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

Angielskie Ogrody

With much excitement I found an English garden tour from Poland that utilized my photo of East Lambrook Garden, one of the 14 gardens we're going to visit in July, IN ENGLAND. We have 3 spots still available.



Check out another garden tour offer. This one is from a Polish perspective. We're offering a California professional gardener's perspective. I'm proud to say the author gave me credit for my photo of the garden at East Lambrook Manor House.

Kasia Bellingham is leading a 'Pride and Prejudice' themed tour in England.

Angielski Ogrody Tour & Blog

Our picks have some overlap. We presenting 300 years of English Gardens as our theme.

Both tours include East lambrook, Hampton Court, Tintinhull, Iford and Hestercombe.

We have two spots remaining on our tour July 11-18th 2014. Click here for the itinerary.

Streets of San Francisco - Late Winter 2014

Our beloved and healthy London Plane street trees on Market Street.* Some landscape architect consultate in the Bay Area thinks these do well here and keep planting them. Most recent additions along Valencia Street. *Sarcastic smart a**

Stourhead Landscape Gardens

This is the oldest garden that you will see with Mike and I on our summer tour. It is in the natural landscape style ala Capability Brown. This garden was designed by Henry Hoare in 1740. The house was in the Hoare family for 300 years. It has since been turned over to the national trust.



We will visit this garden on our tour of English gardens this summer. I will try to post regularly to FB about the places that we are planning on going as a way to seduce you to join us on this tour. Please write to me for details. The tour is July 11-18. We have designed the tour with a historical perspective. We will show you over 300 years of gardens. From Stourhead to the most current trends at the Hampton Court Flower Show.

Please think about joining us. It's going to be amazing. You deserve a vacation.

Smooches,
Frank

Mike & Frank's Quintessential English Garden Tour

This is it. Frank and I have been planning this trip for 2 years. We're hosting a small group to a journey through the development of the renown English Garden. That fantastic place where nature and art collide.

We will visit 15 gardens including: Hampton Court Flower and Garden Show, Rodmarton Manor, Hidcote Manor, Kiftsgate, Rousham, East Lambrook Manor, Tintinhull, Stourhead, Hestercombe, Westbury Court, Iford Manor, The Courts, Broughton Grange and Great Fosters.

Drought in California and the State of my nursery.

January 2014 was spectacularly warm and sunny. But it's an official Drought and that has taken some of the pleasure of working in perfect 70 degree weather. The soil is not heavy or mucky from winter rain. I just read that parts of England had record high rainfall for January. Whereas we had a record low rainfall. January normally our wettest month was bone dry. I think England got all our water. I hear these tweets from England suggesting lots of mud and water. We're at the complete opposite end of dread here. Some rural communities in California have less than 100 days supply of water.



Sedum 'Angelina', Euphorbia characias wulfenii, Centaurea gymnocarpa 'Velvet Centaurea'

Bonsai Maple Pruning Technique

Last weekend saw the annual ritual of root pruning my bonsai. I've been growing this large maple for more than 10 years now. I found it in an indoor nursery on Polk street. Five years ago I started cultivating this tree on a slab of red Arizona sandstone.



This is the from the rock's prespective. I remove the entire section of last year's root growth, about half an inch layer from the bottom.

The pruning of the limbs is primarily nipping every branch back to only two healthy buds. Some major branches up to the diameter of a pencil were removed to stunt growth or to open to growth below.

Potrero Hill Garden

This garden on the northern slope of Potrero Hill is dominated by a neighbor's large green japanese maple and an avocado tree. This is mostly a shade garden with a few patch of full sun.

Large balls of Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle' with Japanese Forest Grass (Hakonechloa macra) in the foreground.


Forest grass with Campanula.



Winter brown color of the Japanese Forest Grass.

Cloches for the Hydrangeas are clearly seen in this winter photograph.



Brugsmania

Garden Structures - Gates

Next up is garden gates, those structures that limit access and make areas more enticing. The solid oak gate is traditional in England. Old oak weathers well.

Lichen covered Oak at the vegetable garden of RHS Rosemoor.



Numerous gates at the extensive gardens of East Ruston Old Vicarage.

Garden Structures - Pathways

Garden Pathways - My first in a series talking about garden elements. This post is about those features that guide us through the garden. This is what I saw in England. Next up will be garden: Furniture, Plant Supports, Walls, Doors.



Gravel circle stepping stones at Chelsea Garden Show 2012.

Point Reyes National Seashore & Tomales Bay State Park, California

Point Reyes, Drakes Bay & Drakes Estero along the thin horizon.

Color Scheme

Here a few of my color schemes for 2013. Most are inspirations from the many plantings I saw in England.

Rosa 'Burgundy Iceburb' with oregano.

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.

Dearborn Community Garden - An Urban Vegetable Plot

I have shared this 12' x 8' plot with my friend and colleague for a couple of seasons now. We sowed a few interesting new plants from our trip to England. We mostly grow edibles but have a few purely ornamental plants we are testing for our other gardens.

Vicksburg Terraced Dry Garden

Gertrude Jekyll and her garden at Hestercombe was my inspiration for this garden design. I picked mostly Mediterranean plants and laid them out in drifts. Silver plants, seed heads, yellow & purple, I wanted lots of hot colors along with the cool lavenders and blues.