Inheritance part II

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children

Anon

A tangible legacy left to me by my father was a few books on gardening. They provide a reference for the way in which instructional books, books on gardening in particular, were written and understood over the last ninety years.

Knowing George's love of gardening, his family gave him books that reflected his interests. The Wild Garden by Lys de Bray (1978) and beautifully illustrated by the author talks about gardening in Dorset, not far from where he lived in later life. The classic book by Beth Chatto, Garden Notebook (1988), outlines her personal thoughts about gardening in Essex, very close to where George farmed and gardened. The Garden Visitor's Companion by Louisa Jones (2009) reflects his hobby of visiting open gardens well into old age.

The books that give me more pleasure, however, are ones George read in the middle of the last century when he was learning his craft.

Garden Foes (below)

From his father, he inherited The Complete Amateur Gardener by H H Thomas (1924) 'Assisted by experts in Special Subjects With Coloured Frontispiece, 96 Full-page Illustrations from Photographs and Numerous Diagrams in the Text'. The text is written in a no-nonsense, declamatory style that leaves no room for doubt as to how deep to sow beans or which are the 'best' roses. Between some of the pages, there is a very yellowed newspaper article on 'The Greenhouse Cinerarias'. A slim volume of 14 pages published by the Ministry of agriculture and Fisheries in 1930, Some Beneficial Insects, has two most exquisitely painted illustrations, a surprisingly aesthetic touch for a Government pamphlet. Garden Foes by T W Sanders FLS (no date) has a few pages of adverts at the back. You could buy XL Pumps (the best lift and force pumps for the garden) that would pump 280 galls per hour, for £3 4s & 6d.

My favourite 'publication' is a cardboard contraption that is a kind of gardener's ready-reckoner. Two discs twist against each other, the outer showing the names of thirty four vegetables, the inner has windows which give the growing conditions (quality of soil, sowing distance and season, when to harvest etc) appropriate for the vegetable chosen. 

The back reads 'shewing fertilisers suitable for helping growth'. George was an organic farmer, so I am rather puzzled as to why he had a tool describing fertiliser distribution; perhaps he only used the front side of the disc.

Is there anyone out there who knows about this publication? The front of the disc says: In Your Garden, gardening at a glance, recommended by Mr C H Middleton, British Patent No 347324.

Inheritance

Here's a few flowers, but 'bout midnight, more;

The herbs that have on them cold dew o' the night

Are strewings fittest for graves.

You were as flowers, now wither'd; even so

These herblets shall, which we upon you strew.

The ground that gave them first has them again;

Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain. 

From Cymbeline by Shakespeare

Where do we get our inspirations from, our love of the things we are passionate about? From many places, of course, but I think I can trace my love of landscape and gardening directly to my father. He has recently died (at the age of 91), and this gives me a focus for my thoughts about him.

George, as he was known, was an organic farmer, who set up a small farm in the immediate post-war years. Among his crops was the peony Sarah Bernhardt and I remember long hours spent in the barn preparing them for transport to Covent Garden. They flower in June/July, and a big spray adorned his coffin.

Between the farm and the house where my sister Hilary and I grew up, there was a large garden with many beautiful and unusual trees and shrubs, a domestic orchard and a vegetable patch. How the Parrotia persica or the Escallonia looked this year compared with last, what to do about the ants in the lawn, wondering at the way a visiting flock of redwings and fieldfares could strip the remaining fruit from the pear tree - could all be the subject of household conversation.

Along with the farm produce, such as eggs, apples, pears and sweetcorn, the harvest from the vegetable patch was vital to provide food for our table. Hilary and I would be sent off to pick whatever was in season. Much of the summer produce like peas, carrots and soft fruit got eaten well before we got back to the house. We complained bitterly when we were asked to dig root vegetables in the winter. I haven't lost that feeling of pleasure associated with growing, followed immediately by eating, that comes from raising your own food, and I shall be sure to reserve some veg patches in my gardens

 

Visiting Open Gardens - part II

Cerne Abbas Open Gardens Weekend

If we make our goal to live a life of compassion and unconditional love,
then the world will indeed become a garden
where all kinds of flowers can bloom and grow.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

 
On the third weekend in June, many of our village's rich selection of gardens are open to the public. This has become a popular event in the calendar and attracts lots of visitors from around and about.

