couple of years to settle in, and are now doing splendidly. The Duchess also chose the ‘Mistress’ tulips, whose flowering time coincides with the cherry blossom.

The residents of the dovecotes in the ornamental garden hang out.
Clematis macropetala adorns a curving gazebo.

And this may be the last year to see this particular combination, as the orchard will probably in future years be managed for wildflowers and camassias in grass. ‘When the orchard was planted in the Alnwick Garden, people began to sponsor trees in memory of births, deaths and anniversaries,’ the Duchess explains. ‘At our first dedication ceremony, everybody had lanterns, and there was a great swell of feeling. Many people stopped me. They were crying and thanking me, though I couldn’t have done it without their sponsoring the trees. The way the orchard has come to mean something is like so many things here; things have happened that I never dreamed would happen.’ She feels that she has been the catalyst for the creation of the garden, which the community has then taken to their hearts and made their own.

Alnwick is a contemporary garden with modern classics including fascinating fountains, a treehouse and a bamboo labyrinth.

Spending time in an English garden in her own childhood (her mother Lady Buchan-Hepburn owns Kailzie garden near Peebles) gave the Duchess her love of plants. ‘My mother was always in the garden. If I wanted to ask her anything, I would have to talk to her while she was transplanting snowdrops. I don’t have time to garden now, but when I was first married, I loved my greenhouse, with my cup of tea and my radio.’

Getting children to appreciate gardens is one of her main motivations. It goes beyond their excitement at playing around the water sculptures or fountains, to nurturing a feeling for plants. This year, she has planted thousands of daffodils on a grassy bank by the Alnwick castle so that children can pick them. Provided with ribbons and gift tags, they can present bunches to their mothers on Mother’s Day. It’s a true spring moment, and could foster a love of gardens way into the future.

Alnwick Garden gardening notes

FLOWERING FRAME
The pleached lacework of ‘Red Sentinel’ crab apples in the ornamental garden is covered with blossom. To maintain the design, the team trims the new shoots back in August, leaving three buds, before tying in new shoots to fill any gaps. The tulips beneath them are replanted every year.

Alnwick Garden gardening notes

GARDEN CHALLENGES

SCALE: A large public garden has unusual logistical problems. Noisy work such as hedgecutting has to be done before visitors arrive, so the gardeners begin at 7am. With no access for tractors, everything has to be bagged up and carried out.


STAND UP STRAIGHT

It takes a team of 12 gardeners 14 weeks to make plant supports throughout the borders. ‘We use supple birch branches,’ says Trevor, ‘which we weave together to make a framework. Even in wet summers, all the plants stay upright. It’s all then shredded to make compost.’

ALNWICK HEAD GARDENER TREVOR’S
TOP SPRING TIPS

􀁌 My favourite area at all times of the year is the

ornamental garden. I particularly like it in winter

and early spring because of the strong structure.

It’s the framework that the garden hangs on. Get

that right and it will always look good.

􀁌􀀀We use Strulch around the delphiniums

and hostas. We find this mulch, which is made

from wheat straw, is too dry for slugs and snails,

so we have no slug damage. It lasts two years

before we dig it in (and it was editor Tamsin’s

top choice in last month’s mulch trials).

􀁌 Compost is essential to the health of the

garden. We can make rough compost in 12 weeks

because we have so much raw material and we

turn it frequently with a front loader. Everything

is returned to the garden it came from.

Alnwick Garden

The Alnwick Garden, Denwick Lane, Alnwick,
Northumberland NE66 1YU.

Open all year - every day in summer. To find out more,
tel: +44 (0)1665 511350 or see the website:
www.alnwickgarden.com


ALSO IN THE ALNWICK CASTLE AREA

While visiting Alnwick, the Duchess also recommends:

􀁌 GARDEN Howick Hall Wild, informal and
beautiful in spring. Alnwick NE66 3LB.Tel: +44
(0)1665 577285. www.howickhallgardens.co.uk

􀁌 NURSERY Stanton Hall Rural nursery with
wide range of stock. Helpful and friendly. Stanton,
Morpeth NE65 8PR. www.stantonhall.co.uk

􀁌 CAFÉ & SHOP The Running Fox Delightful
café with onsite bakery selling artisan breads and
locally sourced products. Felton, Morpeth NE65 9EA.
Tel: +44 (0)1670 787090.

