Tag Archives: garden styles

Succession planning and gardening values

Somewhat unrelated flower photos from this week to make the text pretty – captions at the end

“A garden dies with its owner.” Those words were attributed to the late Christopher Lloyd of Great Dixter fame and repeated to us by one who worked with him. At the time, the renowned gardener Lloyd was being asked about succession plans. In the event, Dixter was transferred to a private trust and has continued to change and develop under the control of Lloyd’s former head gardener, Fergus Garrett, who has earned his own place in the annals of UK garden history. That is a comparatively rare example of the successful transfer of a garden after the death of its originator.

We visited Great Dixter in 2009 and planned to return on the 2020 trip we had to cancel when Covid struck.

The big difference at Great Dixter is that Fergus Garrett was not tasked with the requirement that he preserve the garden as it was in the time of Christopher Lloyd, frozen in time, as it were. It appears he was given a free hand to continue to develop and change the garden as he saw appropriate. Too often, when a garden transfers ownership or management, with it comes the expectation that it will be preserved as the originator created it and that rarely, if ever works. Time moves on, trees grow, micro-climates change and so do techniques and expectations.

Great Dixter again

I realised recently that when I visit gardens, I want to see elements of dynamic change, of current energies, dreams and visions, not just the preservation of the past, no matter how famous or significant that past was. As Mark and I age, I often think how lucky Mark’s dad Felix was to have Mark at his gardening side for the last 17 years of his life. He died knowing that his garden was in safe hands, going forward, not just being maintained or, worse, going back. That is a rare situation. Most of us just have to accept that our gardens may well die with us and hope that at least the good long-term trees may survive. As I say, relatively cheerfully, we will be dead and we won’t know. Christopher Lloyd was just being realistic.

The Lloyd quote came from Australian garden designer, writer, educator and presenter, Michael McCoy who brought a tour through here last week. Michael first visited here this time last year as he was scouting for this tour and we spent a remarkable couple of hours going around our garden in the rain. I have never met anybody before who was so utterly in tune with how we garden here – with our dreams and aspirations, who knew and admired the same international gardens, trends and people who have inspired us, who has walked such a similar gardening path across the decades – yet we had never met before. We don’t accept many tour bookings these days but it was on the strength of that shared ground that I agreed to Michael bringing his masterclass tour here.

A tour is not the time for extended conversations between the tour leader and the garden host because it is focused on making the experience as good as possible for the tour participants but we did have a brief conversation – again – about garden edgings. Regular readers will recognise this topic from earlier writings. I am not a fan and I am busy removing unnecessary edgings, particularly in the Avenue Garden. Michael McCoy and I agree on this topic. As far as I am concerned, there are only a few reasons for garden edgings – be they in a row of identical plants or a more permanent material. One practical reason is to retain mulch on the garden bed when the birds will otherwise scratch and distribute it onto adjacent areas; another is to retain the garden when there is a variation in level with the path either higher or lower than the surrounding planted areas; the third reason is to stop people walking on planted areas but this no longer applies now that we no longer open to the public. I have been reviewing all our garden edgings and removing those that are not necessary. When we cut a sharp line at the edge of a lawn, do we need another sharp line on the edge of the garden? No, we do not.

The fourth reason for edgings is entirely aesthetic and values-based. It is to make a garden look tidy. I laughed when, immediately after the tour left, I came inside and my news feed showed me this: Gardening: Hedges and edges add structure – and hide weeds. It is paywalled, I am  sorry, but just the heading, the accompanying photo and the bio note on the author will give you the flavour of the piece. I read the whole article and it is not that there is anything wrong in what the author has written. It is just that he is espousing the widespread use of both hedging and particularly edging plants to give definition to a garden and to add formality. His views on good gardening are very different to where our thinking is. Many gardeners favour this approach and will happily edge their gardens in compact buxus (B. koreana is a better option than the more common suffruticosa or sempervirens in these days of buxus blight), euonymus, liriope or dwarf carex.

It made me realise again just how far we have moved from seeing gardens as orderly, tidy affairs that sit on the landscape. Instead, we want to garden in a way that sits harmoniously within the wider environment, working with nature rather than imposing rigid control. Diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks, as the saying goes. There are other ways to garden.

Not exactly straightjacketed into tidy orderliness down by the stream where the Higo iris are blooming

It was most affirming to meet somebody with considerable international experience who shares our gardening values. If you want to see more of Michael McCoy’s writings, photographs and videos on related topics, you will find him by his name on both Facebook and Instagram or his own site, https://thegardenist.com.au/

Not a lion in the meadow, a Ralph in the meadow

We have had Ralph for over two years now and he has met a reasonable number of visitors and several tours but I have never seen him perform as he did with this tour. He was sure he was the star in front of an appreciative audience. “Look at me! See how high I can jump! I can almost fly!” as he launched himself in the air after a passing bumblebee. “Follow me. This way please.” “Look over here!” “And here!” “Stand aside, dog coming through.” This continued all the way around the garden, where he must have covered ten times the distance of the humans. I suspect he was rewarded at afternoon tea with tastings of cake and biscuits – thereby breaking our iron rule of never feeding him tidbits when we are eating – but that is the way of tour groups. He was exhausted when they left and zonked out to sleep. Life has been very quiet for him in the days since.

