Some days I really miss living in a city, but this spring I am grateful to be in the country with so much beauty just outside my door.
England
Sandstorm
Hidcote
We have definitely reached that point in winter when no amount of snowdrops can make up for the irrationally crushing feeling that spring will never come. The incessant rain, which started in September and never really stopped, and dark, sunless days have left me craving color and bloom. So let’s take a little trip back to summer…
In late June last year my husband and I drove up to Gloucestershire to stay with my friend Simon and his fiancé Teresa. Not only do they live in one of my favorite British villages, they are also lucky enough to be just a few minute’s drive from some world-class gardens. My husband used his National Trust connections to get us into one of them, Hidcote, before it opened to the public.
Hidcote is similar to Sissinghurst in its fame—and the hordes of visitors it attracts—so it was a special treat to see it empty and quiet as I imagine it would have been when it was when originally created by Lawrence Johnston in 1910. Also like Sissinghurst, Hidcote comprises a series of ‘garden rooms’ that interconnect various planting areas. This was my second visit to the garden—the first was in 2015 while on an early spring study tour with my class from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. I admit I liked the garden better this time around, probably because in late June it was fuller and more floriferous, with roses really stealing the show.
There’s a lot to take in at Hidcote, and so many compelling views and plant combinations. Some that particularly caught my eye are below.
In the half light
This past weekend my husband and I flew to Scotland for a quick trip to see friends and family. It was the first time we’d been back in the country since moving to southeast England more than two and a half years ago. When I stepped off the plane in Edinburgh I was hit with the strongest feeling of ‘home’ I have ever felt. It makes no sense at all—I didn’t grow up in Edinburgh and have no family of my own there. I hate grey and rainy weather and don’t like being cold. But for some inexplicable reason Scotland got under my skin, and it’s there to stay.
The only sun we saw on our entire trip was a peek under the clouds while the plane was landing. After a great night out with friends Friday, listening to live Scottish folk music in a small Edinburgh pub, we headed toward Perthshire in the waning afternoon light. We crossed the stunning new Queensferry Bridge, which we’d watched being built but hadn’t yet driven, beneath flashing road signs warning of heavy rains.
It was dark when we arrived at our country hotel, where we met my husband’s family for a party. Inside was perfection: cozy fires, good food, lovely folks, and a delightful selection of single malts behind the bar. Outside the rain came down and the air smelled sweet and nurturing.
The next morning, after a full Scottish with black pudding and tattie scones, we drove off through the Perthshire hills following empty winding roads along lochs and peat-black burns. A mizzle scrim hung in the air and the almost-solstice light had an underwater, half-lit feel.
We stopped in a few little towns we know, soaking in the Scottish friendliness of the people we met in shops and pubs. We couldn’t drink enough of the water, which tasted pure and nourishing and such a change from what comes out of the tap in southeast England. Back on the road we pulled over frequently, stumbling into bracken and moss-filled woods, remembering all the plants we first learned to call by Latin name.
The never-quite-light day felt like a dream. It ended Sunday night with a late flight back to England and an after-midnight crash into bed in Sussex. The next morning I wondered if it had even been real. Then I opened my refrigerator to souvenirs: a mountain of our favorite black pudding and a pile of tattie scones, ready to freeze for when we need a taste of home.
Orchid hunting, part 3: Park Gate Down
We left Yocklett’s Bank and the Fly Orchids and cruised through the countryside, which was fluffy and white with cow parsley and new lambs. Our destination, Park Gate Down, lay deep in the North Downs of Kent, accessed by single-track roads so narrow our small car passed through with centimeters to spare.
Park Gate Down is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (or ‘TripleSI’ as I learned to call them at the Botanics). It is mostly chalk grassland and is famous among botanists for being home to 14 British native orchid species. We parked the car and walked into a beautiful valley, hazy in the spring sunshine.
We’d come to Park Gate Down seeking the Monkey Orchid (Ochis simia). This site is one of only three in the U.K. where this truly rare orchid grows.
As we passed through a series of fields there were lots of cowslips (Primula veris) but no Monkey Orchids to be seen. We did, however, see the lovely native columbine, Aquilegia vulgaris, our first sighting of this plant in the wild. There were a few fellow orchid-spotters about, and we passed a man leaving the valley with a large camera swung over his shoulder. We asked him if he’d had any luck finding Monkeys and he said they were just coming into bloom. He’d found one but it was a real challenge given the size of the site.
