Mr Bunn the baker, Mrs Page the librarian, Master Hemming the tailor, Miss Pepper the greengrocer: long before I’d heard of nominative determinism my sister and I loved to play the card game Happy Families. Ever since I’ve been on the alert for names suitable for the subject’s metier: Isabella Tree the rewilder, Usain Bolt the Olympic sprinter. So I’ve always thought that Bloom was the perfect name for the family of horticulturists who created and run Bressingham Gardens near Diss on the Norfolk side of the border with Suffolk.
Familiar from many garden programme and magazine features as well as plant cultivars, Bressingham was one of the long list of gardens on my ‘to visit’ list. My visit took place at the end of July between two heatwaves when a friend and I stayed two nights in Bury St Edmunds as a hub from which to explore some gardens in the southern part of East Anglia. The first thing to note when arranging to go to Bressingham is that it’s a steam museum as well as plants person’s garden. As long as you’re aware of this and prepared to embrace the notion, a visit to Bressingham is a perfect English day out. You’ll be able to ride the ‘Gallopers’ (the carousel), take a ride on a train around the estate, channel your inner Mr Mannering in the Dad’s Army Museum, eat an ice cream and explore 17 acres of richly planted gardens.
The land dips downhill as you enter through a Wild West sale stockade gate welcoming visitors. Like every garden in the south this summer, the grass looked scorched and dry. But the varied hues of the many conifers here, ranging from deep British racing green to the glaucous blue grey end of the green spectrum lent an air of lushness to the scene. Not usually a major fan of conifers in a garden setting, tending to associate them with a style of garden popular in the 1970s, in this setting they work perfectly. I was won over by the varied forms and foliage of the conifer collection here, as well as the colours. They weep, punctuate island beds and form a backdrop to colourful herbaceous schemes.
Progressing down a gentle slope you reach Alan Bloom’s Dell Garden. Alan (1906-2005) was the father of the current custodian of Bressingham, Adrian Bloom, and began to create the garden in 1953 together with a nursery specialising in herbaceous perennials which continues to this day. Alongside these horticultural pursuits Alan and his family built up a collection of historic engines and rolling stock, farm machinery and army vehicles which form the core of the steam museum. We had a terrific time dodging the sprinklers playing across the Dell. The centrepiece of this part of the garden is an ornamental pond, surrounded by a flinty cobble built wall. A circular summer house with a thatched roof forms a picturesque backdrop for views of the beds filled with Phlox, Kniphofia and Agapanthus. Along with Hosta, Helenium and Crocosmia, these are specialities of the nursery. During the visit I spotted an intense blue Agapanthus Bressingham Blue. At another time of year we might have encountered the waxy white flowers and glossy and rather leathery leaves of another plant raised by Blooms of Bressingham: Bergenia Bressingham White.
A charming feature of the garden is that a narrow gauge railway runs around its southern perimeter, tucked behind a belt of trees. Because of the summer’s extreme heat and the dry state of the grass and undergrowth, the Garden Railway wasn’t running on the day of our visit. A charming sign warns visitors of its proximity. Later in the day, we took a ride on a train powered by a diesel locomotive which followed a route around the woods and farmland north of the site.
Separated from the older part of the garden by a wide track, is Adrian Bloom’s wonderfully named Foggy Bottom Garden. I couldn’t help thinking of my first trip to Washington DC to stay with a dear friend, when I was amused to hear the driver announce the next stop on the Metro as ‘Foggy Bottom’. And yet more intrigued to discover that this was the location of the notorious Watergate Building! Bounded by a belt of ornamental trees, like the original garden, Foggy Bottom comprises large and irregularly shaped island beds which I’ve come to think of as a hallmark of the Bressingham style of garden. A wildlife pond stands at the narrower end of the wedge shaped plot alongside a woodland glade named for Adrian’s late wife Rosemary the centrepiece of which is an elegantly curved wooden sculpture called Spire. Whilst enjoying the varied planting in Foggy Bottom, we came across a white haired gentleman pruning some dead branches from a conifer tree. He explained that the tree was a Cunninghamia, a genus of one species only in the cypress family. As he spoke I realised we were in conversation with Adrian Bloom himself. He was very happy to chat and acknowledged the challenges posed by the extreme temperatures and lack of rain this summer. Naturally we congratulated him on the beautiful garden created by his family.
‘Fuller’: noun: someone whose job was to clean woven cloth, especially wool, and make it become thicker by rubbing and pressing it.
Cambridge Dictionary
Another of the gardens on this mini tour of the southern part of East Anglia was, like Bressingham, a plants person’s paradise; Fullers Mill in West Stow, a few miles from Bury St Edmunds, situated alongside the River Lark. The garden is named for the activity carried out on site in past centuries:
The earliest record of a Fulling Mill on this site is dated 1458. Since then there have been many mills built and destroyed. The process of fulling was to make cloth thicker. This was done by passing the cloth through a series of wooden mallets, driven by a water wheel; causing the cloth to become felted. The cloth was then put out to dry on a flat tentering ground secured by tenter hooks, to prevent shrinkage.
Coincidentally the seven acre garden, now run by garden charity Perennial, was also created in the 1950s. In 1958 Bernard Tickner MBE (1924-2017) made the garden from a site covered in scrub and woodland. It remains an area of light woodland, woven through with unusual shrubs, perennials and waterside marginal plants. The river divides the site, and the perimeter of the garden furthest from the carpark and visitor centre is bounded by a lake made from a disused sand and gravel quarry. It’s a wonderfully peaceful place, where proximity to water contributes to the air of tranquility pervading the garden.
Winding paths lead you through a maze of irregularly shaped beds in the ‘Top Garden’ populated with Hydrangea, Hibiscus and lilies. The grove of silver birch here cast welcome shade on a hot July afternoon. The dark maroon spires of false hellebore, Veratrum niger, were a new find for me, and featured in a couple of places in the garden. A belt of white poplars, Populus alba, fringed the river alongside the Top Garden, their silver backed leaves dancing in the breeze.
The path alongside led to Fullers Mill Cottage, which is painted in that soft shade of terracotta called Suffolk Pink in this part of the world. A wooden bridge leads to the mill pond where a flotilla of geese were enjoying an afternoon swim. The Low Garden is surrounded on almost all sides by the River Lark and Culford Stream. Here mature trees are balanced by shrubs and grasses. Clematis are trained up sturdy wooden obelisks. Generous swathes of vivid dahlias and Echinacea line the paths.
On the opposite side of the Mill Pond are the Outer and Inner Quandaries. I’ve not been able to find why these were so named, unless it was because of that familiar sensation experienced by gardeners in a new garden of being spoilt for choice as to what style to adopt or plants to choose. It was refreshing to see a gravel garden being established in this area, with the smoky grey blues of Russian sage (Salvia Blue Spire) to the fore.
Two days, two mid 20th century gardens, hundreds of plants scrutinised. So different in style to Anglesey Abbey near Cambridge, which we visited on the way home. Although established in the early years of the 20th century it owes more to formal 18th century landscaped gardens than the looser shrub and perennial borders of Bressingham and Fullers Mill. Please join me on a tour of the garden at Anglesey Abbey in my next blog post.
I’m an Essex girl. South Essex to be precise. Born in Billericay, brought up in Brentwood. The part of the county that gets overlooked when visitors head north to East Anglia and east to the coast. But which was made famous in the 80s by journalists like Peregrine Worsthorne inventing the notion of Essex man and Essex girl and later notorious by shows like TOWIE. Long after Ian Dury put Billericay on the map but before Gavin met Stacey, a horticultural and ecological revolution was brewing on a hillside a few miles south in Horndon on the Hill. During my school years Horndon was just the ultimate destination of the 265 bus I caught home from school, that is on the afternoons when I hadn’t spent my bus fare on penny chews and walked home! To this Tolkien reading teen it was a place name that wouldn’t have been out of place on a map of Middle Earth. But it was nine miles from our house and I had no reason to go there.
Until last Thursday! When I joined a group from the Garden Media Guild to meet the leader of said revolution, John Little. At Hilldrop, his four acre garden which slopes gently southwards towards the container port lined landscape of the River Thames, a few miles to the south, he has created a wildlife filled space which embodies his philosophy that the more complicated the landscape the greater the biodiversity. And that those complications can be manmade and achieved in a handful of years. Gardeners and landscapers can mimic nature by making considered interventions. The date of the visit couldn’t have been more timely. Several days into the fourth heatwave of the summer and with the thermometer in the car reading 28°C, Hilldrop is the kind of garden that works in our changing climate. Teeming with wildlife and chest high with native wildflowers, it’s the perfect advertisement for John’s message of resilience to drought rather than reliance on an ever diminishing supply of water. In fact, on the day of my visit Thames Water had joined several other water companies in imposing a hosepipe ban.
Now in his early 60s, John grew up a few miles away and remembers playing in the post industrial sites in this part of Essex. His family owned a chain of shoe shops with branches in Gravesend and Brentwood. He bought Hilltop about 35 years ago. It was part of a ‘plotlands‘ site and comprised four plots and one tiny bungalow. From here and a site in Barkingside he operates the Grass Roof Company, his green roof and landscaping business as well as running workshops to ‘equip the modern gardener with the skills to design sustainable green spaces for a changing world’. His company maintains the grounds of the Clapton Park Estate in east London, and it’s his experience there of listening to the residents and what they want from the open spaces around their homes that has informed his ‘Care not Capital’ campaign. He trains gardeners to go into community gardens and share the skills they have learned to make ‘sustainable green spaces for a changing world’. His lightbulb moment was meeting Zainab, a Kurdish woman who wanted somewhere to grow the vegetables she used in the traditional dishes which she shared with other residents of the estate.
John’s answer to the challenge of gardening on heavy clay 20 years ago was to cover it with a mixture of topsoil and recycled builders’ rubble and direct sow wildflower mixes onto it. At this time of year wild carrot, fennel, teasels and knapweed abound. As do the red admiral, painted lady and gatekeeper butterflies attracted to their flowers. One of our party asked about an unfamiliar white flowered teasel growing alongside the more familiar violet flowered species. John identified it as the European cut leaf teasel. He explained that the so-called native wildflower seed mixes available when he first made the garden sometimes included non-native species. The challenge now is to counteract the encroachment of scrub and trees such as oak which favour the open sunny site.
John works closely with an entomologist, a PhD student, to record the invertebrates at Hilldrop where 1500 species have been found, at a remarkable concentration of 375 species per acre. Realising that on the heavy clay of the garden he was unlikely to attract ground nesting bees, he has introduced several piles of builders’ sand and sure enough the insects have moved in including the bee wolf and spiny digger wasp. More invertebrates means more birds, such as insect eaters like warblers.