Read all about Alnwick Castle here


PHOTOGRAPHS HOWARD WALKER | WORDS SUSIE WHITE

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Famous English gardens visit: Topiary Garden at Levens Hall

Famous English gardens visit: Topiary Garden at Levens Hall

There is more to Levens Hall than its lauded ancient topiary garden, but that's still a wonderful place to start if you want to visit one of the famous English gardens.

Topiary Garden at Levens Hall is famous English gardens

A wedding cake with five toppling layers, a towering Welsh hat, an eccentric judge's wig, an open umbrella, an abstract lion, a lollipop, a cup without a handle and a saucer. These are some of the larger shapes in the topiary garden at Levens Hall in Cumbria, but at their feet are droves of lesser yet equally complex forms, standing about like the pieces in an obscure board game. As if this were not entertainment enough, the box-lined parterres between the topiary are packed with a succession of flowers throughout the year.

Here, the performance always begins with tulips, planted in magnificent blocks of single colours to create maximum impact. And summer could see some beds blazing with lemon-yellow snapdragons (Antirrhinum majus "Liberty Classic Yellow') and others with the deep purple flowers of Verbena rigida. 

Topiary Garden at Levens Hall

How topiary garden started

Levens Hall is especially famous for its topiary garden, but that is just one element in the wonderful garden, which was created in 1694 by Guillaume Beaumont lor Colonel James Grahme. Beyond the Topiary Garden, Beaumont took his proportions from the domestic scale of the mellow Elizabethan house. 

Levens Hall Topiary Garden plants

Nothing is very large, but the garden seems to unfold in an endless patchwork of vistas, rooms and less easily defined spaces, each with its own distinctive and individual atmosphere. First come the orchards: four handkerchief-sized grids of apples, quinces, medlars and plums, neatly divided by paths and punctuated at the centre by a circular space. Beaumont repealed this arrangement of quadrants around a circle again and again throughout the garden. The old fruit trees in the orchards are beautifully pruned, and in spring sheets of pillar-box red 'Apeldoorn' tulips surround the mossy trunks.

Topiary Garden at Levens Hall is one of the most famous English gardens 

Levens Hall garden is a good place for trees and hedges. Everywhere you look they are trained with an

attention that is almost Japanese in its intensity. If you visit Levens in autumn, you'll find head gardener Chris Crowder pruning the topiary, a job that keeps him and the other three gardeners on his team busy for a couple of months each year. Chris will often be found towering over the garden on a cherry picker, sculpting the generous contours of the topiary with electric clippers. But the topiary isn't the only thing that needs pruning at this time of year. The 300-year-old beech hedge at the centre of the garden must also be trimmed to a lustrous smoothness. The tracery of twigs inside it is as impressive as the fan vaulting of a cathedral.

There are only four full-time staff to manage the English garden's eight acres, and Chris takes a pragmatic and highly successful approach to the planting. In the double herbaceous borders, divided by a velvet ribbon of grass, he repeats the same plant combinations again and again, creating a rhythm and making each border

reflect the other. In mid-June, there are explosions afCrarnbe cordifolia teamed up with plants that include white Geranium phaeum, indigo delphiniums, white viola, slug-resistant Hosta sxeboldiana, day lilies, phlox and catmint.

Topiary Garden at Levens Hall

Chris keeps the colour going in the garden with annuals and tender perennials that he propagates in the impressive modern greenhouse. 'But I try to empty the glasshouse by the end of June,' he says, 'and then I let it bake for a month or two to purify it.' He calls his system 'gardening for maximum sensual impact and effect', and there can be no doubt that it works, both here and in the other impressive garden borders.

A plan made in 1750 still hangs in the great hall of the house. Compare it to the existing garden, where intimate rooms are divided by ancient hedges and tree-lined walks, and you realise Levens Hall is that rare and precious thing: a near-perfect surviving 17th-century garden.