As we continued up the valley we did see some orchids, including Fly Orchids, an unopened Butterfly Orchid, below, and lots of Early Purple Orchids which are challenging to differentiate from Monkeys at a glance. We were in a series of three huge fields, and our hopes at locating a flower of just a few centimeters tall amongst the grass and hillocks were growing dim.
And then as we were heading out of the valley I stepped over a tussock of grass and almost landed on our prize: a Monkey Orchid right at my feet! I shouted to my husband who came bounding over, ecstatic. And there it was, this little plant no taller than a cowslip, our first Monkey Orchid.
You can see how the Monkey Orchid gets its name, with its “tail” hanging between its “legs.” It was just starting to come into bloom.
We spent a long time lying on the grass admiring our Monkey and marveling at our luck to have found it in such a huge space. It was truly a thrill of discovery that I can only imagine we’ve shared with centuries of plant hunters throughout time. Of course, the plant hunters of old would have picked or dug up their finds for transport back to their sponsors, but all we wanted to do was tread lightly on the earth and admire.
Our day of orchid hunting in the North Downs was the best day we’ve had living in southeast England and one we will not forget. Next year we look forward to discovering some of the later-flowering orchids and exploring the botany of a new area of the country.
Orchid hunting, part 2: Yockletts Bank
We reluctantly left Denge Wood and drove a few miles to Yockletts Bank. We turned up a lane that was, to me, the most perfect representation of a British woodland in spring. Bear’s garlic, Allium ursinum, carpeted the forest floor. Also known as ramsons, this was the plant we’d enjoyed with nettles a few weeks earlier in a spring tonic soup.
We headed into the woodland and met a nice stand of lady orchids, Orchis purpurea, in a clearing. But what we were after was much more subtle and hard to spot: the fly orchid, Ophrys insectifera.
And find it we did. There’s an orchid in the photo below. Can you spot it? This photo gives you an idea of just how small and challenging these particular orchids can be to see.
Elated with our discovery we continued on through the woods to find these intriguing trees. I dubbed them ‘resurrection ashes’ because new trees had grown vertically from where an old tree had fallen. If there ever is an actual incarnation of immortality, these trees may be it.
Further down the path we noticed a few tell-tale twigs just to the side of the path. We had both read Leif Bersweden’s recent book, The Orchid Hunter, and remembered that people will often use twigs to subtly mark/protect orchids. These twigs were guarding another small population of fly orchids.
We headed out of the wood and back to the car, enjoying the wonderful natural plant combinations growing on the verge. This mix of Allium ursinum; cow parsley, Anthriscus sylvestris, the fern, Asplenium scolopendirum; and the delicate grass, Melica uniflora, was a study in perfect plant combinations. I went to the Chelsea Flower Show a few days later and saw few plant combinations to rival what nature created right here on Yockletts Bank.
Up next, our final stop on our day of orchid hunting, and an excellent stop it was.
Tipping it down
It’s raining, it’s pouring. Finally, and not a moment too soon. I cannot remember the last time I left my house in the morning rain to have it still raining when I returned ten hours later. 2018? And—cherry on top—we just got a few good cracks of lightning and some blessed rolls of thunder. Summer thunder and lightning, so rare in Britain, are two things I really miss from home.
After last summer’s drought, we had a pretty dry winter, a very dry spring, and just last week the whispers of the dreaded hosepipe ban gained volume. The plants—both those I tend and those growing wild—had a drawn-in and dusty look I associate with conservation of their most precious resource. When the plants feel stressed the gardener feels stressed, no two ways about it. No amount of hosepipe watering, an emergency measure at best, can make up for a good long soaking rain like we’ve had today. Tonight, I can physically feel the plants relaxing, stretching and unfurling as their leaves grow turgid again. Now, if they could only pick themselves up from where they’ve fallen face-down in the mud…
I never dreamed when I moved to England that I’d go through two summers in a row anxiously watching the live radar, willing the little green blobs to move over my garden. I suspect this unease is new to many gardeners in Britain, some of whom may have taken rainfall for granted. I come from a place where hot, dry summers are more typical than not, and where browned out grass in August is the norm. So I’ve lived it, but that doesn’t mean I like it, especially now that I live in a country where the high quality of horticulture has traditionally been possible because of naturally copious rain.