Sand is also used in the large containers which stand on the verandah of one of the two houses built on the site. They have been filled with sand topped with one inch of garden compost, the plants germinating from the seeds in the compost. John then weeds out those plants he doesn’t want! And saves a fortune on bought in potting compost.
As gardeners we already disrupt the ground by planting a tree, creating a pond, planting for pollinators, installing compost bins. At every turn in this garden there are examples of more interventions which change the topography of the garden and make it such a biodiversity hotspot. Using all manner of recycled material: sand, dead wood, metal grids, crushed aggregates. Even shipping containers. This is Open Mosaic Habitat (OMH) translated into a garden setting. It’s no coincidence that over a fifth of the country’s Special Sites of Scientific Interest (SSSI) are in post industrial sites. A short distance from Hilldrop, a former oil refinery in Canvey Wick is now a nature reserve where 2000 invertebrate species have been identified.
Green roofed studio made from a recycled shipping container
A few of the invertebrates found in the garden have very specific host plants. For example, the bryony bee which feeds on white bryony (Bryonia dioica) growing near the house and one particular solitary bee which feeds solely on the small number of red bartsia (Odontites verna) plants in the garden. Anthills in one area have been marked with small flags to protect them during the programme of cutting back the garden over winter. Cutting back is done in sections rather than all at once, so as to minimise disturbance to the invertebrates.
Several large round compost bins are located throughout the site. Constructed from standard weld mesh clipped together, they are used constantly to deposit dead material from the garden and save having to barrow it to one dedicated compost bin area. But more importantly they create yet more habitat for animals. I imagine that hibernating toads might find them a cosy place to over-winter.
A number of different materials have been used for the paths throughout the garden. As well as crushed granite over recycled aggregate from which the main routes have been fashioned, there are narrower walkways and steps made from metal grating. Here’s another opportunity to increase habitat and attract pollinators, by placing them over sand for bees or planting them with scented thyme.
I was intrigued by a large cockle shell mound to one side of the path. John was offered the material by a local Thames Estuary cockle fishery and is experimenting by planting sea kale which has welcomed the salty residue in the shells.
If you don’t have a hollow tree on site to create an environment in which overfly larvae thrive, John’s response is to make one with a plastic pipe attached to the trunk of a dying hornbeam. Dead wood features throughout the garden in various forms. In one place beetle activity has displaced the bark of a dying tree and the beetles are now working into the smooth wood beneath. He reminded us of the importance of topping up logpiles. When I got home I checked on the small pile I introduced three years ago to one side of the garden and found it had rotted down almost to ground level.
At the foot of the hill, to one side of the drive to the house, is a large wildlife pond. Never let it be said that Essex natives don’t have a sense of humour: neatly tucked into the unmistakeable structure of a metal shopping trolley at the water’s edge is a moorhen nest! Like most ponds this summer the water level has dropped considerably. Driving past at the end of the visit I noticed a pair of mallards swimming on the pond.
The last place I expected to see a dry stone wall this summer was in south Essex! I’ve been lucky enough to admire them in very different landscapes over the last three months in the Borders, Northumberland, North Yorkshire and Somerset. Hilldrop’s version uses Essex demolition waste instead of the local stone available in other parts of the country. The spectacular wall cost £40 in materials and £1400 for the expertise of a skilled stone waller! Next year John plans to bring in local bricklayers to learn the drystone walling technique. He also showed us a quicker version where he had filled a gabion with demolition waste. John is also experimenting with using cob as a building material and recently held a workshop on the subject. A cob column topped with an old fire pit stands near the house and it’s hoped that it might eventually provide a habitat for solitary bees.
John’s wife Fiona’s section of the garden is a little more conventional than the wider garden: including a poly tunnel containing very healthy looking tomato plants. But John’s influence is clear with a series of elegantly shaped raised beds fashioned from disused grain silo panels. The plant choice here is wider than the wildflowers growing throughout the wider garden, but all appear to have been chosen for their drought resilience.
Hornets have nested in a hole in the trunk of a willow tree in this part of the garden and could be seen flying in and out. The tree also hosts woodpeckers and starlings.
Beside the drive is a grass roof covered shelter faced with mini gabions filled with a variety of potential habitat materials: long hollow canes, squat log lengths drilled with holes. Resin bees have moved in and demonstrated their intriguing practice of stopping up the nesting holes with plugs of resin harvested from nearby trees.
We need ‘disrupters’ to shake up the received wisdom about many aspects of modern life and John Little is doing just that in the world of horticulture where we cannot sustainably carry on gardening in the same way that our parents and grandparents did, without further damaging an already debased environment.
It’s a month since I returned from making a pilgrimage with my friend Lynn and a group of women from St Paul’s church in Northfields, walking St Cuthbert’s Way (SCW) from the Scottish Borders to Holy Island in Northumberland. In May last year I walked the last three stages of the West Highland Way. I recorded my impressions of that walk in a blog post which amounted to a transcript of my log of the trip. And what follows is an edited version of the notes I made each evening of this year’s long distance walk. The spiritual aspect of the pilgrimage and prayerful approach of my companions were deeply meaningful to me. But in this account of the week I’m concentrating on the physical landscape we traversed and the plants encountered en route.
King’s Cross St Pancras to Edinburgh and local train to Tweedbank. Rail replacement between York and Doncaster. All connections worked perfectly. Group very welcoming and inclusive. Tantalising glimpse of Holy Island from the train after passing through Alnmouth north of Newcastle. We were met at Tweedbank by Peter, husband of Ann, one of the walkers. Peter has kindly agreed to act as luggage transfer for the week. Peter drove us the couple of miles to Melrose in his red Citroen Berlingo, with some of the party hopping onto a local bus. A few days ago I dropped off my case with Lynn in Ealing for Peter to collect and drive up to Scotland. It was very freeing to travel without the encumbrance of a (relatively) heavy piece of luggage. Saying that, I did bring a yoga bag containing my walking poles and boots!
Before supper we walked through the town to Melrose Abbey for our first glimpse of the Eildon Hills which we shall cross tomorrow. Swallows and house martins in abundance around the C12 Cistercian *abbey. It was about 6pm and the abbey, maintained by Historic Scotland, was closed. But we wandered back through part of the Harmony Garden, a National Trust for Scotland property, with pristine beds prepared for planting and a range of glasshouses (one containing a selection of tender succulents). Four heritage apples in half barrels stood outside the glasshouses, the stamped metal label on one reading ‘Tam Montgomery’, which according to Scottish Heritage Fruit Trees fruits in early July ‘with pale skin and characteristic lemon taste’. There were good views across the garden to the abbey and the Eildon Hills beyond. The blossom was still on a cherry tree in the garden, falling in pastel drifts around the foot of the tree. Clearly the season is several weeks behind the south east. I spotted primroses on the railway embankment on the northernmost leg of our journey this afternoon.
Day 1 of the pilgrimage. Drizzle. Prayers outside the hotel. This is the pattern we’ll follow all week: morning prayers before setting off, prayers after lunch and evening prayers after supper. It has been agreed that we walk in silence for the first two hours each day. For private prayer, reflection and contemplation of the peaceful surroundings. Drizzle and mist. A steep walk onto the Eildon (pronounced Iledon) Hills. Acidic yellow gorse at head height and higher on each side of the track. Birdsong at close range. The soil on the path was a deep red, presumably reflecting the sandstone of the local geology: several buildings in Melrose were clearly built of sandstone. ‘Blaeberries’ growing path side. Descent into Eildon Woods: dense temperate rainforest. Beech predominant. Ferns and mosses. Emerged onto pasture land grazed by brown sheep. Down to the village of Bowden where we read about the octagonal ‘pant well’, a public water fountain built in 1861 which brought clean water to the community.
We followed tributary of River Tweed (Bowden Burn) to St Boswells, where Peter met us loaded with hot coffee and snacks! Through the village and down to the clubhouse of St Boswells Golf Course, and along the path beside the course which is located on the banks of the Tweed. Beyond the golf course stands the Mertoun Bridge, and once past it there was a steep scramble down to the water’s edge with a view back to the bridge. We stopped for lunch a little further along, on a rocky beach near a weir, and spotted several fly fishermen waist deep in the river. And martins and swallows skimming close to the water. The Tweed is a salmon river, though it’s in the autumn when salmon make their way upriver to spawn. The river meanders into an almost S shape here, with woods to one side of the path and rocky ‘coves’ along the water’s edge. I saw a dipper on the rocks of one such inlet below me. It had nest material in its beak. Striking to see mature elm trees in the woods: the flowers having developed into clusters of very light green winged fruits containing seeds, which will be dispersed by the wind when they dry into papery ‘samaras’ later in the season. We so rarely see elms in the south east.
Zoom in for dipper!
Emerging from the wood we reached Maxton Church, dedicated to St Cuthbert. The way led away from the river and looking back we could see the church with the distinctive pair of rounded hills of the Eildons beyond. The way finding is really clear on the route. There are regular wooden way marks with the square St Cuthbert’s Cross symbol reassuring us that we are on track. A little further along the path we joined ‘Dere Street’, a Roman road where the waymark becomes a Roman helmet. Dere Street originally ran from York to near Edinburgh. We passed the site of the 1545 Battle of Ancrum between the Scots and the English. And in the distance spotted a monument on a hilltop commemorating the battle of Waterloo. About a mile from our destination we entered woods again, part of the Monteviot estate. And here we were met by Peter and a local taxi for the couple of miles drive into Jedburgh. Sprawling small town with low-lying commercial estate on the road into centre with a Scottish Woollen Mills.
Plants seen today:
Wych elm. Ulmus glabra
Few-flowered garlic. Alliumparadoxum
Cuckoo flower. Cardamine pratensis
Crosswort. Cruciata laevipes
Vetch. Vicia sativa
Bluebells (or harebells as we’re in Scotland!) Hyacinthoides non-scripta
Blaeberry Vaccinium myrtillus
4 May. Harestanes to Morebattle. Templehall Inn. 11 miles.
Day 2 of the pilgrimage. Sunny most of the day, just a bit cloudy in the morning. Taxi back to Harestanes and way continued through Monteviot estate, crossing the drive. View of the turreted house built in 1840. It resembles a Loire chateau. I read that the architect Edward Blore also worked on Buckingham Palace. Walked through woodland in silence. Bliss. Birdsong, boots crunching, walking poles tapping, plashing water. The woodland led to water’s edge and a spectacular suspension footbridge. Built in 1999 when its predecessor was swept away in severe floods. Jarring sounds of gunshot in near distance: gamekeepers on the estate? On opposite bank of the River Teviot the landscape opened out to fields, SCW continuing along a riverside path until it joins Jed Water. Another belt of broadleaf woodland, with views at the woods’ edge back to the Eildon Hills and the Waterloo Monument: a pillar topped by a flame. Rested my hands against trunks of some massive lime trees: leaves still moist looking and vibrantly green. Beatrix Potter characters painted onto the trunks of some trees, including the fox, Mr Tod. Across more open land, back on Dere Street I believe. At path side saw banks of greater stitchwort (Stellaria holostea) and crosswort (Cruciata laevipes). In the latter the leaves are arranged in a cross-like formation.