The Higo iris are flowering in the park and truly, it is one of my favourite times of year in that area. Every year they make my heart sing in delight.

Purple penstemons, euphorbia and bright alstromeria in the borders. I haven’t had much success with penstemons in the past but now think I should try more.

It seems that the rabbit family who live beneath the swimming pool deck, who used to chew the lilac blue campanula to the ground, have gone and the next generations haven’t realised they are edible. One of the more compact alstromerias behind – name unknown.

Sisyrinchium striatum, I think, with white Iris sibirica. It is a pretty iris but very soft in the petal so it is inclined to weather mark more than other Siberian iris we grow.

Even with the best laid plans, volunteers can arrive and look as if they belong. I have NO recollection of planting the purple Higo iris by the the Phlomis russeliana and I am sure I never planted the euphorbia. The colour contrasts are startling but I like that in the summer borders.

Garden styles

It is a long time since I published a piece on the folly of allowing garden openers to write their own descriptions. Even then, discretion won out and I only published it on a UK gardening site I was contributing to at the time. This explains why I couldn’t find it on my own site when I went looking for it. A not-unrelated situation arose this week when we were asked to describe the style of our garden in a single word. Apparently, this helps garden visitors.

As a seasoned garden visitor myself, I am as wary of garden owners getting to declare their own ‘style’ as I am of getting them to write their own descriptions. But just in case you need some assistance in interpreting garden style, I offer the following explanations. Some, but not all of these ‘styles’ were offered as a suggestion to help us in defining our own garden category.

Japanese – three rocks, some raked gravel and a recently planted dwarf red maple.

English style, as seen through NZ eyes

English – buxus hedging, garden rooms, a Japanese cherry tree and pretty flowers because in NZ, the English garden style begins and ends with the Arts and Crafts movement seen by so many at Sissinghurst and Hidcote.

Italianate
The real McCoy – Villa d’Este in Tivoli

Italian – more likely ‘Italianate’, similar to the connection between a ‘dinette’ and a banqueting hall, or a ‘kitchenette’ and a caterer’s kitchen. Terracotta pots, a clipped bay tree and hard landscaping carried out in concrete and ponga* logs or tanalised timber on account of a dearth of skilled Italian stonemasons here.

This really was a designer garden, designed by Dan Pearson

Designer – in theory a garden created by a name designer and executed with attention to detail and a big budget but more likely to be a recent garden designed and planted by the owner, a younger woman in her 30s or early 40s who is a magazine subscriber and who bought some graph paper, large paving slabs and black mondo grass.

Tropical – a naive gardener who does not realise that nobody has a tropical garden in Taranaki owing to us not having anything like a tropical climate. More likely to be three palms, either hardy or half hardy, and ten bromeliads. 

East Lambrook Manor set the standard for cottage gardens

Cottage – If you are expecting something like Margery Fish’s iconic cottage garden at East Lambrook Manor, you may be disappointed. More likely to be packets of wild flower seeds scattered on bare soil, struggling to germinate, let alone flower. And a clipped camellia and maybe some common purple foxgloves.

Plantsman’s – this is a difficult one. To those in the know about open gardens, it is often used as code for a garden lacking in design, prettiness or charm that may appeal to those who take a magnifying glass with them when they go garden visiting in order to view the close-up of an obscure native orchid in bloom. Occasionally, this is a descriptor adopted by an ambitious gardener with over 30 different plants in their garden who is unaware that in the rarefied atmosphere of upper-level horticulture and botany, the term ‘plantsperson’ is an honour bestowed by peers and colleagues, not self-awarded.

Courtyard – 80% paved or decked with a very expensive outdoor dining suite, sofa with all weather cushions, lighting, a very (very) small water feature and a narrow border or two on the periphery planted with clivias and a Kentia palm.

A splendid crop of broad beans

Vegetable – featuring a splendid broad bean crop in spring, some small tomato plants and a worm farm.

Sustainable vegetable – as above but mulched in cardboard or old woollen carpet.

Insect hotels are very on trend.

Potager – another vegetable garden but this time with rainbow chard and fancy lettuces corseted in clipped buxus hedging and featuring a fancy insect hotel.

Welford Park. Photo credit Chris Wood via Wiki Commons

Woodland – you may be envisaging an open scene of deciduous trees, perhaps white barked birches – with a sea of snowdrops beneath. More likely to be over-planted trees which need thinning and limbing up, underplanted with a few hostas and clivias that are struggling with root competition and too much shade.

Coastal – windy. Trees growing at a 45° angle, ice plants, gazanias, some wind burnt succulents and a defoliated copper beech.

A friend who has extensive experience in plant sales contributed the ‘Low Maintenance Garden’ – griselinia hedges, yuccas and Agave attenuata for structural focus, with Coprosma ‘Hawera’ groundcover, all surrounded by black stained bark chips.

The idea of defining our garden by a single style defeated me entirely.