Today we’ve gotten a bit of a reprieve, and I’ll turn the central heating back on and pour myself a wee whisky to celebrate. It’s not your typical summer tipple, but as temperatures head back into the 40s tonight (single digits in Celsius), it seems appropriate. Thank goodness for this rain.
A few from Sissinghurst, late spring
I’ll take a short break from orchid hunting to share these photos of Sissinghurst, taken May 26. The garden has definitely tipped into its summer chaos, with so many plants blooming together it is hard to take it all in. I’ve realized little and often is the best way for me to experience Sissinghurst in the high season.
On this visit the stars of the show were the German bearded iris, especially those blooming in a long row in the cutting garden. Sissinghurst has quite a collection of historic cultivars, including many of the Benton irises bred by the painter Sir Cedric Morris. Many of them are subtle, with tea-stained coloring that I find intriguing. Dan Pearson has a few good images here, and I was absolutely inspired by his latest image of his Bentons. If anyone could make a bang-up-to-date planting combining a concrete wall and vintage irises, it would have to be Dan. The Sissinghurst irises, below, are identified on hover if the cultivar is known.
The last of the late-flowering tulips are going over. This is a pretty combination of ‘James Last,’ which I trialled and liked at home this year, and the shorter ‘Blue Parrot.’
The newly replanted purple border is starting to knit together, with Lupin ‘Masterpiece’ stealing the show.
A new planting in the top courtyard is filling in nicely. Lots of good texture here with different leaf forms.
Sissinghurst, start of spring
On the last day of March I crept around Sissinghurst as the sun went down. The garden was just coming online, with structure in the pruned roses and bare tree branches providing a moment of calm before the leaves and flowers fill in to create the voluptuous abundance for which the garden is known. I love Sissinghurst best in spring, before the summer excess creates a visual chaos that I sometimes find hard to process. In spring I can really take my time to notice and appreciate each plant both on its own and in carefully considered combinations.
As always, the beautiful red brick walls make Sissinghurst for me, creating negative spaces around the plants that are sometimes more engaging than the flowers. The architecture is as important as the plantings, and I believe it is their symbiosis that gives the garden its sense of romantic envelopment. The brick of Sissinghurst is like candlelight: in it everyone looks good.
Spring in a British woodland
Spring in Britain has a slow, sweet delicacy that I find so different from spring in Virginia, where I used to live. Spring in Virginia is stunning, with blooming redbuds and dogwood harmonizing with blue mountains and the first green leaves. But despite its beauty, spring never seems to last very long and most years you can feel summer breathing down its neck with a heat that causes the earliest blossoms to prematurely surrender.
Not so in Britain, where spring takes its sweet time, stretching out with weeks of flowers that follow in well-paced succession. The snowdrops kick things off, along with the first few buds of blackthorn. Then come the lesser celandine, dog’s mercury, and wood anemone, right around the time the primroses light up the forest floors. Then cowslips take up the torch from the fading primroses. Lady’s smock, wild garlic, and the dog violet cover the ground while the wild cherries and sloes haze the the fields with white. Ancient pears and apples come online in abandoned orchards. Then bloom bluebells and the first orchids, just before the hawthorns and cow parsley froth the countryside into a white wonderland. The whole process lasts a good few months and is so stunning that when the last of the cow parsley fades I always feel a major let down.
There is an old coppice near the farm where I live in Kent, and I frequently walk through it on my evening rambles. The other week I was stunned to find the entire forest floor carpeted with yellow wild primroses, Primula vulgaris. I had never seen so many in my life, and the effect in the low evening sun was fascinating. Tucked amongst them were dog violets (Viola riviniana), early bluebells, and even a tiny barren strawberry, Potentilla sterilis.
Primroses do particularly well in old coppices and woodlands, which allow light in during spring. This increases the amount of seed produced and also encourages seeds to germinate. But then as the trees leaf out and the canopy closes, it creates a moist and shady environment that woodland plants need to thrive. With the decline in coppicing, there has been a decline in the spread of wild primroses.