We ate lunch in a clearing in the woods sitting on felled logs. Ferns at our feet. Afterwards we could see the foothills of the Cheviots which we’ll reach tomorrow. The way led on to Cessford Castle, ruined seat of the Kers, a prominent family involved in raiding parties across the border into England in the C16 and early C17, the time of the ‘reivers’.
We walked in the sunshine downhill into Morebattle, to the Templehall Inn.
Day 3 of the pilgrimage. Drizzle, about 7-9°. This was the big one. The day we tackled Wideopen Hill. For about a mile after leaving Morebattle we walked along the road, past a small enclosure with two wild goats. Extraordinary curled horns. The road followed a river, Kale Water, for a stretch. We reached a ford where two brave members of the party paddled! Shortly afterwards we crossed the river on a footbridge and almost immediately afterwards began to climb towards the summit of Wideopen Hill. Deceptively steep. Walking on sheep grazed short grass with a dry stone wall on our left hand side. Glancing back: the Waterloo Monument again and the Eildons. The summit of Wideopen Hill is 368m above sea level and the highest point on St Cuthbert’s Way. We ate lunch in the shelter of a dry stone wall watching a pair of ponies, one roan the other white, on a distant hillside. Tuned in to the almost constant song of skylarks. 360° view of a rolling landscape of overlapping hillsides, a shining and meandering river to the east, Bowmont Water. Crossing the wall via a ladder stile we were met by the full force of the wind and very cold rain which had started to fall. Donned raincape. My hands immediately felt frozen and painful. With help I extracted the half mitts from my rucksack to wear under my gloves, and one of the party gave me a hand warmer which gradually brought my hands back to life. Walked downhill into the wind. Bizarre sight at foot of the hill of a big stony field of brassica stalks being grazed by a flock of sheep.
Walked along the road to the outskirts of Yetholm and then the way branched to the right along a muddy track towards Kirk Yetholm and the Border Hotel. Signs marking End of the Pennine Way and Gateway to the Cheviots. At this point we are not far from the border with England. Arrived about 3.30pm. Big bathroom with a bath! Walked to Town Yetholm, to a ‘deli’ for provisions for tomorrow’s picnic, and from Yetholm Bridge saw a white egret on Bowmont Water which divides Kirk Yetholm from Town Yetholm. Fish and chips for supper. We gathered to watch episode 3 of the recent BBC Pilgrimage series which followed a group walking the paths of the Northern saints (St Oswald and St Aidan) and St Cuthbert. In that episode the pilgrims climb Wideopen Hill!
6 May. Kirk Yetholm to Wooler. No.1 Hotel. 15 miles.
Day 4 of the pilgrimage. Crossing the Cheviots. A fine dry day. Two long climbs. Gorse in profusion on lower slopes. Sheep pasture gave way to moorland covered in heather. Saw few other walkers. Then heard a voice way across on other side of the valley. A shepherd and his dog were rounding up a flock of sheep. The sound had carried as if he were in the next field. Reached the Border fence where there are signs: ‘Welcome to England’ and ‘Welcome to Scotland’. Song of skylarks all day. Then saw a skylark on a gate on the moor. Smaller than blackbird. Pale plumage. We disturbed a grouse as we walked along the narrow track through the heather. Stretches of boggy ground between hills. Stopped briefly near picturesque mansion with Arts & Crafts style estate cottages nearby: Hethpool House. Progressed east with several summits visible right and left including distinctive low conical outline of Yeavering Bell, site of Iron Age hill fort. Descended through woods onto a lane with an overgrown garden to the right: large white and purple lilacs overhanging the lane. This opened out into a quiet housing estate, the most inhabited area we’ve seen since Jedburgh. Soon reached Wooler town centre and the hotel. Tiny bedroom. A warm evening. Ate at Italian restaurant. Delicious pea risotto.
Day 5 of the pilgrimage. Sunny and fresh. Pretty walk through town and out over the bridge, past a pristine bowling green. Gentle climb on road until turned onto Weetwood Bank. Good view back to Wooler and the Cheviots beyond. Pheasant’s eye Narcissus. Onto Westwood Moor and for the first time on the trip heard a cuckoo! And again saw a skylark singing on a fence post. It didn’t move even as we walked past and around the corner of the field. To a cairn topped with large rock with hollowed out St Cuthbert’s Cross painted white. Narrow path through a wood with view of Weetwood Bridge over River Till on opposite side of a rather busy road. Crossed to the bridge. Cone topped brick turrets at far side. Interpretation board explained this was the route taken by the English Army on way to Battle of Flodden in 1513. Peter met us here with coffee.
Way continued on minor roads, open country on either side. Passed Doddington Quarry: a working quarry for pink sandstone. We paused for lunch at a crossroads next to former schoolhouse: Hazelrigg, beside a wooden monument to St Cuthbert. Depicts scenes from his life. A dense crowd of swallows and sand martins swooped around us. We walked towards trees on the skyline, St Cuthbert’s Cave Wood. National Trust. The cave is a sandstone overhang. It is said that after Viking raids on the island in 875 AD monks from Lindisfarne fled bearing the body of the saint and sheltered in the cave. The cave is much larger than I expected, and shallower. Surrounded by trees, it is a quiet and peaceful place. The route though the woods to the cave reminded me of the Dark Hedges in County Antrim, huge trees hanging over the path to create a tall and very shaded avenue.
The countryside beyond the cave is flat and open and from a crag next to the wood we saw Holy Island. We walked through a sheep pasture and into Shiellow Wood where red squirrels can be found. Saw a dedicated nesting box but no sign of a squirrel. Chatting, Lynn and I fell behind the group and for about ten minutes thought we were lost, but with some map reading and a couple of the group coming back for us we re-joined the route!
Common stork’s bill
We followed ancient ‘green road’ along the edge of Kyloe Old Wood** and into Fenwick. Saw a pied wagtail on a lawn in Fenwick. Here the community minibus brought us up the road to Lowick about three miles north. We ate at the hotel: fish and chips again! Much discussion of the route tomorrow to Holy Island. We all want to walk across the sands and weather permitting shall do so barefoot!
Plants seen today:
Climbing corydalis. Ceratocapnus claviculata. Growing at side of path in area of felled trees.
Common stork’s bill. Erodium cicutarium. On top of a dry stone wall.
Day 6 of the pilgrimage. Dry and quite bright. Rain forecast early afternoon.
It’s a couple of miles walk through farmland to the coast. We had to cross the East Coast Main Line en route. Our leader Jacqui used the telephone beside the line to call the signalman for permission to cross when it was safe. She had to call again to confirm we had all crossed safely. When we reached Beal Sands where the walk to the island begins we exchanged boots for beach shoes for the walk to the edge of the sands. Peter took our boots in the car which he drove across the Causeway. We walked a short stretch of road to where the sands began and took off the beach shoes. Jacqui had timed it so that we were crossing during the optimum period at low tide.
The Pilgrim’s Route is marked by a line of poles stretching for 2.3 miles towards dry land with a refuge box in the middle. The ‘seabed’ consists of rippled and compacted sand with pools of seawater remaining in deeper sections. The water was pleasantly warm. About halfway across is a patch of coarse grass and rutted and blackened muddy sand. Hard to walk on. After several minutes of walking, all in silence, I noticed an eerie sound, a melancholy wailing, and realised it was seals on a sandy spit between Lindisfarne and the mainland. That sound accompanied the remainder of the walk. It was easy to imagine the origin of the stories of sailors being lured to treacherous rocks after mistaking the sound for the cries of mermaids. Beyond the seals I could see the outline of Bamburgh Castle further south along the coast. And behind us the hulk of the Cheviots on the horizon. It took about 1 hour 20 minutes to cross. A walking meditation, concentrating on walking from pole to pole, taking care to avoid any sharp edged shells sticking out of the sand or deeper pools of seawater.
We ate our lunch sitting around the bench beside the shore, then walked into town. The rain had started and it set in for the afternoon. Because the accommodation wouldn’t be available before 4pm we explored the parish church of St Mary the Virgin. A modern stained glass window with local images, including seals, an eider duck, the poles, Lindisfarne Castle. At the rear of the church, an extraordinary wooden sculpture of the monks bearing the body of St Cuthbert.
Staying at Marygate House, a retreat house run by the Community of St Aidan and St Hilda. Quite a large room and shared bathrooms. Jolly supper downstairs at 6pm. The rain had stopped and walked down to see the sun setting over the upturned boat sheds.
9 May. On Holy Island.
Very wet morning. 9° feeling like 1° because of windchill. Walked along the curving path to the castle which crowns a craggy promontory. Sea thrift growing along edge of cliffs. Castle ‘modernised’ for Edward Hudson, the publisher of Country Life, by Edwin Lutyens between 1901-1906. Reworked the C16 interior. Brick herringbone floor on the long gallery on first floor. Views north to the walled garden and south to the Farne Islands. Castle is run by the National Trust. Edward Hudson commissioned Gertrude Jekyll to advise upon the planting in the walled garden, the layout of which was designed by Lutyens. The story is that she travelled north by train and was brought by horse and trap as far as was possible before having to be carried to the castle on the back of the housekeeper’s husband. According to the room guide Miss Jekyll disliked the place. Fascinating to see a reproduction of her planting scheme: drawn in her distinctive style of interlinking labelled blobs.
After lunch we explored the garden. About 1 acre and surprisingly sheltered given the windy and rainy conditions. Cordoned apple trees and a central bed prepared with wooden obelisks ready for beans or sweet peas. Plant labels painted onto stones. So simple. Metal silhouette on the wall of Miss Jekyll, based on a sketch by Edwin Lutyens.
The rain had stopped but it was still very windy when we walked across the rocky shore that separates the main island from St Cuthbert’s Island at low tide. A simple wooden cross stands at one end of the ruins of what appears to be a tiny chapel.