 Levens' Hall garden survival history

Why do some of our historic gardens survive and others perish? Levens' Hall survival is no mystery, for the house has been sold only twice in its 900-year history: once in 1562; and again in 1689. And as those sales were in the family, they had virtually no impact on the garden.

More recently, we have the Bagor family to thank for the survival of this precious place. When Robin Bagol inherited Levens, he was only seven years old. When he finally moved into the house in 1946, it had been let for years and lived in during the Second World War by an order of nuns evacuated from Roehampton.

Although the topiary was clipped, the rest of the garden had been neglected or used to grow vegetables. Others were demolishing big houses at that time, but not the Bagots. They moved in with their small daughter

and baby, Hal. They took the family paintings and furniture out of storage and set about restoring the neglected house and garden, which were soon open to the public.

Hal and Susan Bagot look over at Levens in the mid-1970s. In 1986, they appointed Chris as head gardener. Traditionally, head gardeners work for 30 years at Levens Hall, and it looks as though Chris will be no exception. And why would he move on? Chris explains that the Bagots give him a wonderful degree

of freedom in the garden, on one condition: 'There must be no orange flowers or dahlias.'

Topiary Garden at Levens Hall in the spring

In 1994, the Bagots asked Chris lo design the Fountain Garden to mark the tercentenary of Beaumont's creation. Chris looked to the garden's 18th-century plan for inspiration, and found that, once again, Beaumont had used a circle and four cross axes in the original layout for this area. A fountain now fills the circular space at the centre of the new design, and the axes are made from tunnels of the red-twigged lime (Tilia platyphyllos). Chris describes this green space as 'a resting place, a momentary respite from the intense experience of the garden'.

Levens Hall topiary garden may be an important, historic garden, but thanks to the Bagot family and Chris, it's also an exciting and dynamic place, beautifully maintained and full of new ideas.

Levens Hall, topiary garden, Famous English gardens visit

Levens Hall, Kendal, Cumbria LA80PD The garden

is open 1 April to 11 Oct, Sun to Thurs, 10am-5pm.

Tel +44 (0)1539 560321. www.levenshall.co.uk

Topiary tips from Levens Hall 

URN THEIR KEEP

Levens has many paths, archways and tunnels that frame enticing vistas. The eye is often drawn To the far

end of these views by an object such as an urn, some of which are 19th-century originals.

GARDEN CHALLENGES

FLOODS: There is increasingly regular winter flooding at Levens, but, on the bright side, this supplies a fresh layer of enriching silt.

BLIGHT: Devastation from box blight has prompted a rethink of the garden with alternative plants.

BLOCK BY BLOCK

Head gardener Chris Crowder plants in single-colour blocks to create maximum impact

in the garden. He chooses his plants carefully, making sure they perform well for as

long as possible The purple Verbena rigida can be grown as a perennial, but Chris uses

it in the parterres like a bedding plant, and it produces a pretty, purple haze of

flowers from June to mid-October.

TOPIARY & PLANTING TIPS FROM HEAD GARDENER CHRIS

• To get a straight edge when you trim hedges, lay down a line out to the side of the
hedge and pull tight This gives you a straight reference to work to, without it being so
close that it's in danger of being pushed out of line by twigs or cut by the shears.

• Keep clippers or shears sharp and wet. Dip them in a bucket of water or use a hand
mister regularly to keep them running with water. This prevents the build up of gummy
green sap on the blade surfaces, and ensures the blades stay shiny, sharp and free moving.

• Reflect on the 'Rule of Rs' To plant for effect, reduce the colour palette. Reign back on
species used. Repeat plantings to give rhythm and regularity down borders. Reflect mirror
image plantings across pathways where possible.

• Mix annuals and tender perennials into borders for greater impact later into the season.

ALSO IN THE AREA

Chris recommends these nearby places if you're visiting:

• GARDEN Lowther Castle is being restored and makes for a fascinating visit.

Penrith, Cumbria CM0 2HG. Tel:+44 (0)1931 712192. vvww.lowthercastle.org

• PLACE TO STAY Barn Close B&B is Alasiair Sawday's recommended. Beetham

LA7 7ALTel: +44 (0)1539 563191. www.nwbirds.co.uk/bclndex.htm

• PLACE TO EAT The Strickland Arms, Sizergh, near Kendal, Cumbria LA8 8DZ.