I found a secret population of wild early purple orchids (Orchis mascula) last year, and was happy to find that this year they seem to have spread. This is just one clump on a bank full of orchids, which will begin blooming next month.
The first of the bluebells are just starting to bloom. I even found a white bluebell, which, if it is actually a native bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) and not a hybrid or introduced garden-escapee Spanish bluebell (Hyacinthoides hispanica), is rare indeed.
Wood anemone, Anemone nemorosa, flowering along a streambank, surrounded by wild garlic, Allium ursinum. I’ve already enjoyed a spring tonic of wild garden and nettle soup this year.
One of my favorite British wildflowers, lady’s smock or cuckooflower, Cardamine pratensis, growing with the first feathery leaves of cow parsley, Anthriscus sylvestris.
Although I have devoted my life to gardening and had the opportunity to visit some of the finest gardens in the world, it is remarkable to me that the British woodland in spring is about as perfect a garden as one will ever see. Elegant in its simplicity, engaging in how plants naturally find their own “right place,” and long-blooming with perfectly timed succession, it provides a template for what gardens can and should be.
Resting
I am not good at letting myself rest. I never learned the value of stopping, letting down, cutting loose, recovery. Allowing myself to not fill my hours with projects, chores, and self-improvement is something I have been trying to teach myself over the last decade, but it is hard to change ingrained learning and temperament.
I have been fortunate to have partners who recognize the value of rest, and who have encouraged me—usually on the point of burnout—to slow down and just. do. nothing. It is still hard for me, but I try to learn from them.
I am grateful to have had 11 blessed days off work during these darkest weeks of winter, and for these 11 days I’ve not been doing much other than giving myself permission to truly, deeply rest, to recuperate from the challenges of the past year and gather my strength for the next. My husband and I had a quiet holiday—just the two of us—where we ate delicious food and exchanged beautiful gifts. There has been a lot of cuddling, and just being close and loving, filling up the reservoir. The furthest we’ve ventured is to walk the fields around our house, mud-slipping through cornfields and scaring up pheasants. These dark days of winter have an underwater feel. Everything is damp and never fully bright. We creep through the mists, holding hands, recovering.
Dec. 25: Floral advent calendar: Helleborus x hybridus
It’s Christmas day, and the end of our advent journey. I leave you with Helleborus x hybridus, photographed last February in my garden at work. Hellebores are known as the Christmas or Lenten Rose, with the origins of that name based in a story that the plant grew from the tears of a child who had no gift to give baby Jesus at his birth.
I have no idea of the cultivar name of this particular plant, and hellebore breeding can get so confused that cultivars are hard to track. Hellebores also hybridize so much in the garden that there is no telling who their parents were, and many are propagated by seed which introduces natural variation in the offspring. Nameless as it is, this hellebore is a very pretty color with a large bloom.
One of the last jobs I did at work before heading home for Christmas vacation was to cut back the old leaves on the winter-flowering hellebores. Budding shoots are already pushing through the soil, and removing the leaves puts the spotlight on the soon-to-come blooms. It also reduces disease by getting rid of host material. Mice are notorious for nibbling hellebore buds just as they break through the soil, and removing the plants’ leaves exposes their snacking and discourages their feast. Hellebores are one of the greatest joys of the winter garden, and getting them ready for their big show in January and February is one of my favorite jobs.
I hope you have enjoyed getting to know some of the plants that caught my eye this year. It has been nice to write about things that wouldn’t necessarily fit into longer blog posts and share some of my more flower-specific photos. I wish you all Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Dec. 24: Floral advent calendar: Rosa x odorata 'Mutabilis'
I feel I have to sneak one more rose on this list. Rosa x odorata ‘Mutabilis’ is one I discovered in my garden at work, and it is one of my favorite roses. It’s an old China rose from 1860. True to its name, it is a mutable creature in several ways. It starts the season with a few flowers floating above loose, red-stemmed foliage.
Then around the end of May it explodes in a rather lurid mass of hot-pink blooms—not my favorite look if I’m honest. Too over the top for me, but it does pack a punch.
Then after that big flush it settles back down and continues to put out regular blooms until…well, it was still blooming last week when I gave it a winter prune, and it would probably have continued all winter. This is my favorite state, when the blooms are sparser, floating about the plant like butterflies, but the foliage has matured and darkened.