The weather cleared by suppertime so afterwards we walked along the path leading to the spot where we ‘landed’ yesterday after the walk over the sands. It was the ‘golden hour’, the tide had come in and the poles were almost submerged. Hard to imagine that 36 hours earlier we’d walked here barefoot from the mainland, to this ‘thin place’. Watched the sun setting over the distant hills of Northumberland, and over the whole of St Cuthbert’s Way, all the way to Melrose.
Kew Gardens, 16 June 2026
*The monastery where St Cuthbert began his monastic life is believed to have been sited 4km to the east of Melrose on a bend of the River Tweed.
**Kyloe Old Wood: formerly owned by the Leyland family of Haggerston Castle. I’ve since read that some of the original Leylandii cypress stock was raised here in the C19. Hybrid of two North American conifers: Nootka cypress and Monterey cypress. Very sad to think that a cultivar raised in such a peaceful spot should have become the cause of so much cross-boundary aggravation between neighbours.
I had the privilege last Thursday to tour RHS Wisley with other members of the Garden Media Guild and meet members of the Wisley team to learn more about the garden and the fascinating work of the Royal Horticultural Society. It’s a garden I’ve visited many times but never felt I knew well enough so this was my opportunity to discover more. And thanks to the generous time given by the team I left feeling not only better informed but hugely impressed by the horticultural and scientific work carried out at Wisley.
Sandwiched between the River Wey and the A3 London to Portsmouth road, Wisley has seen some challenges in the last few years due to major roadworks on its doorstep, when the M25/A3 junction was improved. The massive delays in all directions had a very negative effect on visitor numbers but that is now history and access to the garden by car is far easier.
We began in front of the spectacular display of tulips on either side of the Jellicoe Canal which is overlooked by the Arts & Crafts style Old Laboratory. RHS Chief Horticultural Advisor, Guy Barter, who leads the organisation’s RHS Members’ Advisory service, gave us a brief introduction. The half-timbered laboratory building dates from 1915 and also housed the lecture theatre for students studying horticulture at Wisley. Before the canal was created in 1969-70, this part of the site housed propagation and potting sheds, now relocated to a state of the art facility in nearby Wisley Village. RHS Wisley is supported by a cohort of 700 volunteers, spread between the garden, front of house and education.
Mark Tuson, one of Wisley’s four Garden Managers, led the first tour of the day. He highlighted the mass tulip plantings which are attracting the crowds leading to the busiest Easter since 2023. He guided us past the Walled Garden to Oakwood, a low-lying area which a former owner of the garden, George Ferguson Wilson, treated as an experimental garden in which to grow plants that could cope with the standing water and frosty conditions. From 1878 he had channels built to drain the acidic greensand soil. Several of the Rhododendrons in Oakwood date were planted by Wilson between the mature oaks which still stand. Wisteria grows many metres high into the canopy of some of the oaks: emulating wild Wisteria plants in China and Japan. Influenced by the wilder, more natural style pioneered by garden makers and plants people William Robinson and Ellen Willmott, Wilson introduced many woodland edge plants into Oakwood.
Oakwood was filled with birdsong while we were there and Mark reported that the RHS is undertaking a biodiversity audit at Wisley to measure how many species the garden supports. His team is engaged in creating as much wildlife habitat as possible, including ‘stick stacks’ where spent stems and branches are piled into wigwams. He recently examined a hollow stem to find it housed the larvae of a solitary wasp. Low-lying Oakwood sits in a frost pocket criss-crossed with drainage channels and Mark has found that the later flowering yellow flowered Magnolias do well in this challenging site, with Battleston Hill on the other side of the garden hosting the early flowering species such as Magnolia campbelii. Another project in this area designed to make the site resilient to climate change is the creation of ephemeral ponds known as ‘swales’ to capture rainwater. After several dry April weeks, most were empty last week.
Mark moved us through to the Oudolf Landscape, where Dutch plantsman Piet Oudolf redesigned the beds and planting in the ‘Glasshouse Borders’ a couple of years ago. in 2024 Mark and his team planted 30,000 perennials all in 9cm pots! These plants were contract grown by nurseries in Holland before being subjected to up to three months’ quarantine where they were monitored for pests and diseases. In 2025 a bulb layer of 6,000 bulbs was added. The cutback of the ‘5th season’ growth has just finished, a reference to the stems and seedheads left standing throughout the winter to support wildlife and provide a dramatic structure when little else as apparent in these herbaceous perennial borders. During the cutting back process they have to take care not to tread on the emerging growth of bulbs like Muscari. They use the ‘chop and drop’ technique of leaving the cut stems in situ, sometimes moving them around the beds a little for even distribution. This feeds the soil, suppresses weed growth and saves having to mulch. One unforeseen maintenance task which the team deals with is a phenomenon he calls ‘gravel will travel’: where gravel from the paths which wind through the beds on the sloping site of the Landscape migrates into the beds below.
50% of the plants at Wisley are propagated in-house. There are a staggering 25,000 species of plant throughout Wisley garden. Mark listed some of the challenges faced by his team including having to redevelop the Heather Landscape after the surface rooting plants suffered in recent hot summers. There is a proposal under consideration to relocate the collection to RHS Harlow Carr in Yorkshire.
Mark led us through to the Alpine Display Houses where we admired the array of colourful specimens thriving there before being led to the Trials Garden to meet Rosalyn Marshall, the Trials Project Manager. The Trials Garden is located on the site of Wisley’s old plant centre with soil introduced from the development of the build of Hilltop, the RHS Science Centre (of which more later). Here she and her team look after the beds in which several selections of the same plant or related groups of plants are grown side by side for comparison. Depending on the plant, trials last for one or between three to five years. The purpose of the trials is to identify the attributes which will help home gardeners choose the best examples of the plants under consideration. The trials are assessed by a judging panel made up of experts in that group of plants, during four sessions a year, before their findings are ratified by the relevant RHS Expert Group. The best performers might receive the accolade of ‘RHS Recommended: Award of Garden Merit’. Trialled plants face similar challenges to those in home gardens, including of course pests and diseases. The beds are mulched to suppress weeds and fed, with a shift towards organic feed. Watering depends on the plants being trialled but a couple of species in current trials, Baptisia and Helianthemum, were watered only once last year, so as to test for resilience.
Other plants undergoing trials at Wisley this year include Centaurea, Geranium, Nandina domestica, Philadelphus, Rosa persica and herbaceous Veronica. The Trials team work with the seven Expert Groups who advise on sourcing the plants as well as plant naming if this is unclear. The team consists of ten personnel: five in the office and five cultivating the beds. We learnt that the RHS began trials at their Chiswick site in the C19 with the first Award of Garden Merit given in 1922 for Crocus tommasianus. What appear to be empty beds are sown each year with a wildflower mix and one bed is devoted to examples of sweetpeas which have already achieved AGM status. Vegetables and fruit are trialled in a site near the Edible Landscape.
Rosalyn encouraged us to examine the plants in the one year trial of three groups of tulips: Viridiflora, late single and Darwin Hybrid. To avoid the danger of tulip fire, bulbs for tulip trials are planted in different beds each year. A future trial of perennial tulips is being considered. The tulips in the current trial were truly spectacular: serried ranks of intense colour. I was especially struck by the enormous flowers of Tulipa ‘Flaming Memory’.
During a break for lunch I walked to the northern end of the garden to see the Stone Pine building from the garden side. On the ground floor is a cafe which opens at the weekend and in the summer and the first floor houses the offices of the charity Plant Heritage. I had spent the day before at Plant Heritage with other volunteers where we labelled packets of seed for the forthcoming RHS shows. More about this and the Plant Heritage show garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show in a separate blog. Stone Pine overlooks the recently established Resilience Garden. Pausing in the nearby Bird Hide to see a mute swan nesting, I walked back to the busier section of the garden alongside the River Wey. Apparently kingfishers can sometimes be spotted in this tranquil spot. Not on this occasion, but a confident fox trotted happily ahead of me for a couple of minutes.
Team leader in the 19 acre Edible Landscape, Sarah, met us for the next stage of our tour in the World Food Garden. Its one acre consists of three areas: the world food maze, ‘good to grow’ and herbs and flowers where all is edible. Nothing is sprayed and no chemicals are used. They operate a no dig approach and generate ten crops a year per bed. Growing is all year round. They are planting more and more perennials, to promote plant health and protect the soil. Most of the crops grown have received the Award of Garden Merit. The harvested crops (twice a week at present) are sold via the ‘donations’ stand to one side of the World Food Garden or donated to local community charity FairShare. Asparagus season has started and the recently appointed catering company, Restaurant Associates, is holding monthly lunches to highlight the produce from the garden. ‘Tickle your tastebuds’ tours will take place later in the year.
We were intrigued by the small upturned terracotta pots suspended in the espaliered apple displays around the World Food Garden. These have been filled with chickenwire and straw as refuges for earwigs which eat the aphids which can infest the plants. Throughout the Edible Landscape, dead hedges and log piles have been installed to provide habitat for wildlife. To withstand the challenge of the windy conditions at this hill top location they are installing a windbreak in the form of a 80m long ‘mega hedge’ in the orchard consisting of 30 different native species. Every Tuesday morning Sarah and her team of eight full time gardeners and 20 volunteers carry out a physical pest control exercise, which this week involved squishing any winter moth caterpillars found on the trained fruit. They place cardboard around the base of orchard trees to prevent caterpillars crawling up the trunks and have installed bird boxes to attract blue and great tits. Walking through the soft fruit garden, Sarah pointed out the interplanting of rhubarb and herbs and a couple of beds planted with ‘green manure’,Phacelia and green clover, which will be mown next week and forked into the bed to enrich the soil.
At RHS Hilltop, Professor Alistair Griffiths, Director of Science and Collections, kindly spent the next hour and a half enthusiastically taking us through the scientific work of the RHS in helping gardeners to garden. He has been at Wisley for 13 years after 14 years at the Eden Project. We began our tour with him in the Wellbeing Garden designed by Ann Marie Powell where he introduced us to the RHS Wellbeing Garden Blueprint which has drawn together research to demonstrate that gardens and gardening benefit our physical, mental and social health. In this vein, the RHS is advising on the development of a wellbeing garden at Lewisham Hospital.
Alistair pointed out two coniferous plants in the Wellbeing Garden, dwarf pine (Pinus mugo) and Hinoki cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa) whose natural oils contain ‘phyto chemicals’: naturally occurring plant compounds which studies have found can enhance the immune system by boosting Natural Killer (NK) cells and thus recognise and eliminate cancer cells. He stressed the importance of gardens engendering a sense of awe through their colour and scent and cited research linking the colour yellow to joy and happiness. He noted that Ann Marie Powell’s designs for the garden ‘burst with saturation’. In his own garden he has two contrasting borders. One featuring brighter colours for uplift and another with muted shades for contemplation.
