Rows of tall Delphinium ‘Strawberry Fair’ in Polly Nicholson's Wiltshire garden
07.07.2023 - 08:27 / finegardening.com
Jorge Rodriguez shared today’s photos, which offer a beautiful look at the garden Jorge designed for the Chelsea Flower Show. Chelsea is one of the premier garden shows in the world, with countless designers creating gardens to showcase different design ideas.
The heat wave of 2022 presented huge issues in the maintenance of traditional British gardens. With the looming presence of climate change, the high cost of irrigation installation and water along with hose pipe bans, British gardeners will have to reconsider plant selection. Ultimately, the purpose of our garden is to demonstrate a climate-change-resistant planting scheme and how this can be incorporated into an attractive, functional urban garden.
Our garden is designed to maximize the limited space of typical urban gardens, whilst adapting to our changing climate through the utilization of drought-tolerant plants. An emphasis on sustainability is carried through the garden with the materials utilized in construction being of natural, bio-composite provenance.
Upon entry to the garden, you are greeted by a sentinel freestanding Albizia julibrissin (Zones 5–9) tree planted into a large clay planter. The filigree canopy provided by the silk tree produces a sense of enclosed sanctuary, and the loose feathery texture of the foliage contrasts strongly with the lines prominent throughout the rest of the garden.
Against the back wall is a series of three large, staggered containers. The angularity of these containers is broken by a combination of soft-textured foliage and trailing plants cascading over the edges.
Closer look at the clay planter
An inbuilt seating area invites a would-be visitor to enter, and a mirror placed beside it reflects the planting in the bed
Rows of tall Delphinium ‘Strawberry Fair’ in Polly Nicholson's Wiltshire garden
The Amazons of the summer border, hollyhocks tower on 1.5 to 2.5-metre stems from June to August. Their funnel-shaped blooms, which open in shades of ivory, lemon, pink, red, and plum, can often be seen peeping over a garden wall, basking in the sun. Bumblebees love to sup the nectar, and, as they do, become covered in a dusting of the flowers’ plentiful creamy pollen.
Garden designer Alison Jenkins in her Somerset smallholding
Lavender fields are impressive, not just because of how incredible they look, but because of the feeling of calm and peace they create that is so hard to find elsewhere. That relaxing property is just one of the many reasons why we love to grow this plant at home, but lavender is also wonderful when used ornamentally. Couple this with its soothing effect and charming aroma, and you start to scratch the surface of its many, many uses.
The Elizabethan Tower where Vita had her study. Credit: Shutterstock
FEELING AT A LOSS FOR SOMETHING TO DO, I ADDED TO MY SCHEDULE. A weekly radio podcast, to be specific, with my neighbors down the road apiece at a local NPR affiliate, WHDD, in Sharon, Connecticut.
100 Great Plants: From the English newspaper The Telegraph, a list of 100 great garden plants. (An aside: Why don’t our newspapers have garden sections like this one?)The Ambergate Lists: From Ambergate Gardens, Mike and Jean Heger’s nursery in Minnesota, a series of great lists covering topics from plants for deep shade to plants that don’t require frequent division.Vinnie Simeone’s Lists: Vinnie manages historic Planting Fields Arboretum on Long Island, my old stomping grounds, and has taught me many things. His personal website includes links up top to lists as desired as deer-resistant plants and plants for
I’ve been asked various times this year, in interviews about my own new life, whether I’d have other contributors to this blog, which represents my first act of personal (not corporate) creative expression in far too many years.“Absolutely not,” I’d say without a second’s reflection. “This is about my voice.”How someone who five months ago was a total stranger could have me eating those words is not so easy to explain.Andre and I still have never met, with only blog comments, Skype sessions and emails forming the concrete connection, but this goes deeper:Fr
For just $40, plus $10 for lunch, visitors can enjoy Nate and Berta Atwater’s modernist masterpiece, before heading to John Gwynne and Mikel Folcarelli’s rarity-stuffed hidden garden, Sakonnet. Amazing Opus Nursery, the place of master grower Ed Bowen, will be on hand all day for a plant sale that’s every bit as special as the palette of Dixter.For those within a day’s drive, this is a garden party not to be missed. Get glimpses of all the gardens (as well as of Dixter) and the event details in this pdf about the event. Best of all: Each dollar raised will be matched by the UK’s “lottery board” so that Great Dixter may carry on in its colorful, inspirational style.(Anthony Chammond photo of pots at Dixter from Flickr.)
You may ask: Now why would I want to go to a talk about a historic and grand National Trust property situated in another climate altogether, a place long on fantastic walls and fountains, connecting outdoor “hallways,” magnificent topiaries, and hedges of box, hornbeam and yew? (As is probably the case in your garden, I have not one of those things here.)On a visit maybe 20 years ago, Hidcote was the initial place I saw such formal lines contrasted against a “jungle style of planting.” Even though each garden area is clearly enclosed and its shape well-defined, as in the famed Red Border up top, the plants in individual beds within each area were invited to just have at it, to spill out into the paths here and there, and to spill into one another in a riot of color, texture and intimate connection that’s both restrained and unrestrained all at once. Delightful.And then, it was this that made me perk up at news of the upcoming lecture:On Garden Conservancy Open Days at my
It’s not that hard, despite the sometimes-tenacious, gooey green stuff. And most important: There is no other feature of the garden that brings more joy—or sustains more wildlife, from birds to dragonflies, salamanders to frogs–than a pool or pond. My essential spring water-garden care tips:1.Reduce debris (organic matter such as leaves on the bottom of the pool), which adds nutrients to the water as it decays and can thereby “feed” algae growth. I always do this just as soon as the ice on the pool allows—ty
What special innovation in technique, exceptional plants, or flair with color or design did each of those 40 hand down to the rest of us? Matthew Biggs’s book is loaded with their garden wisdoms, and also with the charming tale of each luminary and how they got to the garden in the first place.Matthew, who trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is the author of various earlier books including “The Complete Book of Vegetables,” and is a regular presenter on BBC Radio 4’s “Gardene