Tel: +44(0)1539 561010. wwvv.ainscoughs.co.uk/Strickland-Arms

PHOTOGRAPHS ALEX RAMSAY WORDS HELENA ATTLEE

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Hindringham Hall English Garden in Norfolk

English gardens in Norfolk

Hindringham Hall is an extraordinary ancient moated property and one of the famous English gardens in Norfolk you out to visit. Garden surrounded all through the year with acres of interesting flowers and foliage - but when its owners arrived almost 20 years ago, there was no garden to speak of

Lynda and Charles Tucker never intended to open their English garden to the public, but living in such an impossibly beautiful setting - one of the few fully moated 15th-century houses in Norfolk - it was only a matter of time before they changed their minds.

The English house, built in two phases under Henry VII and Henry VIII. stands on an 'island' totally
surrounded by water, and is only accessible by bridge. The garden wraps around the mellow brick buildings as if it too has a pedigree as old as the house. In fact, it does not.

The present 10-acre garden grounds of Hindringham Hall include a wild woodland area planted with spring bulbs, a wetland and stream, and five acres of gardens in Norfolk including a sloping kitchen garden and colourful borders. It was nothing like this when the Tuckers moved to Hindringham Hall in 1993.

'Everything was grass,' Lynda says, "right up to the house and beyond the moat; even the kitchen garden had been turfed over. I wanted to make an English garden, but there were no clues as to what sort of garden had ever been here.' All they had to work with were some substantial evergreen shrubs - mahonia, viburnum and
laurel - and a Victorian photograph of the house, showing it covered in ivy and fronted by several somewhat awkward formal rose beds. The reason why this house still has its original Tudor features is down to its 19th-
century owners, who resisted the normal Victorian impetus for change. They lovingly restored it and left it much as we see it now. But the garden? It looked totally wrong.'

English garden photos

Lynda and Charles noticed that there were scores, if not hundreds, of rusted metal pegs on the walls and deduced that, before the ivy (which had to come off to save the Grade II listed English house), there had been climbing roses adorning the house. They set about reinstating them. Lynda and gardener David have reinstated borders they fell would have been there originally, mainly to house the climbers. 'I never plant a rose without, also planting a clematis or climber. I want repeal flowering, so I choose varieties lo follow on.'

English garden photos

The kitchen garden

The south-facing kitchen garden, which slopes gently to the water, was an obvious area to tackle next. There were two enormous box hedges, which we reduced in size and took cuttings to make new box edging,' Lynda says. We stripped off the turf with our son Edward, and marked out the shape of the beds with sand.' They took measurements from the back and side walls, to get a pleasing plan. 'We marked it all out, and then crossed back over the moat to the west lawn to review the shape.

It was totally askew! We had assumed that the garden walls were straight. Big mistake.' Today, the
rectangular beds form a working vegetable garden, supplying Lynda with 'everything the family likes to eat'.
The stream running through the grounds, a tributary of the Stiffkey, originally fed the moat.

Wetland English garden 

Digging its banks one day, they discovered some old stone steps, and soon Lynda had cleared decades of undergrowth and nettles to reveal what would become the wetland English garden. They planted hostas, candelabra primulas and day lilies to line the stream, and made a path to run alongside.

Gardening around the moat proved to be more problematic. 'It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, dating to the 1200s, and we are not allowed to touch the structure without permission,' says Lynda. "We noticed that the bearded irises planted alongside the wetland English garden were doing badly, and discovered that this was caused by the lime mortar used to bind the stones together. We just had to move the irises, and plant something else there instead. We have just put in some 'Star of the Veldt' African daisies, (Osteospermum
hyosefoldes) to see how they fare.'

English garden border plants

On the west lawn, the grass area was reduced and the borders widened to make a colourful display for nine months of the year. 'I hate bare patches,' Lynda explains. I always want to see something coming up, so we
plant for succession.' Here, the garden borders are vivid and colourful. Oriental poppies give way to Gaura lindhcimai and geraniums give way to Crocosmia 'Lucifer', so that in September it is just as engaging as it was in spring and in high summer. 'We rarely buy plants for this garden. We grow a lot of perennials from seed and then we divide and move things around. The flower planting is not really planned - we just feel our way, observing and seeing how things work. David and I sit down every week and discuss the garden jobs to be done. Charles does the mowing and the trees. It has rather taken over our lives.'

