Pursuits - Gardening
Gardeners of my vintage (the NHS was not yet invented and our present King was but a twinkle in his mother’s eye) grew up without the plethora of today’s department store-like garden centres.
We were nourished instead by numerous small-scale nurseries, many of them one-man or -woman bands, trading mainly in just a few favoured species.
Garden designers didn’t come in the celebrity ranks that skip across the land today, and garden tools were – mostly – hand-powered.
Suburban front gardens blossomed with a handful of trusty stalwarts – berberis, forsythia, tea roses and, regrettably, blowsy pink mophead hydrangeas and gross dahlias and chrysanthemums destined for the village-fête show bench.
There was no Plant Finder to help us track down uncommon plants. Rarities were often acquired via swaps with fellow enthusiasts when they could be found. Or patiently grown from seed.
The National Gardens Scheme (‘opening gardens of quality, character and interest to the public for charity’) had been going for a couple of decades (since 1927). But, in a nation with a pitifully – or thankfully – carless population, most destinations were difficult or impossible to reach, or a schlep too far from home.
Bright and wonderful lights did, however, shine. Hidcote Manor in the Cotswolds, Sissinghurst Castle in Kent and Exbury in Hampshire – all, almost exclusively, fuelled by deep pockets.
And splendid gardens also flourished on a smaller, more domestic scale. One such was East Lambrook Manor, made popular by its châtelaine’s string of highly readable books written in the 1950s.
Like the Silver Queen herself – Mrs Desmond Underwood (born Pamela Richenda Cubitt Montgomery-Cuninghame, author of Grey and Silver Plants, a collector’s item from 1976) – East Lambrook’s Margery Fish (1892-1969) knew how to put a small diversity of plants together for harmonious effect.
I first went to East Lambrook Manor in the early 1980s, house-hunting in an area richly endowed with a vernacular architecture built from England’s best honey-coloured stone.
Tucked away behind the house was Mrs F’s silver garden, a modest-size patch brimming with aromatic plants, grown for a muted palette, that glowed on the wettest of Somerset days.
It was a seminal visit. Wherever I’ve lived since, I’ve attempted such a masterpiece of seeming simplicity.
Grey- and silver-leafed plants thrive on poor, well-drained soil. So, here in south-west Wales (probably no damper than Somerset, whose highest hills we can glimpse across the Bristol Channel from nearby elevated land), an appropriate site was essential.
My partner has successfully created one. By clearing a sunny bank of unbridled crocosmia and dreary dwarf conifers (the previous owners’ pride and joy), he has refreshed tired soil and enclosed it with a dry-stone wall that lets the water through.
Shopping ensued. These few remodelled square yards quickly sparkled with ever- grey artemisias, lavender, Santolina, lamb’s ears (Stachys byzantina), curry plants (Helichrysum italicum), some white dianthus (for perfume), Senecio (now (Brachyglottis, dammit) and, supremely, Convolvulus cneorum, fortuitously showing none of its bindweed relative’s rampant, strangulating behaviour.
To intensify the moonlight magic of these hardy, year-round silvery, white- and pale yellow-flowered gems, we have scattered among them living sapphires – rosemary, blue geraniums, Ajuga and the mat-forming catmint Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’.
Minimal maintenance is guaranteed. The plants’ close- growing habits stifle weeds, and the clipping of such spreaders brings delight, releasing, as it does, pungent foliar fragrances.
And now that spring-flowering bulbs are available, we’re poking yet more jewels into the silvery swathes: muscari, crocus, miniature yellow tulips…
By the way, Mrs F’s We Made a Garden is still in print. Treat yourself.
David’s Instagram account is @hortusjournal
The Oldie September 2024
