Are Gardens Art?

I find myself worried. It is not often that I find my thoughts echoed by mainstream publications. The Garden Design Journal landed on my desk several days ago, and I have only just got round to opening it and glimming through it. Horror of horrors. I find my thoughts echoed almost exactly in their articles. What has happened? One of the joys (yet another I know) about living in the countryside is that I tend to live outside mainstream design; added to which of course I am not qualified which has its advantages and disadvantages (more of that another time). Nowhere is this more evident than in the designs we have submitted at Hampton Court, where both the design and planting has been completely opposite to what is generally being shown. You may notice when you go to Chelsea and Hampton Court shows, how, despite the designers coming from all over the world there is a similarity that manifests itself in colour and planting.
I digress. Tim Richardson in his column discusses the ‘G-word’. Ie. ‘garden’. He bemoans a fact that we come across frequently. Gardeners (sounds so derogatory put like that) are often paid less than cleaners; yet our level of skill and plant knowledge needs to be almost encyclopaedic. Gardens are expensive to design and maintain – they are living growing organisms (see previous blog entry) – yet gardening is often seen as the prerogative of the old and amateurs. And this encompasses the whole industry from designers down to professional gardeners. There is nothing wrong with being either old or amateur, but if you look around you there is an increasing amount of work being done within this industry by younger, active people who find gardening as a profession sustaining, creative, satisfying. Which is more than can be said for a lot of professions.

Which brings me onto the article (and this is not an advertisement for the Garden Design magazine – I just find it a refreshing magazine with great layout, and some seriously good ideas for design and debate) about Are Gardens Art? which in itself is a provoking question. Yes of course there are the gardens that are created like a living canvas of colour, form and texture; and others that are not. Similarly the same could be said of paintings, sculptures, installations etc. Some good, some mediocre and an awful lot of horrors interspersed with the truly brilliant. Are they all functional – no some are not and many are. And art is different things to different people. Should it engender debate; of course. Should it inspire; of course. Should it comfort – yes, that too. Art is a wonderfully encompassing concept and the same is true of gardens. To use a direct quote from the article, attributed to Stephen Anderton “There is no battle; there is an extra which is on offer” – and that ‘extra’ is the artistic quality which we as designers seek to create. I think that perhaps the question is larger than this. Everyone is capable of creating art and beauty in all its different forms. It is just that not everyone likes what is created and some of us are intrinsically better qualified (and I do not mean on paper) to do it than others. I think the question links into Tim Richardson’s column and the perception of gardeners, gardening and the work/design involved with them.

Another great gardening writer (and amateur gardener too) was Vita Sackville West, whose garden at her beloved Sissinghurst is probably a greater piece of art than all her reams of poetry. The two sentry trees that guard one of the cottages at Sissinghurst are pictured above. She had this to say: "Every garden-maker should be an artist along his own lines. That is the only possible way to create a garden, irrespective of size or wealth."

Back to my Garden Design journal and I turn a page and find an article about the concept gardens at Hampton Court, written again by Tim Richardson (has this man been inside by head recently, I wonder?). I can only agree with him again, although I would take issue with his comments about Tony Smith’s garden at Chelsea, which made me smile and which I thought was a fantastic combination of beautifully executed design and brilliant colour. Tony Smith is a truly inspirational designer with a great ‘edge’ to him. He is also one of the most delightfully generous characters you will ever meet. The concept gardens at Hampton Court, were, I thought, the best part of the show. I hardly dare agree with Tim as I might be accused of being sycophantic but let us hope that both the RHS and the designers continue to push for leading edge concept design that at its best is truly art.

Garden therapy

The wonderful thing about gardening is that I am removed from radios, television and newspapers – except on Saturday when I indulge in the paper over a cup of well earned tea. So when I do get sidetracked by a newspaper article or a particularly lurid account of what the various political parties are doing, it is like having a rather cold, unpleasant shower. And I have to wonder how much of what happens is really true. The upside of not reading and listening to news the whole time is that I get to make my own decision about what is happening around me. Sure, we have clients who have been affected by the recession, but living in the countryside as I do, we perhaps have a more practical way of getting on with business. The upset in the financial markets has hit the cities particularly hard and London has been incredibly depressing to visit over the last year or so, although that is now changing, because despite whatever the pundits say we are still all here and alive. And no more so than in the beautiful weather we have been having.