As newcomers to the village, Piers and I looked forward to the Open Gardens weekend with anticipation. A concentrated four hours took us round every one of the twenty seven, and each was a delight in its own way. The most amazing thing was the variety. The largest is probably half an acre, the smallest is pocket-handkerchief sized. Some have the River Cerne, (quite a small stream, in fact), flowing through, some have views of the surrounding hills, some partner the village vernacular and ecclesiastical architecture. Some are especially wildlife-friendly and one tiny garden gives onto a paddock where a three-week-old Shetland pony foal lives with a few older ponies.

Styles vary from the almost wild to the immaculately tamed, from those that have grown with their owners and previous owners, to those which are professionally designed, with artfully placed designer shrubs and scented plants in all the right places. Two gardens particularly appealed to me - a small patch of riverside wild-flower meadow and a cottage garden that seems to have been there for ever; but every garden had something to say.















All the gardeners are there to welcome the visitor and are keen to enthuse and answer questions. As one garden owner said: 'considering there are only about eight hundred people in the village, there's a high density of serious gardeners here'. Another said: 'opening the garden seems to come with the territory'. Every gardener has a passion for gardening and wants the fruits of their efforts to be offered to a wide public.

Visiting Open Gardens

Kind hearts are the gardens,

Kind thoughts are the roots,

Kind words are the blossoms,

Kind deeds are the fruits.
19th-century rhyme used in primary schools

 
A few weekends ago we visited Butts Cottage, Plush, one of the local gardens open for the National Garden Scheme. It is peaceful place, surrounded by mature trees, includes a stream and is set in the folded chalk hills of West Dorset. Could there be a better way to spend a dreamy couple of hours than in a beautiful garden where someone else has done all the hard work of bringing it to a peak of perfection?
















As we wander between the lush plantings, I wonder what leads a garden-lover to open their garden to the public? First, a generosity of spirit and a braveness to have one's handiwork scrutinized and criticized.  If one possesses an object of desire, should one not put it to some good use for others who don't have it?  Apart from giving pleasure to many people, the revenue raised by opening these gardens goes to worthwhile charities. But there must also be a great deal of pressure to present the very best.

 














The eaves-dropped remarks of fellow visitors are interesting. Most seem to be gardeners themselves and may be looking for inspiration for their own gardens. Some like to identify plants they haven't come across (the owner usually is very knowledgeable and has the RHS Gardeners' Encyclopedia of Plants and Flowers by Christopher Brickell on hand). Some visitors say how much better they have seen a particular plant growing elsewhere!  Some head straight for the plant stall; I gravitate there as well, and brought back Polygonum bistorta (a type of knotweed) and kale plants this time. I prefer to buy plants locally grown in conditions I understand.

Given a change for the better in the weather, this promises to be a good summer for garden visiting.

Change of Plan

Change in all things is sweet

Aristotle

This was my plan:

buy Dorset cottage for restoration in December, move in in early summer. Meanwhile, develop the garden to be 'ready' at the same time as the cottage. 

Stepping stones to aid harvesting

Things haven't quite worked out like that! The garden is very small and runs just behind the house, so, as the restoration takes its time, it is really more of a building site than a garden, with the original concrete paving still in place, providing a hard-standing for piles of flints, scaffolding and dump bags of sand. We need a plan B for this season, delaying the sculpting of the garden and subsequent planting till the autumn.

I have created a little nursery bed for the precious plants brought from the previous garden. The idea of the continuity of taking plants that we have come to love, and also plants given by friends, is very appealing. Discoveries have been squirreled away into terracotta pots, herbs have been bought from the local garden shop and market, and the plant swap in the village yielded some new treasures. I have also sown Primula auricula and a few annuals for colour. Now that what I thought was guelder rose (Viburnum opulus) is in full flower, I can see that it is in fact Viburnum plicatum, its white lace-cap flowers lighting up the darkest part of the garden.