The atrium area in the Hilltop building exhibits examples of the research being conducted by the RHS’s 130 scientists including a hands on experiment collecting data about visitors’ emotional responses to different flower shapes, colour and scent. We were privileged to be shown into the RHS Herbarium which houses almost 100,000 specimens of cultivated ornamental plants in a surprisingly compact racking system. The plants stored here assist the scientists in the RHS Plants for Purpose projects. On display were a specimen of Madagascan periwinkle, now routinely used in chemotherapy treatment. And a western cedar, Thuja Occidentalis L.Dicksonii, whose scales have been found to capture pollution. Alistair was pleased to see a few of us ‘geeking out’ by poring over the specimen sheets. The team is working with Nottingham University to develop an AI tool which will comb through the characteristics of the plants stored in the Herbarium to identify those with scaly or hairy attributes which might make them resilient to the impact of climate change. Another area of study is water: which plants can best tolerate drought and flood?
Next port of call was the environmental horticulture laboratory which is researching the anticipated changes in our environment by 2050 caused by climate change. Alistair quoted the words of Scottish conservationist and town planner Sir Patrick Geddes, ‘by leaves we live’, when reporting upon the work of his team. Work is being carried out in conjunction with eight nurseries looking at potential changes in watering regimes with the use of peat free growing media. Another area of research is paludiculture, which I leant is the cultivation in peatlands of crops adapted to wet conditions such as Sphagnum moss as a sustainable alternative to draining land for conventional farming. This has lead to the production of a growing medium widely used by growers of carnivorous plants. It was fascinating to see a container of granulated cork from Portugal which is beginning to be used instead of perlite to improve the structure of growing media and as a substitute for vermiculite in topping trays of seedlings etc. Other work involves the addition to compost of cellulose made from nettles or hemp or grasses like Miscanthus. Work is also being done to measure carbon in cultivated landscapes, above and below ground, and it is anticipated that lawns may come out well in this study.
In the so-called ‘dirty lab’ where the team studies the 25,000 invertebrate species associated with garden health, Alistair advised us about the ‘Bringing Nature Home’ biodiversity themed display at Chelsea and other RHS shows this year, to celebrate how the diversity of plants and features in gardens support an important abundance of other life. He repeated the statistic quoted by Sir David Attenborough in the current BBC series Secret Garden that our gardens are a national nature reserve 3.1x larger than the size of UK National Nature Reserves. He praised the programmes but feels there is rather too much emphasis on ‘mega fauna’ at the expense of the wealth of invertebrate species which our gardens support. We were urged to help the RHS measure plant diversity in our gardens by recording the plants we grow in the RHS Grow App.
I came away from Wisley on Thursday afternoon with a far deeper understanding of the pioneering work carried out by the RHS both in the garden itself and behind the scenes in the science labs and offices. All of which will help us become better gardeners, equipped to tackle the challenges of a changing climate and as well as protecting and increasing the biodiversity in our gardens.
The sun came out as we entered the Walled Garden. We’d been assailed by horizontal rain as we got out of the car which persisted for the first part of the visit but in this expansive space, clear blue skies and almost warm sunshine prevailed. Where is this paradise when just walking through its gates triggers a meteorological miracle? It’s just one of many beautifully realised areas within Thenford Gardens, on the south-western border of Northamptonshire with Oxfordshire, where over the last forty years Tory ex-minister Michael Heseltine and his wife Anne have created a garden and arboretum around a handsome C18 house.
The Walled Garden, like everything else at Thenford, is on a grand scale. But before we arrive there, let me share with you my impressions of the gardens outside its elegantly curved-corner walls. We visited on 20 February, one of Thenford’s 18 open afternoons each year, attracted by the promise of snowdrops. Lord Heseltine holds one of the seven national collections of snowdrops listed in Plant Heritage’s 2026 directory. There are currently 670 cultivars held in his collection, many planted in generous drifts throughout the garden, some in smaller clumps at the base of trees. With such riches at one’s feet and rising far above you in the form of the collections of rare tree species, it takes a while to walk a few metres without being distracted by some novel specimen.
I do just need to veer off an a slight tangent here. At this point in the visit it struck me as not without irony that earlier that week I’d started to read Andrew Timothy O’Brien’s book To Stand & Stare with its message of ‘a more low-intervention way to garden’. Because here I was face to face with the first of several man-made features in Thenford, The Mount. What O’Brien would describe as a ‘construction of human artifice’ if ever there was, this is a grassy mound around the slopes of which a serpentine path edged with clipped box winds to a summit where sits a Cambodian guardian lion. From this vantage point he surveys a long lawn margined by multi-stemmed Amelanchiers which must look glorious when in flower in spring. Thanks to another visitor, we learned that the delicate snowdrops with yellow ovaries atop their petals, visible at eye-level from the path, were Galanthus ‘Primrose Warburg’.
The MountCambodian lionGalanthus Primrose Warburg
Though tempted to walk straight towards the Sculpture Garden, I could see on the map that there were treasures to be found parallel with this lawned area. Firstly the Trough Garden! And we’re not talking here of shallow rough-cast containers measuring a couple of feet long and a foot across planted with tiny alpines, but a collection of about forty stone troughs which would once have been used to contain water for cattle and sheep. Many of these are planted with wisterias and dwarf conifers. A wrought iron Coalbrookdale bench painted what I now think of as Clough Williams Ellis* turquoise stands in the centre of the space. The wrought iron theme continues in the form of two exquisite gates decorated with stylised magnolia flowers and the entwined initials M and A to commemorate the Heseltines’ golden wedding anniversary. Like others at Thenford, the gates are made by North Somerset based master blacksmith, Jim Horrobin.
Coalbrookdale benchMagnolia flower gatesMichael & Anne initials
Resisting the urge at this stage to explore the nearby Rill which I’d read about on the Thenford website and knew was going to be spectacular, I entered the Sculpture Garden. Circular knot gardens act as fullstops at each end of a long rectangular space divided into ‘rooms’ by hedges of yew and beech, each room housing a single large sculpture or a couple of smaller pieces. The nearest circular garden is fully evergreen, with topiarised hollies and stone cupids decorating immaculately clipped box compartments. My first impression of the raspberry coloured paintwork of the metal ‘gloriette’ at the centre of the space was unfavourable, but reviewing the photographs now I can see that the slightly bluish pink works very well in contrast with the shades of green elsewhere.
Photo by Eric Farnworth
As well as snowdrops and trees, the Heseltines collect contemporary sculpture. And here it is displayed to full advantage, with plenty of empty space around each piece. A standing man by Elizabeth Frink in one space, a trio of gymnasts in another. The head of Lenin you encounter in the final room is a big surprise, both because of its huge scale and the politics of the man who placed it there! Having once dominated a public square in Latvia, it was decommissioned after the fall of communism in 1989.
The other fullstop, called the Circle Garden, is centred with a marble fountain. More box compartments surround it, into which are placed terracotta urns containing more specimens from the snowdrop collection planted into black ‘grass’ Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’. Here I admired the long petals and distinct green markings of Galanthus James Backhouse.
Galanthus James Backhouse
Though empty of water at this time of year, the Rill is a magnificent sight. I’ve already mentioned the grand scale of the garden features at Thenford and this chain of rectangular pools linked by narrower channels, is very impressive. The tall yew cones standing guard on either side of the rill add to the drama of the scene.
The formal symmetry of the Rill gives way to a series of tree lined pools flowing into one another. A duckhouse floats across one, prevented from crashing into the banks by a rope tethered to the pool bed. To the left of the path skirting the eastern bank of the second pool the roots of a huge ash tree thought to be 200 to 300 years old extend across the grass, resembling moss-encrusted feet. Several clumps of snowdrops nestle between its bony toes.
The treeless expanse is cut into quadrants with a square hedged area at its centre. This aerial view from the beautiful coffee table format book about Thenford by Michael and Anne Heseltine shows the layout of the Walled Garden.
The architect Quinlan Terry**, favoured architect of King Charles III, advised on the width and positioning of the main paths. Landscape architect George Carter designed the rest of the space. The four quarters comprise a fruit cage, a sitting area, a herb garden and an aviary. The centre houses a large modern fountain called Coanda, its name deriving from a Romanian professor of hydraulics, Henri Coanda, an authority on the phenomenon of fluids clinging to surfaces. Uniformity between the disparate sections of the garden is achieved by the placement of arched pavilions at the intersection of smaller paths. Some of these are solid sided, some open ironwork structures supporting climbing plants, and those in the aviary faced with glass or perspex, but all topped with a copper dome.
Whether curved corners in a walled garden are unusual I cannot say, but of the three inward facing curves which examined, each is memorable for different reasons. I saw a chaffinch fly out of a nest built into the space between the branches of a fig tree trained against the curve in one. In another a bronze head of Neptune surveys the scene, and in another choice specimens from the National Collection of Galanthus are arranged on shelves in the proscenium of a lead-roofed ‘theatre’ used at other times of the year to display Auricula primroses.
Two acres is a large area and the enticing paths ensure that you are constantly walking onwards to explore as much as possible of this stylish and tranquil enclosed space. It’s such a contrast to the predominantly woodland atmosphere of much of Thenford. The precision of the clipped hedges and topiarised shapes in the Walled Garden as well as elsewhere is exemplary, testament to the skills and dedication of the garden team under the leadership of head gardener Darren Webster. Although I’m not a fan of seeing caged birds, the collection of cockatiels and parakeets do have a very spacious aviary. Many of the garden sculptures throughout Thenford come in pairs, not least a pair of proud hounds either side of one of the gates to the Walled Garden.
I enjoyed seeing the motto carved into a piece of slate above another gate which I recognised from a maple leaf shaped plaque a friend bought me a few years ago. Had Cicero added friends, a cat and chocolate he would have just about nailed the recipe for a contented life.
Moon gate in progress
Double herbaceous borders run the length of the southern boundary of the Walled Garden. The borders are divided into sections by curved box buttresses each adorned with a standard yew ball. The border facing south is backed by the redbrick of the Walled Garden and that facing north by beech hedging interrupted by ‘moon gates’ being trained into the hedge around ironwork supports, through which the farmland beyond the boundary of the garden can be seen. Reviewing my photographs from the visit I am puzzled by the 6 regular chem-trail lines in the top-left of the image, distinctly manmade in contrast to the wispy cloud formations. A distant Red Arrows training flight? Whatever it is it sums up the opposing forces I felt throughout Thenford, where in parts of the garden unruly nature is tamed into rigid yet elegant lines.