That is one of the huge advantages of living in the country. It is very, very difficult to remain completely self-absorbed in misery when we have stunning sunsets such as the one last night; or you see a red kite sweeping over a late harvested field. Nature has a way of putting our lives into dramatic perspective. It is a shame that more of us don’t realise this.

In praise of Swiss chard

The gleaming red stems of chard in the vegetable garden look wonderful at this time of the year. But, of course, they are not just grown for their beauty – but for their wonderful, slightly peppery, flavour.

Here is one of my favourite recipes using chard, and as it happens perfect if you are entertaining vegetarians. I cook on an Aga so you may need to adjust the cooking time if you cook on gas or electricity.

You will need:

2 red peppers
1 pack of feta cheese
20 small or 10 large leaves of fresh chard
1 packet of filo pastry
About 4ozs butter to melt
Black pepper

Halve and de-seed the two red peppers and roast in the oven to char the skins. Remove the skins and cut into strips.

Wash the chard and remove any really fibrous stems, tearing the large leaves (don't cut) into loose pieces.

Cut the feta into cubes.

Brush a shallow heatproof dish with melted butter and lay the layers of filo, leaving large flaps over the edges (which you can eventually fold over the top), and brushing each layer of filo with butter as you go.

When all the sheets are used up, evenly fill the middle with the red pepper, chard and feta.Add freshly ground pepper. Close the flaps over the top and brush with melted butter.

Put into a pre-warmed oven at about 200 Centigrade (bottom shelf of hot oven for Aga-owners) for about 20 minutes, or until the pastry is a golden brown and crispy.

Serve warm with just a mixed salad or some new potatoes.

A glut of butterflies

As per the post below, our garden is filled with butterflies this summer. This beautiful peacock spreads its wings in a rare moment when the sun managed to creep through the interminable rain.

What a wet summer does to the best-laid plans

Apologies for being so out of communication, but work and life have been hectic with several new developments (about which there will be news later on), and trying to work around our weather.  Well, English weather has always been a topic of conversation, but this time round it has even made the news.  Trying to plan what we do is becoming impossible.  It does not matter where you go for information it is contradictory.  In the end, we just take the best guess scenario, and keep our clients informed.  And of course, it can go wrong!  It would not be English weather if it didn’t throw the occasional cog into the works.

As a result we are now experiencing the type of growth that we normally see in May, not the end of July.  Phenomenal weed production, lush, heavy growth on hedges and perennials. And of course mildew in epidemic proportions on the roses.  So planning as usual, goes out of the window and we have to amend our work accordingly.

However, one of the great joys this year has been the explosion in the number of butterflies.  Although it has been overcast the last few days with the ubiquitous heavy rainfall, as soon as the sun peeps out our buddlejia are simply covered in butterflies.  The Peacocks are now making an appearance in their droves with the odd Red Admiral, Brimstone and Tortoiseshell. And there are bees and hoverflies everywhere.  I don’t use sprays in our garden, except soap and water, particularly on the roses.  My Mdme Alfred Carriere suffers a bit, but I simply pick off the black spot leaves, cut back and feed heavily.  My other rose, Penny Lane seems to suffer from virtually no disease at all, and Poetry in Motion just gets well fed on a regular basis.

The vegetable garden too is looking like a jungle.  Because we are comparatively high up, germination was a real problem in June, which meant watering.  However, now the opposite is true and it is hard to get into the veg patch.  The Cabbage Whites are making hay whilst the sun shines and I expect that the various small birds will be feasting on a glut of caterpillars.  Meanwhile I have finally seen my first runner bean; it is unlikely to survive the transition from plant to pot!  I am going to try and put in some late seed in the hope that we may have an Indian summer!  However the evenings up here are increasing cooling off with the resultant cooler soil – not good for germination.  However it does mean that a late sowing of rocket may not be munched by the wretched flea beetles.  The last lot disappeared before it was less than .5cm high!  And of course the lettuces and chard is bolting faster than we can eat it.  However one of the added perks of growing chard particularly, the red variety is the stunning colour you get when the sun strikes the stems.  Absolutely beautiful.

In praise of the small gardens at Hampton Court Flower Show

Hampton Court Flower Show 2009 has as usual suffered from the weather; as for the last two years it has been incredibly hot beforehand and then poured during the show with the inevitable knock on effect on the flowers and foliage.

