Spanning 22 miles between the towns of Torquay and Brixham, the English Riviera in South Devon takes in secluded coves and sandy beaches, fishing villages with cobbled streets, and dramatic red sandstone cliffs and off-shore stacks. The mild climate here makes for some terrific gardens, too.
For centuries South Devon’s relative distance from major cities, combined with its isolated spots, enabled smugglers who relied on tunnels, caves and complicit pub landlords, to transport their loot. These days it’s ‘grockles’, the local term for holidaymakers, that you are most likely to see on the beaches here, especially around fashionable Salcombe.
This characterful region also inspired two of the great English mystery writers. Dame Agatha Christie was born and spent most of her life in the seaside town of Torquay. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle set his fourth Sherlock Holmes novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles, on exposed Dartmoor.
Gardeners will do well to stop at Dartington Hall, near quirky Totnes, known for its independent shops.
Down the coast, on the other side of the river from pretty Dartmouth, Coleton Fishacre is an RHS-accredited garden. Now in the care of the National Trust, it belonged to the D’Oyly Carte family, which made its fortune staging staging Gilbert and Sullivan operas. The garden is home to tender plants from New Zealand and the Mediterranean which thrive in this mild part of England.
Closer to Plymouth, visit exquisite Mothecombe Gardens, where exuberant planting fills the Lutyens-designed walled garden.
Greenway House near Brigham was Agatha Christie’s family holiday home from 1938. The atmospheric Georgian house is fascinating, while the garden overlooking the River Dart contains glasshouses, a fernery and a
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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.
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.
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
I’M THINKING PRESIDENTIALLY at the moment, specifically about Thomas Jefferson, and how he sowed the seeds of fruitful harvests. Peggy Cornett, Historic Gardener and Curator of Plants at Jefferson’s former home, Monticello, taught me about the nation’s third president as a gardener, and about what he grew and how–like a perennial kale, historic lettuces and Native American beans, “strawberry spinach” and more.