The circuit of the garden continues south alongside the Water Gardens. A trio of ducks stand on the bank of the south flowing stream, on the opposite bank a stag surveys his domain from the edge of a stand of conifers.
At this point in our walk we became aware that the three hours of our open afternoon were ebbing away and we were keen to see the area around the house itself not to mention having a warm drink, the weather having closed in again. Had there been more time we might have walked around the lake and explored three mediaeval fish ponds, Japanese bridges and St Mary’s Church. Instead we proceeded along ‘Lanning’s Walk’, named for Lanning Roper the American garden designer whose advice the Heseltines had sought early in their stewardship of Thenford. A very life-like bronze raven stands atop a wall overlooking the Rose Garden. The avian theme continues near the southern elevation of the house, where a graceful pair of cormorants roost on the edge of the ha-ha which separates a wide crescent of the south lawn from the lower sward sweeping towards the main lake. High yew hedging has been shaped into a distinctive toast rack formation at the ends of the curving ha-ha. On the terrace close to the house a bird table generously hung with feeders is testament to the owners’ love of birdlife.
In a portrait hung in the tea room, Lord Heseltine wearing wellingtons and standing in a large greenhouse, waters plant-laden benches. Lady Heseltine looks on and a Westie stretches beneath a bench. Stylised vignettes of the gardens adorn the outer edges of the painting. While we relaxed with a hot drink before the drive home, the man himself, now 92, drew up to the tea room in a golf buggy to greet visitors and chat.
Michael Heseltine. Photo by Eric Farnworth.
As we headed towards the carpark I recognised Darren Webster from his photograph in the Thenford book. Two of us in our party of four on this visit had worked at Kew Gardens: Charlotte as a Visitor Services team leader and I in the Visitor Information team. While Darren’s years as a Kew Diploma student pre-dated our time at Kew, he was more than happy to chat about Kew and reminisce about his contemporaries there, many of whom are now senior members of the horticulture team. He qualified from Kew immediately into working at Thenford and has been there since 1996. He clearly relishes his role at Thenford and explained that he is supported by the equivalent of ten full-time gardeners and three volunteers. Nodding towards where his employer was standing, he acknowledged the advantage of working where the owners take such an active interest in the development of the garden.
Leaving Thenford, the late February sun bathed the Main Gate. An invitation to return? As we drove home, we agreed that we had just visited a very special garden which was more than worth seeing in another season.
Kew, 8 March 2026
*This is the colour of all the ironwork in Plas Brondanw the North Wales garden made by architect Clough Williams-Ellis a few miles from his Italianate village of Portmeirion. I was there in June 2025 and it, along with several other gardens I went to on the same trip, deserve a blog of their own.
**Researching this blog I was surprised to read that as well as the Richmond Riverside development which I walked past this very afternoon, Quinlan Terry redesigned Brentwood Cathedral, a mile from where I grew up and scene of my first holy communion. His redevelopment in classical Palladian style, supplanted the almost modernist space that in turn had replaced the sombre interior that I remember from my Sixties childhood.
Here’s a selection of some of the other photographs I took at Thenford. Ironically, having imagined that the main attraction in February would be the vast collection of snowdrops, which was truly impressive, I confess to having been somewhat distracted by the extent and impact of the garden ‘architecture’. But to see great swathes of some unusual cultivars naturalised amongst the tree collection was a huge pleasure. Three hours was barely long enough to do justice to the place. We were given an A3 map of the gardens on arrival, printed on high quality paper, which illustrates the scale of Thenford.
A lion from the Houses of ParliamentGalanthus Fatty PuffStylish labelling of part of the Galanthus collectionBronze hareOsmanthus aureomarginatusButter yellow helleboresOne of many expanses of snowdrops
33 years ago this month some colleagues and I started a book club. Dozens of books later we are still reading, discussing, agreeing, disagreeing, laughing. Members have come and gone and now we are nine. We meet about eight times a year in the ground floor of the Royal Festival Hall and often notice other groups clutching their paperbacks and doing the same as us. This is a contrast with our early days when we would gather in each other’s houses and the host would cook and often miss out on the best bits of the discussion. After a few years, with most of us working in central London, it made sense to decamp to the South Bank. Other than a sojourn at Pizza Express on Exhibition Road whilst the RFH underwent refurbishment some years ago, the venue has remained unchanged. Of course we had to resort to Zoom for about a year during the pandemic, and it was a great relief when we were able to meet face to face again.
For the first time this year we went on a book club day trip to follow in the footsteps of Virginia Woolf whose Mrs Dalloway we had read a few months before. We visited Charleston Farmhouse near Lewes, home of her sister Vanessa Bell. The day was a joy and we’re planning a 2026 trip to Jane Austen’s Cottage at Chawton in Hampshire, inspired by having read Sense & Sensibility as well as her 250th anniversary this month.
In the early days of the book club, Penguin Classics were being sold for £1 each and we read several novels we might not otherwise have done. Wilkie Collins ‘The Woman in White’ was one. More recently we’ve tended to choose more contemporary authors, often those shortlisted for book awards. I’ve always been intrigued to hear how other book clubs go about choosing the next book. I know one model is for one person to choose the book and lead the discussion about it. Our system, if it can be called that, is for as many as want to, to suggest books perhaps recommended by friends or mentioned on the radio and to advocate for our chosen titles. Being pragmatic individuals with busy lives, shorter books often get the vote. Several of us listen to the chosen book or perhaps, as I sometimes do, operate a hybrid system where I read some chapters and read others.
Some books have disappeared without trace from memory, others have elicited quite heated discussions. Often those we’ve enjoyed least give rise to the liveliest debates. And then there are those books which have really struck a chord with all of us and made us want to find out more about the context and the characters. Such a book was our most recent read, The Painter’s Daughters by Emily Howes.
The painter in the title is Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788). He painted his two daughters Molly and Peg throughout his career and the book is a fictionalised account of their and their grandmother Meg’s stories. The author admits to having used artistic licence to alter key dates and characters to progress or enhance the tale. What emerges is a gripping story of a charismatic artist who moves to Bath to be close to the high society whose portraits he paints, leaving behind the more rustic and idyllic surroundings of Suffolk where the girls were born. It is clear from the start that the younger of the girls, Peg, realises from a young age that her sister Molly is vulnerable: prone to sleep walking and other episodes of unusual behaviour. She makes it her life’s mission to protect Molly and that relationship is at the core of the book. As is the source of Molly’s mental illness, inspired apparently by Margaret Gainsborough having been overheard to refer to herself as ‘the daughter of a prince’. Enter Prince Frederick, later Prince of Wales (1707-1751). The author surmises that Molly, like the future King George lll (Frederick’s first legitimate child), is suffering from porphyria, thought to be the cause of George lll’s ‘madness’.
The Painter’s Daughters Chasing a Butterfly (1756), National GalleryThe Artist’s Daughters (c. 1759) National GalleryPortrait of the Artist’s Daughters, 1763–64 Worcester Art Museum
At this juncture you’d be forgiven for wondering what a historical novel about the family of a famous portrait artist has to do with gardens, horticulture etc. which make up the bulk of the posts by Weeds Roots & Leaves. You’ll be relieved to hear that it’s not just because a book contains leaves! As I read this highly readable and warm-hearted novel, I picked up references to familiar locations in Kew and Bath. Kew is my home patch and the Bath setting resonated with me as I’ve visited the city three times over the last 18 months. The action also takes place in Ipswich, Harwich and London.
BATH
The Georgian Garden to the rear of 4 The Circus
The ‘new’ city of Bath which is still under construction when the Gainsborough family arrives, is vividly portrayed. The streets are awash with pale coloured mud, created by the dust from the Bath stone being used to build the grand houses occupied by Gainsborough’s clients. The large house on The Circus which the family move into when Gainsborough’s success grows, is described not altogether flatteringly as something akin to a new build. These days a Georgian home like that would be the ultimate Bath des res. When I went to Bath in July I was early for my appointment (receiving the Green Flag Award on behalf of Pensford Field Environmental Trust) and had time to explore. My route took me around The Circus as far as the Royal Crescent and back along Gravel Walk which runs along the rear of the houses on the south west of The Circus. Here I happened upon The Georgian Garden behind 4, The Circus, which has been recreated to the original plan of around 1760/1770. The rather austere, mainly evergreen, planting of box, yew and holly has been chosen to represent species used in gardens of that period. Perhaps the garden of the Gainboroughs’ house at 17, The Circus, had a similar layout?
The Gravel Walk, Bath: backing onto The Circus. The tree in foreground is a Monterey Cypress(Cupressus macrocarpa)
KEW
Prince Frederick, later Prince of Wales, is strongly associated with Kew. An estrangement from his parents George (later King George ll) and Caroline was established early. In 1714, when he was seven, he was left behind in Hanover in 1714 when his parents came to England on the succession of George l to the throne. When summoned to join his family on George ll’s accession in 1728, the antipathy deepened, but in what might have been ‘a gesture of reconciliation’*, he leased a house a very short distance from the Dutch House (now Kew Palace) in what is now Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, intended as a rural retreat. Improvements to the house were carried out by architect William Kent including the white stucco rendering which gave rise to it being called The White House. Frederick clearly had plans for the grounds of his new house in Kew. He commissioned Italian statuary and is documented as having spent considerable sums on plants ordered from, amongst others, a nurseryman on Kew Green**. Frederick died in 1751 from complications thought to have arisen from an injury years before when he was struck in the chest by a cricket ball.
In a key episode in The Painter’s Daughters an important encounter between Frederick and Meg takes place during a cricket match on Kew Green.
Kew Cricket Club pavilion on Kew Green today
His widow Augusta, dowager Princess of Wales, dedicated herself to the improvement of the garden at the White House during the twenty years that she survived her husband. The Princess of Wales Conservatory, opened by Princess Diana in 1987, commemorates Princess Augusta. The White House was demolished in 1802. Its site is marked by a sundial on the lawn in front of Kew Palace.
The site of The White HousePrincess of Wales Conservatory
The relationship between Gainsborough and his younger daughter Peg is touchingly portrayed in the book. He is constantly working or entertaining friends at parties where he plays the violin. She yearns to spend time with him and learn to paint like him so as to make him proud of her. She tries her best to master the craft, but has to concede she doesn’t have the talent. In a scene towards the end of his life, he tells her ‘I wanted you to paint’. Shortly afterwards the author states
He is buried at Kew, in the shadow of the church. His grave is set near to his friend, as he had asked. ‘Social to the last’, my mother says, drawing her black veil down from her bonnet.’