The flowers of ‘Mutabilis’ also change as they progress. Each bud starts out orangey-pink, and then the flowers open to a copper yellow that changes to bright pink and finally “copper crimson,” according to David Austin (who passed away last week). It’s like three roses in one.
Rosa x odorata ‘Mutabilis’ can also be grown as a climber. Here it is in Charlotte Molesworth’s lovely nearby Benenden garden, Balmoral Cottage, in June, scrambling up a bit of topiary.
Dec. 23: Floral advent calendar: Wooden carvings
Some of my favorite flowers this year weren’t even flowers. They were made of wood and displayed on the walls of the Carved Room at Petworth House in West Sussex, where I visited in September. The finest and most detailed carvings were done by famous Dutch sculptor Grinling Gibbons in the early 1690s. Gibbons is widely considered the finest woodcarver in England.
The carvings at Petworth House were done from Tilia (lime) wood, which when they were new would have been white. They would have stood in stark and stunning contrast to their dark oak paneled background. Today centuries of soot, smoke and dirt have made the carvings brown, but it is still possible to appreciate their incredible detail. Horace Walpole said in 1763, "There is no instance of man before Gibbons who gave to wood the loose and airy lightness of flowers".
The National Trust, which currently manages Petworth House, has their hands full with the daunting task of conserving these carvings in the face of centuries of woodworm and fungi. Go see the Gibbons carvings while they’re still so accessible. Like any once-living thing, they won’t be around forever.
More intriguing floral carvings are found in Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire. The entirety of the exquisite building is full of representations of foliage and flowers in stone and wood.
Some of my favorite carvings are found in the choir stalls. I really like these representations of people with plants growing from their mouths and can’t help but wonder at their meaning. I suspect their roots lie in Paganism, like much Christian iconography particularly relating to plants. Little is known about their maker other than they are attributed to William of Lyngwode, a carpenter from Norfolk. There is record of him working on these carvings in 1308. His work is finely detailed and so representative that it’s possible to botanize the carvings and identify plants from their detailed leaves.
Dec. 22: Floral advent calendar: Primula auricula 'Fairy Queen'
Oh, auriculas. They’re a floral wormhole I’ve resisted entering for so long. And it’s not because I don’t love them: I do. So much so that I know once I buy one I will want to start collecting more and with my current lifestyle, and lack of a glasshouse, that doesn’t seem like a good idea.
So nevermind. I will just enjoy them when I see them, such as at the Harrogate Flower Show in April where several auricula nursery stands stood out like sweet shops. Primula auriculas had a moment in the British horticultural spotlight in the late 17 to early 1800s when they were grown by specialist horticulturists known as “florists” who competed against one another to grow the best plants.
Auriculas flowers and leaves are coated in farina, a white coating that may provide protection from the sun or predation. This farina degrades in rain, so as the fashion for auriculas grew so did the way of displaying them to best effect. Enter the auricula theatre, a purpose-built structure to both protect and show off these delicate blooms. Calke Abbey claims the only original (18th century) auricula theatre in the country:
The modern-day auricula theatre lives on at flower shows in the elaborate nursery displays.
Each plant fascinates me, and I would have a hard time choosing a favorite. ‘Fairy Queen,’ above, stood out to me for her unusual coloring, but there are others, such as Primula auricula ‘Grey Cloud’ that I found equally compelling:
Some day I very much look forward to starting my own auricula collection. In the meantime, I will just admire them when I can, ogling from afar.
Dec. 18: Floral advent calendar: Antirrhinum majus 'Chantilly Bronze'
How’s this for a dose of serious summer color? Growing at Great Dixter this June, Antirrhinum majus ‘Chantilly Bronze’ really impressed me with its stature, vigor, and full-on vibrancy. I love the way the blooms of this snapdragon form a mouthwatering color gradient that conjures tangerines, melon and papaya. The phrase tutti-fruitti comes to mind.
‘Chantilly Bronze’ might not be the easiest flower to work into a border design in most gardens but it fit perfectly at anything-goes Dixter. I’d like to try growing it in a cut flower garden some day. It’s pretty lurid, but I love it.