*Ponga – NZ tree fern trunks which are widely available, relatively long lasting and usually inexpensive or even free.

Fashion vs style

I was shocked. Really shocked. There I was in the supermarket and I picked up a gardening magazine I had no intention of buying. But as I skimmed it, I came across an article that told us to rip out all our grasses. The ‘Oudolf prairies’ and the entire New Perennials movement were out. Shrubberies are back.

The writer qualified this statement by saying that she was just joking but the damage was done. There are my new borders just coming into their own with their heavy dependence on grasses and perennials, much influenced by what we have seen in the UK and Europe. And while this whole naturalistic gardening movement has been a major force in Europe and to some extent the USA for over 15 years, it hasn’t really reached New Zealand gardens yet, but is already, allegedly, passé.

It did at least get me thinking on the difference between fashion in gardening and major gardening movements.

Fashion or trends are driven by marketing, as much in gardening as in clothing or décor. And that is all about selling commercial product. If you can convince customers that they need this hot new item to be on trend, that makes money for everyone on the supply chain from producer to retailer. Even better if you can convince them to replace a whole garden in order to be up with the play, at the forefront of fashion.

Gardening movements, styles or genres are different, though it can be hard to tell apart at the time. It takes hindsight to get the bigger picture. Until early last century, ornamental gardening was largely the preserve of the rich and powerful. Ornamental, domestic gardening at the individual level didn’t really take off until after WW1. But we can look back and see several significant gardening movements, or styles.

The idea of garden rooms has its most recent roots at Hidcote and then Sissinghurst. It made design – in this case, the design of a series of linked but separate spaces – applicable to the home gardener. Many people are still working to the garden rooms principles today.

Cottage gardening, as exemplified by Margery Fish at East Lambrook Manor, is a separate gardening movement that remains popular nearly eight decades later. It is very relevant and applicable to a domestic scale of gardening which became popular as the grand estates declined.

I think the classic rose beds probably warrant the status of genre rather than transient fashion, though they have certainly fallen from favour now and look very unsophisticated and barren by today’s standards. Those are the island beds of just roses, hybrid teas mostly, planted with little regard for colour and standing in splendid isolation with good air movement and bereft of underplanting. There are many practical reasons for growing roses in this manner and it is only in more recent times that most of us have decided the aesthetic deficiencies outweigh any practical consideration.

Treating the garden as an extension of the indoor living space (all that indoor-outdoor flow) is often attributed to the English designer, John Brookes in the latter half of the twentieth century. That is here to stay, though taken to ridiculous lengths by OTT Australian luxury design with their outdoor kitchens and living areas.

Crystal ball gazing, I would suggest that the contemporary tropical garden in more northerly areas of this country – the Balinese hotel style, as I have sniffily dubbed it, may turn out to be more movement than transient fashion. It fits the climate, the lifestyle, the aesthetic and the maintenance regime of many gardeners, particularly in Auckland city. Not so good down south, though, so it is quite localised.

Then there are the fashion gardens, more driven by magazines and other media then anything else. Remember the dreaded dwarf conifer gardens with their scoria mulch laid on black plastic?  No. I don’t want to remember them too much, either. The same goes for the short-lived reign of the ghastly minimalist gardens at the start of the new millennium. Three large rocks, a yucca, a sanseveria and some scleranthus surrounded by an ocean of lime chip, fine gravel or – if the budget ran to it – prettier coloured pebbles. Or, horror beyond horror, a mass of tumbled, coloured glass pebbles if you were of a certain demographic. Aqua coloured glass shards were much favoured as I recall. Minimalist gardens may have drawn on the subtle and spare refinement of the traditional Japanese garden but they lacked any cultural context or complexity in their trendy manifestation and died very soon after being born.

While the home production of fruit and vegetables seems destined to continue no matter what, the current craze for *food forests* is, I suggest, more fashion than movement. It won’t be long before people realise that so-called food forests in temperate climates don’t actually produce much food at all – at least nowhere near as much as more utilitarian vegetable gardens, berry enclosures and orchards can provide. You wouldn’t want to be aiming at self-sufficiency with a food forest but you can at least claim to be on trend at the moment.

Which brings me to the ‘Oudolf prairies’ (he has done many things but never prairies) and the current fashion for plantings incorporating a fair swag of grasses. Movement, not fashion, I say. These are but one part of a major swing in gardening style towards a more naturalistic and sustainable approach. It is part of a whole spectrum which takes in meadows, even prairies if you have the right climate, the Sheffield School, environmentally friendly and sustainable gardening as practiced by a large swag of British, European and American designers and leading gardeners. It is soft-edged, should be lower maintenance, sitting comfortably with Nature as opposed to being imposed upon it, sustaining a healthy eco-system and a harmonious balance between the natural world and the aesthetic many humans crave. Enhanced nature, romantic gardening, naturalistic gardening – call it what you will. It is a movement, not a transient fashion because it is underpinned by a philosophy that goes well beyond the marketing of plants and landscaping accoutrements.

I won’t be ripping out my grasses and perennials to replace them with dwarf shrubs from the garden centre. Style trumps transient fashion every time.