This year it was strange to be standing the other side of the track. And how I missed the set up buzz, the sense of comradeship caused by trying to do the impossible with a great group of people. I do love the Hampton Court Flower Show. To me it is far more ‘real’ than Chelsea. There is the room to move around; families are welcomed; and it has the feel of a country fair. That said, the wretched carriers that everyone fills with plants and pulls around after them, is enough to cause heart failure never mind broken ankles, legs, and generally a filthy temper as yet again someone swerves in front of you. Grrrrrrrrr.

I really missed the water gardens this year though. They have been utterly superb, and having some experience with ponds and the like I take my hat off to those fantastic companies and designers that created them. Their standard of excellence was sorely missed and I hope that they return next year.

That said, there were some excellent gardens, particularly in the small garden category. It was also good to see that the organisers have apparently learned a lesson; many of the gardens you could walk through or walk round. It makes them so much more approachable and easy to see as well as assisting the design. You don’t have to take into account your next door neighbour’s boundaries, which, let me tell you can be a complete headache, particularly when you have no control over what is going next to you.

The garden’s that really stood out for me were Fiona Stephenson’s Oak Tree: Lying in State. The stark image of a stunning dead oak tree underlined with achilleas was stunning. It would have looked even better if it had not been tucked underneath the trees and surrounded by tents.

I also loved the Dark Side of Beauty by Raine Clarke-Wills and Fiona Godman-Dorington. I take my hat off to them for creating a garden out of poisonous plants – I am just surprised that they were not swarming with the Health & Safety brigade with clipboards. (Anyone who has planted up at a show knows that the Health & Safety brigade produce more paperwork and more worry than anything else.)

I also enjoyed the planting – there was, dare I say it, far more variety than Chelsea. This is of course, partially because it is later in the year than Chelsea, but also I think because the whole event is less ‘precious’.

The concept gardens go from strength to strength. There is often a simplicity about them that I find incredibly attractive; in particular It’s Hard to See which was beautifully executed as was Concreation where the contrast between the hard concrete and the tactile presentation of the plants was stunning.

Where the wild things are

Carrying on from last week and the theme of grasses, I had a perfect example this week of how meadow grass can prove to be the perfect addition to a garden.

We have a client who has a lovely garden but who is plagued (and I know I am going to be deeply unpopular here) by badgers. Now, to those who suffer from badger visitations as opposed to watching them on television, and who are up in arms at the idea of proposed culls, the vision of trampled on plants, lawns that looks as if there has been an invasion of miniature alien life-forms crash landing small spaceships is all too familiar. Badgers, like much else are fabulous when they are doing what they do best – fossicking around in native woodland – and when there are not so many of them that they wreak havoc (and they do and can). In short when you are on the receiving end of badger visitations there is not a lot that you can legally do to discourage them – talk to any poor farmer whose fields are pockmarked with badger setts. You can stop up the fence lines (try and stop a fully fledged male badger – they are the countryside equivalent of a tank but that will not last long. They are entrepreneurial and smart. So if your garden has been earmarked as the next best thing to a living online delicatessen, it will not be long before your fence will be trashed and the familiar spaceship invasion takes place. Sooooooooo; having looked at the problem it was decided that the best thing to do was to create a wild grass meadow in the bottom half of the garden. The area nearest the house which was not invaded with badgers (thankfully) retained its beds and the wonderful profligate abundance of alchemilla mollis, sweet rocket, hostas and roses, and the lower area which was damp (soft on snouts and providing a never-ending supply of badger delicacies) and had been an old orchard was left to get on with it. Perennial weeds such as nettles, docks and thistles were removed (there were not many of these) and paths were mown through the meadow grass to give it form and access – for humans. We then let nature take its course. The results after three years, particularly this year are simply stunning. The meadow grass is cut twice a year, and the paths fortnightly so everything is kept very very simple. And it is the paths that give the whole context and link the meadow to the existing garden.. The short green grass is a fabulous contrast to the ever-changing moving, seed heads and heights of the different meadow grasses. And you do not need a large patch of garden to do this too. You can have a small corner of your garden put aside. But it is very very important that the soil is not in good condition – else it will not support meadow grass. It is quite simply too rich. And the huge bonus is the incredible number of butterflies and moths that will add to your continuing delight. And of course, the badgers are still there – as evinced by the narrow trail that makes a beeline straight across the meadow. So a win win situation all round.