Gainsborough’s grave stands close to the south elevation of St Anne’s church on Kew Green. According to the engraving on the tomb, he is buried with his wife Margaret and nephew Gainsborough Dupont, who also features as a character in the novel. The friend referred to is Joshua Kirby (1716-1774), who Gainsborough had met as a young man in Suffolk. He was an artist, draughtsman and architect who in 1770 designed a new north aisle for St Anne’s.
Thomas Gainsborough’s graveThe site of Gainsborough’s Grave
BROCCOLI
Lest you think I have strayed too far from gardens and horticulture in this post, I should mention that during our discussion of The Painter’s Daughters one member of the book club reminded us that Gainsborough had used broccoli as his design for trees!
His landscapes were often painted at night by candlelight, using a tabletop arrangement of stones, pieces of mirrors, broccoli, and the like as a model.***
We’re having a rare Saturday morning book club meet up in early January in Room 34 of the National Gallery which houses its Gainsborough paintings to see his daughters’ portraits and perhaps identify some broccoli!
Mr and Mrs Andrews (c. 1750), National Gallery. Spot the broccoli!
Kew Gardens, 22 December 2025
*p 21 Ray Desmond Kew.
**Richard Butt. p 26 Ray Desmond Kew
***Michael Rosenthal, Thomas Gainsborough. Oxford University Press.
P.S. Mary (Molly) and Margaret (Peg) Gainsborough are not buried at St Anne’s in Kew but in the graveyard at St Mary’s, Hanwell.
What is it about some days that they seem charmed in some way? Travel plans work like a dream, the weather is perfect and the welcome at the garden visited is equally warm. Such was the experience of going to Great Comp Garden in the village of Platt, near Borough Green in Kent in early August with fellow Friday morning garden volunteers from NT Osterley.
Within a few minutes of arriving at Great Comp, we admired the Black Moon heritage tomatoes in the greenhouse near the Entrance kiosk, progressed around the edge of the Crescent Lawn before spying the Moon Gate across the immaculately striped lawn known as the Square. Cue the title to this post!
Black moon tomatoesThe Moon GateThe Moon Gate
At seven acres, the garden is relatively small but because the geometric layout of the formal borders and Italian Garden give way to numerous sinuous paths weaving through mature woodland the site feels much larger. At this point I must confess that close examination of the map on my return home revealed that we had missed walking around the southern end of the garden with its North Lawn and Top Terrace. Reason enough to return for a visit in the spring.
Let’s return to The Square, the opposite sides of which house deep herbaceous borders: the hot border facing the cool border. In the former the heat of single yellow dahlias and coral salvias is tempered by the Agastache’s dusky purple spires and clumps of perennial grasses.
Silvery leaved ‘immortelles’ (Anaphalis yedoensis) line the paths of the latter, their spherical white flowerheads mimicking the shape of the Moon Gate which punctuates the cool border. Our exceptionally dry summer had rendered the usually pallid tones of Miss Willmott’s Ghost (Eryngium giganteum) somewhat golden. Like its hot counterpart across the way, this border includes perennial grasses.
The Moon Gate leads into the Italian Garden, a narrow rectangle containing waist high clipped box compartments containing generously planted urns and classical statues. The tinkling sound of a fountain led us towards the Pond at the far end of the Italian Garden, where largely contrasting leaf shapes such as Tetrapanax and a graceful bamboo are given an injection of zinging deep pink Phlox.
The Italian GardenThe PondPhlox opposite the Pond
The Crescent Lawn is a gracefully curving expanse of grass lined with shrubs and specimen conifers in multiple shades of green. A strange monument stands sentinel at the peaky end of the crescent: the Tower.
This is perhaps the largest of the ‘follies’ or ‘ruins’ made by the garden’s last private owners, Roderick and Joy Cameron, in the 1970s. Steps lead up to a viewpoint from which the contrasting colours and shapes of the tree and shrub planting around the Crescent Lawn and the lawned area called The Sweep can be seen.
Alongside the Tower is a curving border of vivid yellow Rudbeckia backed by dark leaved single yellow dahlias.
From here the woodland paths are narrow and inviting, the shade of the towering trees lowering the temperature of the hot day by a noticeable several degrees. The Hydrangea Glade is a magical space of large, mainly white flowered specimens, gleaming in sunlight filtering between the tall trees nearby. With the southern boundary of the garden to our left we walked towards the circular Temple, from which the route wends back, slightly unexpectedly, to the rear of the Pond.
I was especially keen to see the salvias in the Gravel Garden, knowing that the garden’s curator, William Dyson, cultivates numerous hybrids in the onsite nursery.
Salvias have become something of an obsession with me in recent years. Their resilience, in most cases, to drought and their ability to attract bumblebees and other pollinators, is matched by their intriguingly formed flowers and colours ranging from reds though purples to intense blues, dark and light. Needless to say I bought two salvias to add to my collection: a pale yellow flowering cultivar, Salvia Lemon Light and S. Pink Mulberry. The latter has two-tone pink flowers. I’ve planted it beside the pond here but shall pot it up and protect it over winter as the label states that ‘hardiness is untested’, this variety having been bred in Australia.
The plant sales area
I’ve already mentioned the need to return to Great Comp in the spring to see the area we missed, and the guidebook mentions a large collection of magnolias. Let’s hope the day of that visit is equally satisfactory. And it goes without saying that I’ll be bringing at least one more Dyson salvia home with me.
In our busy lives, with so much information being flung at us all the time, anything that helps us to remember useful facts without immediately resorting to Dr Google is valuable. For example, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour spells out the five lines of the treble clef. And I have a friend who can recite the whole of the rhyme reciting the royal monarchs starting Willy, Willy, Harry, Ste, Harry, Dick, John, Harry three, One, two, three Neds, Richard two….
The botanical world is not immune from mnemonics of this kind. Ed, a volunteer colleague at NT Osterley House and Garden, recently taught me this rhyme:
Sedges have edges, rushes are round, grasses have knees that bend to the ground.
Sure enough, sedges have triangular stems and a mature grass stem is jointed with a series of nodes along its length.
During our Friday volunteer stints we chat a great deal about plants and try our best to name what we’re weeding out or trimming back. Coincidentally on the same day that I learnt the rhyme, Jasper, assistant gardener, showed us a quick method of identifying a couple of shrubs and trees when they are not in flower. He demonstrated that dogwoods (Cornus) have ‘elasticated’ leaves. If you tear the leaf in half across the way, you can gently stretch the central rib so that the two halves of the leaf remain connected by the stretched rib. And he pointed out that cherry leaves have nectaries at the place where the leaf stalk joins the branch. Sure enough, when I got home I checked my Snow Goose cherry tree and there they were: little nodes at the base of every leaf. Intrigued as to their purpose, I found this theory on the website of the Oxford University Herbarium:
At the base of the blade of a cherry leaf there are two extrafloral nectaries, which are thought to protect the plant’s leaves from damage by herbivorous insects. The nectaries attract ants by producing small quantities of sugar-rich nectar, which appears to encourage additional patrolling by ants. If the ants encounter any caterpillars they aggressively defend the leaf, even carrying the offending animal back to their nests.
I can’t help considering the irony of the caterpillars I’m so keen to attract to the garden being prey to marauding ants. No ant activity on the tree to report to date!
Cherry leaves and nectaries
Whilst writing the notes for a recent talk I gave about planting wildflowers in the garden to attract butterflies and moths, the mint family came up several times. I was reminded that a shortcut to identifying members of this large plant family, which are also called the dead-nettles (Lamiaceae), is that they have square stems. Just a light touch of the thumb and forefinger around the stem reveals the stem’s angled sides. By the way, red dead-nettle, water mint, betony and selfheal are all well-behaved wildflowers to introduce into the garden. The first two are caterpillar food plants for several species of moth, and the flowers of the last two are rich in nectar for butterflies and other pollinators.
Mint moth on Water mint
Another gardening friend of mine distinguishes beech and hornbeam by noting that hornbeam leaves have toothed edges and beech leaves have wavy edges. When I visited Kathy Brown’s Stevington Manor Garden near Bedford yesterday, I asked Kathy if she had any quick routes to plant identification. She opened up a whole new dimension to the topic by introducing the element of light: how it plays upon a leaf or indeed the whole plant. For example, hornbeam leaves are matte and beech leaves shiny. And pointing towards tall grasses in a nearby border she showed me that light reflects off the graceful Miscanthus making it shimmer, whilst the nearby Calamagrostis overdam absorbs the sunlight and appears more solid and blocky.
I referred to the mint family earlier, one member of which is lavender. I can’t mention to the visit to Kathy Brown’s Garden without praising her fabulous edible flower cakes, not least the lavender and lemon drizzle cake. The lavender is harvested from the borders in front of the topiary jury scene in the Formal Garden. The 4.5 acre garden beside the meadows of the Great Ouse is a joy, with ‘rooms’ inspired not only by historic gardens but also great works of art. The ‘Art Gardens’ include two purple beech and Berberis lined chambers evoking Mark Rothko’s Seagram Murals. With not a drop of water in sight, Kathy and her husband Simon have recreated Claude Monet’s Water Lilies using grasses, Echinacea and Geranium Rozanne to emulate the muted shades of gold, white and violet in the paintings. There is great deal more to this garden than this and I strongly recommend a visit there this summer: details of opening times are on the website, linked above.
Rothko inspired plantingKathy Brown leading the tour with Jessica in towLooking from the fountain towards the gazebo
Do you have quick, non-digital ways to identify plants? I’d love to hear about them. As I write this it’s 28°C in the shade, so I shall sign off for now and retreat to a cool spot to ponder the endless variations in form, texture, colour we find in plants.
How an apparently impossible subject on the north west coast of Scotland was made to produce good trees, shrubs, fruit and flowers
Title of a lecture delivered by Osgood Mackenzie in 1908
I don’t make a habit of peering over garden walls, but the wall was partly demolished, the house abandoned, and I’d glimpsed what looked like a large cultivated shrub amidst a wilderness of weeds. It was festooned with waxy scarlet flowers or fruit, I couldn’t tell which, shaped like teardrops suspended on long slender stems. This was in Kinsale in West Cork, about 25 years ago, and I was on holiday with my parents. We were just taking an evening stroll after supper and collectively fell in love with this plant and determined to find out what it was. This was long before plant identifier apps and it took a little while, on returning from the trip, to locate the mystery plant in the RHS Gardeners’ Encyclopedia of Plants & Flowers. I forget where, but I tracked down the plant and bought it for my mother’s birthday that year. It grew in their tiny courtyard garden in Petersfield for many years until the house was sold in 2013.
