English Garden Tour - 2012

 The one that started it all. 

Chelsea Flower Show - May 23, 2012

East Ruston Old Vicarage Gardens

East Ruston Old Vicarage was the last garden we saw before heading back to London for our flight home. It took 7 hours and two tea room visits to get through this massive garden. Although it is smaller than Wisley or Stourhead, it was entirely planted with hedge alleys of intersecting views and more rooms than any garden we saw. One of our favorite gardens and a great way to wrap up the tour.

Beth Chatto's Garden

Beth's garden is known for it's dry and wet section. She describes it as "poor gravel soil and boggy hollows." The English have funny words. She took the two difficult soil situations and ran with it. I am partial to the dry garden. It had more Mediterranean plants than any other garden we saw in England. The only place I recall seeing an Eucalyptus. Since a major reason for this tour was to find plants to work with back here in San Francisco, I was able to identify with this garden. This is where I found Parahebe perfoliata or Derwentia perfoliata. Now I notice it at the San Francisco Botanical Gardens at Strybling and will start to use Parahebe in my gardens.

We have only a couple days left on our English Garden Tour. We finally made it to the east coast and its a stormy day. We arrived early and chatted with some Dutch ladies in the parking lot. They came over this morning on a ferry from the continent. The Dutch are world renown plant propagators and collectors but they lack the land to make the extensive gardens that you find in England. They are partners in a lucrative trade.

Blenheim Palace

Located in a small town of Woodstock, Oxfordshire, the grounds of the palace dwarf the town it is so intimately attached. This is one of Capability Brown's design. He was a 18th Century designer that help create the Landspace Movement in England by replacing formal gardens with landscape design. As opposed to Naturist or Formal, this is to look like a painted landscape. Brown transported and plant 300 year old Oaks here. The one below may be one of those he planted in the 1780's. This tree may be over 600 years old.

Waterperry

We arrived on a rainy morning. In fact it has rained for the last few gardens but today was more steady rain than just grey cloud cover. This too is a big garden with lots of long beds and a knot garden room. We were wet and did a quick lap and end up back for cake and coffee with all the other blue hairs.

Hidcote Manor Gardens

It's connected history and period wise with Sissinghurst. She knew him. He was an American ex-parriot, we suspect he was queer. His only garden design was Hidcote, his mother's place.

Kiftsgate Court Gardens

Just as we arrive, the rain starts. Fortunately it only lasted for 30 minutes or so. Then we headed out to a freshly washed garden. This garden is directly next door to Hidcote and is well worth the visit. I had seen this rectangular pool in Gardens Illustrated magazine this past year. The lily leaves above would rain into the fountain. We arrived in this room during a shower and didn't notice the leaves were a fountain until it stopped raining.

Special Plants Nursery & Garden

This was one of the side trips that turned out well for us. The other being the discovery of East Lambrook Manor House. I'll show you that in a few days. Frank & I decided to stop by The Special Plants Nursery on our way to Prince Charles Highgrove House. We stumbled upon a garden tour and talk about hardy geraniums, starting in 5 minutes. Wow. A room full of old ladies and us two. Inspired to find some of the geranium hybrids as they'll look great in San Francisco gardens.

The weather was gray; great for photos but it was also raining. So we spend an hour drinking coffee, eating cake, talking plants and US & UK topics. Too wet for Highgrove House plus we didn't have tickets. We were advised it is usually sold out. We must order tickets next visit.

Hestercombe Gardens - England

This garden was built in three separate gardening eras. The first is Georgian, then Victorian and the third is Edwardian. The last one is a Gertrude Jekyll design.



Lutyens was the architect for the building pictured below and all the rock work around the sunken garden. Gertrude soften all the hard lines and sharp rocks with an amazing simple palette that works so well. It rivals Sissinghurst in grandeur and historical significance.

Lost Gardens of Heligan

We arrived late in the day; just an hour to see a big garden. We focused on the kitchen garden, cold frames and greenhouses. This is some beautiful farmland. Lots of sheep.

Italian villa fountain with yellow Flag in the corners.

RHS Rosemoor Garden

There is much to see here and we've come to a routine when we visit the larger English Gardens. We start with a stroll out into the wooded area to see the Georgian landscapes. Then through the many sub gardens as we head our way back to the more formal gardens as we close in on the house. Starting in "Nature" and progressing toward civilization in completely respectful way.

The Royal Horticulture Society's garden at Rosemoor was our first RHS experience. I took home the impression that 'it's all about the plants' garden. None of the buildings were highlighted but played a supporting role framing the garden into it's rural/sub-urban setting. Plants were labeled well. After 10 days in the English countryside, we were still on the edge of London's sphere of influence. Rural is different over there and doesn't match my California term for rural.

Eden Project - England

We spent the night in a youth hostel in the Dartmoor National Park in Cornwall. Eden Project is a reuse of a spent quarry. I'm not sure what they mined here but it was a big terraced hole that's been reclaimed over that last decade.

East Lambrook Manor Garden

We stumbled upon this garden on our way to visit Avon Bulb Nursery. We found out about Avon at The Chelsea Garden Show and decided to make a stop even though we knew we couldn't take anything back to California. At a little past closing time, we stopped at East Lambrook and met the owner. He was excited to give us a personal tour of the garden created by Margery Fish and billed as the "Home of English Cottage Garden". That's a grand title.

It is a gem of a garden and our most exciting discovery. Unlike every English garden I've seen on this trip(10), this garden is about the plant groups and color combinations. There are no vista, horizon or borrowed landscape here. That requires too many resources and this garden was created in a much humbler time. There were no men to work nor did anyone have excess money. You are now your own gardener.

Stourhead Landscape Gardens

This garden is arguably the best examples of the 18th century garden style known as English Landscape Garden. This is made of a hugh man-made lake, temples, picturesque views all created from scratch.

The dead oak is makes this view so amazing. That's a centuries old English oak decomposing in a dignified manner. So beautiful.