East Lambrook Manor

East Lambrook Manor is the garden and home of Margery Fish, writer and plantswoman.   This garden is described as the quintessential English cottage garden.

 sumac? seeds, astrantia, gladiolus, color, artemisia, bronze fennel M2, mint?, yellow iris, silver and gold, 

East Lambrook Manor Gardens

The Home of the English Cottage Garden

In preparation for leading a small group around the great gardens of the Cotswold area I'm reading many books on our specific destinations. This week it's East Lambrook Manor House. Although I think it technically is not in the Cotswolds area, it is a must see for us, this is the Home of a the English Cottage Garden.

What is a Cottage Garden? Merely a small residence with some food and flowers planted around the yard? After reading 'The Cottage Garden - Margery Fish at East Lambrook Manor' by Susan Chivers & Suzanne Woloszynska, I would like to share some of my findings, thoughts and feelings about cottage gardening.

Cottagers started out very poor working the land and builder their homes. Naturally they started with useful plants that produced food, herbs and extending into flowering shrubs for their color and scent among other reasons. As their lives improved the cottagers began to collect those rare oddities they found in nature around them. "plants like double primroses and unusual violets. In this way, his garden became a sanctuary for mutants that would have otherwise disappeared. " For Mrs Fish, the preservation of the cottage varieties and selections was utmost important.

The cottagers in the 16th century became the main repository of plants as the monastic gardens began to fade. Well into the 18th century, the cottager were collecting and protecting selections of flowering plants. In the 18th century when the Landscape Gardening became all the rage, the cottagers took the lead in conserving many plants otherwise lost when the large formal estates were transformed into Landscapes. Finally I think the apogee of the Cottage Garden happen in the Edwardian era in the form of an Arts & Crafts Garden. This is when the Cottage Garden took center stage, allowed into the formal part of the garden. The great herbaceous borders created by Gertrude Jekyll and encouraged by William Robinson's writing, the Arts & Crafts Garden owed much to the conservation of the cottager.



Map of East Lambook

William Robinson, The Father of Natural Gardens

    William Robinson was an Irishman born into the Victorian garden age of colorful exotic bedding and mock Italianate gardens. In his early 20's, he was appointed head of the Natives Plants section at Regent's Park. Here his exposure to the native and 'wild' plants of the English countryside heavily influenced his opposition to the current Victorian garden aesthetics. He spent many years traveling around England and visiting the continent, inspiring him to advocate for a change in English garden style. He was a prolific writer, starting the magazine, The Garden, and writing the book, The Wild Garden. His writing promoted the ideas that natural gardening was less costly to maintain with less replanting of tender annuals. He also advocated more closely planted beds, less showy beauty, and the naturalization of exotic perennials and annuals planted in a manner in which they will thrive. He believed in the natural succession of plants to provide year round interest and beauty in the garden. He was more an advocate for the natural garden style than an actual garden designer. His work was not a restoration effort of native ecosystems, but rather the creation of something more than that, something picturesque which looked natural.

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.