English garden photos

Hindringham Hall English garden openings

Starling with a few charily openings a year for the National Garden Scheme, Charles and Lynda then made the decision to make their English garden in Norfolk more accessible to the public. This, 2013 year, the
Engnlish garden and house will be open on these dates:

• Thursday May 9th at 2.30pm
• Thursday July 25th at 2.30pm
• Thursday August 15th at 2.30pm
• Thursday September 12th at 2.30pm

'It has sent us on a learning curve we hadn't expected - health and safety issues with the moat and the bridges, slippers' paths, toilet facilities and catering. At the end of the day, it's a private home and we want to retain that sense of individuality. We don't want to be a big commercial garden.'

Hindringham Hall's English garden growth

Moving slowly towards becoming a 'finished' English garden is perhaps Hindringham Hall's great strength. It has not been planned in one grand sweep. It was set about gently, by probing and digging, planting and
experimenting. A garden realised by touch and feel rather than by plan and intellect. In the visitors book, people describe it as 'unspoilt', 'magical' and 'personal'. Its unplannedness is its strength. Yet it is an English garden that is within reach of ordinary gardeners. It is something we could perhaps all achieve - even if it would be without such a perfect backdrop.

English garden photos

Hindringham Hall's English garden info

Hindringham Hall Blacksmiths Lane, Hindringham,
Nr Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 OQA.

Telephone 01328 878226 or email info@hindringhamhall.org
 www.hindringhamhall.org

English garden photos

PHOTOGRAPHS MARCUS HARPUR WORDS JACKIE BENNETT

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Corfu English garden in Greece

English Garden Paradise

Get thee to Greece to experience the luxurious surroundings of this sympathetically restored and landscaped English garden village hideaway

The Rou Estate is an ancient hamlet in the northeastern corner of Corfu, transformed into a luxury English Garden hideaway for private or corporate leisure, meetings celebrations. Each of its 14 beautifully restored houses has spectacular views onto the Ionian sea as well as towards herbcovered mountains. Each house has a private garden, but all settle harmoniously into a nest of small steps, archways and pergolas that makes
one vast garden, surrounded by some of the Mediterranean’s richest natural landscapes. The estate also provides multiple sports facilities, spa and health services. Harper’s Bazaar listed Rou as number five on its list of ‘best Greek retreats’. But Rou is exceptional also in its respect for both natural balance and local heritage. It offers a highly successful blending of drama and serenity.

The major magician of Rou is Dominic Skinner, an English architect who was meticulously trained at
Norman Foster and Partners in London and worked on projects such as the Millennium Bridge. He had
been coming to Corfu since childhood, and his wife Claire, whom he met on the island, is a holistic therapist. His garden advisors at Rou are the English team of Jennie Gay and Piers Goldson. Jennie, a Sheffield graduate in landscape architecture, spent several years designing and managing gardens in Jerusalem, Jericho and on Cephalonia. She writes a regular garden column for the Athens News, and has published a book on Greek gardens. Piers has global gardening experience, including the Mediterranean Collection in the Great Glasshouse at the National Botanic Garden of Wales; Longwood Gardens in Philadelphia; and the Haiwian Botanic Garden.

Jennie and Piers did an initial survey to help with the restoration of existing vegetation, including fine trees such as the turpentine tree (Pistacia terebinthus). They sorted the project into three main types for planting: the communal spaces, the individual gardens of each house, and the larger setting of meadows, stone terracing, woodlands and shelterbelts. For each, they incorporated the already existing and very rich local biodiversity. All flow into each other seamlessly.

Dominic first visualises his spaces, determines the ‘flavour’ he wants, then asks Jennie and Piers how best to achieve it. He might take inspiration from the creamy stone or from the silvery underside of olive foliage. His preferred colours range from silvers and whites to purples, mauves and lavender.