The mystery shrub revealed

The ground has been dug, but at the moment is pregnantly blank. I remember reading an article in the RHS magazine about quick-maturing vegetables and this is the very place to put them. They will occupy the tilled earth, now warm, and we shall enjoy that very satisfying thing that is plucking veg from the garden and putting it straight into the cooking pot.

We must cultivate our garden

We must cultivate our garden

Voltaire 
 

One of the joys of a new garden is discovering its secrets as the seasons roll. I had thought that having removed the scruffier shrubs from the garden in Dorset there would be nothing much left. Each time I venture there, though, I find that something new has pushed its way up into the light.

There will soon be sturdy trellis to support a new generation of climbers

 

During the spring there have been a few daffodils and a couple of narcissi. Some Scilla with bright blue starry faces, almost too fragile to survive, were scattered about. I collected them up and put them in a little drift by the sunny wall. Small clumps of primroses and some cyclamen clung to corners near bits of stone, and Spanish bluebells still hold their foliage green and upright. Some wispy green blades sent up a flower of pale blue Iris sibirica; I shall keep my eye on it and, when the time is right, divide it, to give it a new lease of life. A little bundle of twigs has revealed itself to be a hardy fuchsia, and the leaves of Japanese anemone, and garden loosestrife give away the identity of the plants. Ferns have unfurled and I find them a place at the base of the walls. A herbaceous clematis has sent up foot-high shoots, some of which have been chewed by a hungry animal – probably a pigeon – and soon the flower buds will show their colours and I shall know its variety. Whenever I identify something, I put a little wooden label by it and write its name in a notebook for future reference.

Delicate new leaves and flowers on the Acer

The climbers on the walls are in full leaf and the hydrangea petiolaris has emerging flowers. Now I can see which wood is dead and which is alive, but bringing the roses, vine and honeysuckle back to healthy freedom will take a couple of seasons, I think. Some spindly branches put out leaves tipped in white and pink and now there are little clusters of white flowers: this is Actinidia kolomikta, a relative of the kiwi fruit. The Clematis cirrhosa is showing signs of new growth and seems to like its new home.

There is an unwelcome discovery as well. A short, fat slug hides under a stone and I can tell just by looking at it that it has a big appetite. A walled garden is heaven for slugs, but to my mind they are not heavenly creatures. I don't have bad feelings towards them in general, they just aren't welcome in my garden. Time for another dose of nematodes!

Two gardens, two personalities
No two gardens are the same. No two days are the same in one garden.

Hugh Johnson

This should really be two gardens, four personalities. It's not just the personalities of the gardens, but also of its owners, or perhaps six if you count the character of both countries.

Many of us have more than one garden in our lives and we experience a kind of creative schizophrenia in which we long for one when we are in the other. We imagine what is emerging from the soil of the other, what needs doing.

French colour has a certain 'Je ne sais quoi...'

 I think one of my favourite garden writers is Elsa Bakalar, an English woman who wrote about creating her garden in Massachusets in the second half of the twentieth century (whom Piers knew all his life, up until the time she died). She said – of having two gardens in one's life: 'As many of us know, “getting away from it all” can turn into “taking it all with you”'.

Finding inspiration in Margery Fish's garden

Selfishly and for a simple life I would like to do all the deciding myself. But Piers also lives with our gardens and he needs to be considered and to contribute. In reality he has better ideas than me on some aspects of gardening, and if we can pool our ideas, we shall get a more creative outcome.

The nationality of the gardens is also a deciding point. In a way the style of the English garden decides itself. To have anything other than a cottage garden to go with a Tudor cottage, that has been a working place for centuries, would seem perverse. In France, we have a different building to consider, the natural light and flora can't be denied. But here there is endless scope to look at things afresh and create something unique.