Dec. 8: Floral advent calendar: Sparmannia africana
Sparmannia africana, photographed here in March at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London, is native to damp forested areas of the western and eastern African capes. It is a member of the Malvaceae (mallow) family, like hibiscus and Tilia, a common tree in Britain. Sparmannia africana was introduced to European cultivation in 1778 and became a common glasshouse plant.
Sparmannia africana doesn’t produce useful timber, but it can be used to make fiber, giving it a common name of African hemp. However, it never caught on as a commercial fiber plant once it was found to be inferior to jute.
The stamens of Sparmannia africana flowers are sensitive to touch, an adaptation it developed to possibly facilitate pollination. When brushed by an insect the stamens puff out, pushing pollen onto the insect’s body, which it then carries off to fertilize another bloom.
Dec. 6: Floral advent calendar: Tweedia coerulea
The specific epithet of my next flower, Tweedia coerulea, gives away that it is yet another of my favored elusively colored blooms. “Coerulea,” quite simply, means blue. This plant is sometimes seen under the synonym Oxypetalum caeruleum, but the meaning of the specific epithet stays the same.
This is another South American native photographed at Derry Watkin’s amazing nursery near Bath, Special Plants. After meeting Derry during her talk at the Parham House garden weekend, my husband and I stopped in to visit her on a weekend trip to Bath this August. It was hard to take a step in her nursery without oohing and ahhing, and the visit got even better with a walk around her unique garden, which is the work of 20+ years by a serious plantsperson. Derry, an American, married a British architect who designed her a house with a wall of Streptocarpus instead of curtains. I’ve stood in this house, and seen this wall and…be still my heart.
Derry has long lived in the U.K., starting her world-renowned nursery at age 40. She told me the nursery business doesn’t make any money but sure is a fun lifestyle. Of the myriad fascinating plants that stood out to me that day, this Tweedia has a color, uniqueness, and vivacity that can’t be ignored, much like Derry herself.
Dec. 5: Floral advent calendar: Puya alpestris
I have a well-documented affinity for a blue flower, and today’s is a stunner. Puya alpestris is a bromeliad native to southern Chile. Unlike many other bromeliads, which grow in trees, Puya alpestris is terrestrial, which makes it convenient for growing in a pot. I saw it in flower in early June at Sissinghurst Castle garden where it stopped me in my tracks with its metallic teal blooms.
Puya alpestris is hardy to a few degrees below freezing, so after a summer idyll outdoors it should be returned to the glasshouse to overwinter. It is supposed to be relatively easy to grow from seed, which is something I plan to try as soon as I get a glasshouse at home.
Dec. 4: Floral advent calendar: Cosmos bipinnatus 'Cupcakes'
Cosmos are one of my favorite flowers. Along with zinnias, they are some of the first plants I grew from seed as a child and I associate them with the beginning of my interest in horticulture.
There has been an explosion in cosmos introductions lately, and as gimmicky as some of them sound I still want to try them all. A new-to-me variety this year was Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Cupcakes.’ Some of the blooms, like the one above are double, while others are single. ‘Cupcakes’ was the first to flower in my home garden in July, mixed in a bed of other flowers for cutting. It may not be to everyone’s taste, but I loved this variety. Its fused petals really do make the flower look exactly like a paper cupcake wrapper. And it was the last plant to blacken in the autumn frosts, succumbing just last week after giving me an astonishing five months of flowers.
The soft pinks and whites of ‘Cupcakes’ mix nicely into bouquets such as the one I put together from my cutting garden this July along with another nice new Cosmos, ‘Fizzy’ series. Also included are Malope trifida ‘Alba,’ Bupleurum rotundifolium 'Griffithii,’ Ammi majus, Orlaya grandiflora, and Matricaria recutita (German chamomile), and the wonderful ornamental grass Panicum elegans ‘Frosted Explosion,’ all grown from seed this year.
If you do grow cosmos in Britain, keep in mind they don’t like being cold in the spring. This never seemed to be an issue when I grew cosmos in Virginia, probably because it got so hot so fast and the summer climate was more similar to the plant’s native Mexico. This year’s cool and protracted English spring, however, found my seedlings languishing despite the protection of the cold frame. Once they got a little heat, though, they were off and away just fine with no ill effects, .