This time of year, we’re supposed to be looking forward to new shoots bursting through the soil, to spring, bringing hope and warmth and better times. Yet this morning, while looking for photographs of something else, I found images of my garden from 2018 which reminded me of garden losses I thought I had dealt…
Category: Features
A Butterfly Flaps its Wings: Ellen Willmott and the Japanese Ambassador…
I’ve always been intrigued by a fleeting mention in Ellen Willmott’s previous biography: an invitation to lay out a garden for the Emperor of Japan. She turned it down, we’re told, because she had ‘too much to do in Europe’. Author Audrey le Lièvre admits there is no date and no evidence for the story…
Temperate House, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
When Decimus Burton’s extraordinary Palm House opened at Kew in 1844, the world gasped. Burton’s star, already in the ascendant, had reached dizzying heights. Glory was all very nice, but now he faced a challenge. How on earth could he top innovation on that scale? Kew’s magnificent Temperate House, twice the size of the Palm…
It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
…at Warley Place, anyway. Most people love Warley for its drifts of daffodils. After all, Daffs mean Prizes – Miss Willmott won RHS medals a-go-go for hers. She even boobytrapped the best ones and carried a revolver in her handbag against bulb thieves. There must still be a few prize specimens in there, it’s a…
Painshill, Pride of Surrey
Painshill Park Landscape Garden in Cobham, Surrey, is an 18th Century fantasy of gothic follies, Arcadian vistas, woodland dells and mysterious grottoes, yet by the mid-20th Century it had crumbled to invisibility. Estate Manager Mark Ebdon, who began work 33 years ago as a trainee, still remembers his first day. “It was just woodland,” he…
Zen and the Art of Skip Salvage – A Practical Guide
Following on from my previous post about skip-diving, I thought I’d bang on a bit more about my worst habit. There is much to be gained from nosing round First World Human Detritus – and it’s not all tangible loot. Skip-tenets hold true for Life. To master the art of Skip-Diving is to master yourself.* *Not really, but…
Meet the Plot Pt II
Welcome to the sizzling second part of the estate tour around Plot 3… Last time I covered the actual plot itself; this time it’s the turn of the steep bank adjacent to it, upon which my shed and sundry utilities live. Basically there’s a long, grassy sward that runs down the side of the site. It’s…
Jolly Good Biscuits!
The other day I picked up an old gardening magazine, My Garden, from 1947. It’s a curious little beast, about A4 size in today’s measurements and, given that Britain was still heavily rationed, an austere read in comparison to the glossies we read now. Mainly text, there are a few illustrations, some black and white photographs…
Event Apples
When I first took the plot I’m on now, I was keen to get a row of cordon fruit trees in as soon as possible. I took up an offer by Pomona Fruits for a mini orchard, and, to give it its due, the six trees have grown strongly and all, apart from the Victoria…
Les Hortillonages
Sebastian Faulks’s trench warfare epic “Birdsong” begins gently enough. Sketching a world soon to be lost in the carnage of war, Faulks chooses an extraordinary subculture within a sleepy Picardie town-centre as a cipher for French petite-ville normality. Amiens’ Hortillonnages – or floating gardens, are, even at the time Birdsong is set, wonders to be…
Backs to the Land, Girls!
1939. The world is on the brink. Mr Hitler hasn’t actually invaded anything yet, but it’s not looking good in Poland. The men in grey suits are worried. How will old Blighty survive if the lads have to fight? They look at each other warily. There is one option. It’s not ideal; the chaps…
The Event Gardener 