Crinodendron hookerianum
And the name of the shrub which so caught my imagination? Crinodendron hookerianum or Chile lantern tree. It is named for William Jackson Hooker*, who was appointed the first full-time director of Kew Gardens in 1841, and studied many plants from Chile. I believe that ‘crinodendron’ means lily tree. A specimen grows in a side border of the woodland garden at Kew near the boundary wall with Kew Road and always reminds me of my mother and that warm evening in Ireland.
I was thrilled last week to find a superb specimen of C. hookerianum growing by the front door of the garden lodge, which was to be our home for three nights while we explored Inverewe gardens in the north west of Scotland. This superb National Trust for Scotland garden’s south-facing location on Loch Ewe means it benefits, like the gardens of south west Ireland, from the warming influence of of the Gulf Stream. In the 1860s, the maker of the garden, Osgood Mackenzie, planted a shelter belt of Scots pines around the peninsula on which Inverewe stands, to maximise the unique climate in his garden to grow species which wouldn’t be expected to survive, let alone thrive, in a place on the same latitude as Hudson’s Bay. The garden lodge shrub was so high and wide it almost hid the front door of the house.
During the two days I was at Inverewe I tried to walk as many of the paths through the wooded areas of the peninsula on which the garden is located as I could, admiring the fabulous collection of plants favouring the peaty, acidic soil. Amongst the Rhododendrons and Azaleas, I found several towering Crinodendrons, some at least four metres high. On the last evening, I walked down to an exquisite little cove, Camas Glas, to see the sun setting over Lough Ewe, and as I walked back came across an exquisite pink flowered cultivar, C. hookerianum Ada Hoffman. My mother died 11 years ago last week and it seemed very fitting that my visit to a garden which I know she would have loved discovering should be bookended by this plant which she took such pleasure in.
Reading more on my return home from the garden, I find it is not a coincidence that Inverewe and Chile lie on the west coasts of their respective land masses. As I explain later in this post, there is there some similarity in climate between the north west coast of Scotland and the temperate regions of Chile. Even during my short visit to Inverewe I spotted several other plants hailing from Chile. I should mention here that almost every plant I encountered was clearly labelled with a Kew style black label citing its botanical name and region of origin.
These are some of the other Chilean plants I found during my two day exploration of the plant lover’s paradise that is Inverewe:
Senecio candicans: Known in the horticultural trade as Angel Wings, S. candicans is often sold for summer bedding as it makes a striking statement plant in a container, its velvety pearl-grey leaves a foil for cerise pink pelargoniums or burgundy coloured dahlias. But at Inverewe itspreads several feet across a gritty bed in the Rock Garden. The terraced Rock Garden is partly constructed from stone salvaged from the grand mansion built by Osgood Mackenzie’s mother Mary in the 1860s, which burnt down in 1914, to be replaced in the 1920s by the art deco style Inverewe House built by Mackenzie’s daughter Mairi and her second husband Ronald Harwood. The low-key but very evocative interpretation installed in the ground floor rooms by the National Trust for Scotland brings the house and Mairi’s lifestyle vividly alive.
Araucaria araucana: more commonly called the monkey puzzle tree. This uniquely formed coniferous tree has of course become a fairly common sight in suburban front gardens. At Inverewe young specimens have been planted on the cliff edges below the High Viewpoint overlooking Loch Ewe, their distinctive spiky limbs visible in the centre of this image. I’m always intrigued by the story of its ‘collection’ by naval doctor Archibald Menzies who accompanied George Vancouver on the voyage to map the west coast of the Americas (1790 – 1795). Invited to supper by a local dignitary who served a dessert made from the tree’s pine-nuts, Menzies is said to have popped a few seeds into his pocket which he sowed on the return voyage to London, delivering the germinated plants to Kew Gardens.
Vancouveria hexandra
Vancouver’s name appears in the name of another plant I saw in Inverewe’s damp woodland areas: Vancouveria hexandra or duckfoot.
Jovellana violaceae
Jovellana violaceae, is native to Chile, its dainty mauve round bell-shaped flowers earning it the common name violet teacup flower. I haven’t come across this before and saw it growing in several places across the garden, where it spreads over rocks in sunny clearings in the woodland areas. A low-growing shrub, I read that it is vulnerable to below zero temperatures, and would need protection if grown in gardens without Inverewe’s benign climate.
Embrothrium coccineum or Chilean Firetree. Reading about the native habitat of this spectacular shrub is a fascinating geography lesson. It is endemic to a narrow strip of land along the coasts of Chile and Argentina called the Valdivian temperate rain forest, whose climate is influenced by the prevailing winds, the ‘westerlies’, which carry warm, equatorial waters and winds to the western coasts of South America. The flower heads of this evergreen shrub consist of tubular scarlet petals narrowing to slender ‘stems’ held together in a loose clusters. The specimen I came across was several metres high.
Ourisia macrophylla
I also happened upon another plant connected to William Jackson Hooker: Ourisia macrophylla, the mountain foxglove. A woodland under-storey plant, it was described by Hooker in 1843, having been collected on Mt Egmont in New Zealand and the specimen brought to Kew. An evergreen perennial which favours shade and moist peaty soil, it was growing amongst tree roots lining a path leading to the jetty at the tip of the Inverewe Garden peninsula.
A random fact I picked up when researching this post, is that Sir William Jackson Hooker rented a house called Brick Farm in Kew, renaming it West Hall. Feeling an urge to peer over a garden wall again, on Sunday afternoon I wandered down what is now very much a suburban street to see what, if anything, remains of the house where Hooker and his family lived, a few minutes walk from Kew Green and the gardens he curated. And there it stands, a few metres from the South Circular Road, a whitewashed double-fronted house behind a very high wall almost entirely surrounded by mature trees and shrubs. How many of them date from Hooker’s time, I don’t know, and the high wall prevented my seeing if they included a Crinodendron. But I wouldn’t have made a detour to find one of the oldest houses in Kew had it not been for the magical garden at Inverewe.
For a fan of container gardening like myself, Whichford Pottery near Shipston-on-Stour is heaven, especially in April and May. Not only can you see a multitude of tulips planted into magnificent terracotta planters, but you can watch the pots being made by master craftsmen and women. When I went a week ago, there were relatively few visitors, perhaps because the Straw Kitchen cafe isn’t open on Tuesdays, and it was a joy to be able to potter (excuse the pun) around and explore. The staff throughout the operation are very welcoming and everyone clearly loves the place and the products made there.
The first floor workshop, where the potters create their hand thrown wares on foot operated wheels, was softly lit by sunlight streaming through windows thrown open to the north Cotswolds countryside. The throwers were incredibly generous with their time, patiently answering our questions, all the while carrying on making pots which they stacked on a wooden plank alongside their work stations. We learned that one of the first jobs each day is to weigh out the individual lumps of clay needed for the morning’s work. We watched as the clay mixed onsite was thrown onto the wheel and worked up into a pot of the desired form, to a height matching that of a long curved twig placed at the side of the wheel. The thrower skilfully shaped the rim of each pot, trimming off any excess clay and throwing it out of the window onto a pile to be returned to the clay mixing area.
The throwing studio
Shelving laden with the kind of tools that have been used in throwing pots for centuries line the walls of the workshop, and you could almost imagine you had stepped back in time, were it not for the wonderfully bluesy playlist. Van Morrison’s vocals increased in volume as we approached the area where Adam Keeling, son of the pottery founders Jim and Dominique Keeling, was making large vessels about 1.5 metres high. After making the base and an additional cylindrical section, he was joined briefly by a colleague to lift the cylinder onto the base. The two sections were then bonded together with clay and the entire vessel further worked on the wheel. A blow torch was used on these large pieces to partially dry out the pot before they are moved downstairs to the kiln.
As if the pot throwing operation wasn’t enthralling enough, we walked through to the area where the pots are decorated. A friendly trio of women worked around a long worktable, very generously answering our queries. We watched as a mould was pressed against the surface of a pot and removed to reveal an intricate design of a charging horse and spear carrying rider, which was then expertly ‘fettled’ to sharpen the outline of the design. One of the decorators showed us the stamp with which she ‘signs’ her work, a small moth. She said that during half term week her children came to the pottery and had a lovely time looking for her pieces in the courtyard display area beside the shop. Another decorator was applying the distinctive basket design onto a large pot, using long ribbons of clay which are extruded using a hand cranked mechanism on the nearby wall.
The decorating teamdecorative moulds
At the entrance to the workroom, a whiteboard lists the workload for the day, as well as some of the clients for whom Whichford makes specially commissioned pieces. Burberry featured, explaining the horse and rider motif. As we admired the stacks of drying pots awaiting firing in the ground floor kilns, another very kind member of staff showed us both sides of the pots designed by Monty Don for his garden for dogs at this month’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show: retriever Ned with his forepaws on a large beachball on one side and his paw print on the other.
Head gardener Mark was wheeling a massive pot of tulips from one courtyard to the next when he stopped for a chat. He buys thousands of tulip bulbs each September, sourced from the Dutch grower who supplies the bulbs for the pottery’s annual bulb bonanza. With the help of an Excel spreadsheet, he groups the bulbs into colour, time of flowering, height and so on, before embarking on several weeks of planting. The exuberant volume of flowers in each pot is achieved by planting the bulbs in three layers, which prevents them touching and minimises the risk of any infection spreading from bulb to bulb. The bulbs all find their own level and grow to a uniform height. Spent bulbs from this year’s pots are planted into the meadowed areas around the site. Many of the pots are interplanted with wallflowers, and Mark chooses cultivars which will continue to flower well into the summer to maintain a colourful display.
Over the years I’ve collected four handsome Whichford pots, two featuring Shakespearian quotations on the rim, and they are treasured possessions. I don’t have room for another large pot, and instead settled for an elegant ‘long Tom’ design, with Chelsea Flower Show ‘printed’ around the base, beneath a ‘roulette’, a band of decoration applied using ‘slip’, a diluted clay in a pale greyish shade. Each ‘roulette’ is hand carved onto a wooden roller. We had watched as one of the throwers applied a similar design to his pots before removing them from the wheel.
It felt a real privilege to watch makers at the top of their game creating pots which fulfil William Morris’s maxim
Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
Had the great exponent of the Arts and Crafts movement visited Whichford Pottery, I am sure he would have added ‘garden’ to this expression of his design philosophy.
7 May 2025 Kew, Surrey
21 May 2025: At Chelsea Flower Show yesterday, I saw the wonderful pots made at Whichford for the ‘dog garden’ created by Monty Don and Jamie Butterworth. So exciting to have seen them in their pre-fired form three short weeks ago!