He loves to play with textures and light. Architecture and flora are inextricably entwined at Rou, where the latter not only softens the built landscape but also enhances the stonework. All three garden designers agreed at the outset to use simple but bold combinations of pastel-coloured flowers in combination with evergreen and ‘evergrey’ foliage.

‘We were very sparing with the plants,’ Jennie says. ‘So much is being said by the buildings already, especially in communal areas.’ With nothing fussy or contrived, there is great harmony and unity of style
throughout the place and from season to season.

English garden plants

Discerning use is made of signature plants - waves of seasonal flowers in the form of wild herbs, perennials and bulbs, such as lavender, rosemary, alliums and irises. These are repeated throughout the estate to create high visual impact.

The heart of Rou Estate is a dramatic pergola draped with wisteria, marking a kind of village square around a
rustic Italian stone well. The pergola is underplanted with giant alliums (Allium stipitatum ‘Mount Everest’), and later agapanthus (Agapanthus praecox subsp. orientalis) and Plumbago auriculata for continuous summer bloom. Other signature English garden plants include Lavandula x heterophylla Viv. Gaston Allard Group, a lavender variety resistant to cold, heat and variable watering regimes; Tulbaghia violacea; star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides); climbing Iceberg roses; santolina; and rosemary.

The individual English gardens allow for more complex mixes, and often feature the eye-catching Salvia
leucantha and Erysimum ‘Bowles’s Mauve’, along with nepetas, wormwood, curry plant (Helichrysum
italicum), euphorbias, cistus, phlomis and perovskia.

Garden trees and bulbs

The surrounding natural glades already had olive, cypress and almond trees, mixed oaks including the Valencia oak (Quercus ithaburensis subsp, macrolepis), the turpentine tree and Mediterranean
hackberry (Celtis australis). This mix has been subtly enriched with nut, berry and fruit trees including
strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) and Myrtus communis, as well as ground-cover plants and bulbs such as ivy-leaved sowbread (Cyclamen hederifolium), Paeonia officinalis, Helleborus x hybridus, Iris unguicularis, Liriope muscari, Anemone blanda, and ferns like Polypodium cambricum and Asplenium scolopendrium.

Rou Estate's gardens was brought to maturity in a miraculously short time, only three years. It continues to be
much more than a commercial project, in fact a labour of real devotion. ‘I sometimes walk around here and pretend I’m not the architect,’ admits Dominic. ‘I really love it!’ And everyone who visits Rou Estate feels the same.

You can stay at the Rou Estate through Simpson Travel, which rents out individual houses or the whole village weekly.

TOP GARDEN TIPS FROM DOMINIC & THE TEAM AT ROU

􀀀To help plants survive long, dry Mediterranean summers, we insist on good drainage, regular clipping and trimming, and deep but infrequent watering.

􀀀We use new cultivars and varieties of wild species that closely mimic the true species, but have a better flowering performance, as long as they harmonise with the surroundings and local growing conditions.

􀁌 Spring and autumn are the finest moments for Mediterranean landscapes and gardens. These seasons are marked by explosions of flower and scent. Christmas is wonderful here too.

􀀀Our team values wildlife and environmental response, using rainwater storage, solar panels, ground source pumping for both heat and cooling, and economical irrigation too. We also use local materials and work force, and we don’t prune at nesting time.

􀀀We specialise in night illumination. You can design by directing the light onto textures and wall surfaces. You can play with reflections, mix vegetation and buildings, bringing out old walls and the beautiful shapes of plants.

ALSO IN THE AREA

If you are on Corfu - you lucky thing - the Rou team also recommends you try:

􀁌 GARDEN Gastouri Gardens A private garden south of Corfu town designed by the owner Cali Doxiadis, former president of the Mediterranean Garden Society, featuring water-wise Mediterranean plantings. This property formerly belonged to English garden writer Mirabel Osler. Contact first via email: calidox@otenet.gr

􀁌 HOTEL Hotel Bella Mare in Avlaki bay, Corfu, Greece, Zip Code: 49 100. Tel: +30 26630 81997.

􀁌 PLACES TO EAT Agni Restaurant in Agni bay. Book by tel: +30 26630 91142.
Also good is Nicos Galini Taverna in St Stephanos. Tel: +30 26630 81492





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