Flying Gardener

Just a quick post about another garden history blog, this time from Japan and penned by Akemi Yoko.

Check out Flying Gardener (its is both English and Japanese!)

The Garden History Society Winter Lectures

The Garden History Society has announced its series of Winter Lectures, which take place on Wednesdays at 6.30 pm at The Gallery, 70 Cowcross Street, London (unless otherwise stated). Herewith the schedule:

30 January 2013

Gardens of court and country: English design 1640-1730
Dr David Jacques

20 February 2013

The 11th Annual GHS Lecture

Led by the land
Kim Wilkie

27 February 2013

Royal Horticultural Halls & Conference Centre

‘Harmony Compleat’ – music in the garden from Renaissance Italy to Georgian England
Judy Tarling

6 March 2013

A little bit of surrey in the sun?  A hundred years of the national botanic gardens of Burma
Dr David Marsh

20 March 2013

Passion, plants and patronage: three hundred years of the Bute family landscapes
Robert Peel and Kristina Taylor

For more information about tickets contact the Garden History Society by email or via the website.

The Plant Hunters for Kindle

Joseph Banks, the father of modern plant hunting by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1773)

 "Good God.  When I consider the melancholy fate of so many of botany's votaries, I am tempted to ask whether men are in their right mind who so desperately risk life and everything else through the love of collecting plants."

So said the famous Carl Linnæus in 1737.  

And in many way I think he was right, but also very glad that these men undertook the challenges, for gardens would be far duller places had they not.

The cover featuring Ernest Wilson's beautiful Lilium regale in the Min valley, Sichuan

Back in the 1990s I spent a year researching the history of the Lost Garden of Heligan.  During the course of this fascinating work I got up close and personal with so many of the plants introduced by those most brave and forgotten heroes of horticulture - the plant hunters.

Ernest Wilson, one of the most successful plant hunters employed by the Veitch Nursery

Inspired by the men, the tales of their adventures and both 'their' plants and the impact that they had had on garden fashions I, together with good friend and colleague Chris Gardener and brother, Will penned a tome entitled The Plant Hunters.  It did well, but after two hardback and two paperback the publishers decided not to reprint.

Discovered by Joseph Hooker, Rhododendron hodgsonii in the Zemu valley, Sikkim

Then came the wait for the rights to return.  Now we have re-edited the text   and are delighted to announce that today The Plant Hunters is published as a Kindle version.

The Plant Hunters features 10 of the most influential of all the plant hunters:  Sir Joseph Banks, Francis Masson, David Douglas, Sir Joseph Hooker, William and Thomas Lobb, Robert Fortune, Ernest Wilson, George Forrest and Frank Kingdon-Ward. 

Sir Joseph Hooker whose arrest in Sikkim changed the map of the Empire and whose Rhododendron discoveries kick-started 'rhododendromania'

Together these men discovered and introduced literally tens of thousands of new plants that revolutionised gardens all over the world.  Yet for the most part they did not make much money, but they surely suffered hardships and ill-health, occasionally giving their lives for the love of plant hunting.

Meconopsis lancifolia on the Daxueshan mountains of Yunnan

The Plant Hunters pays tribute to these men.  It tells their stories as people, it follows them to remote parts of the globe which had often times not been visited by Westerners before and tells of their adventures in the field.  It reveals the beautiful plants they discovered and explores how 'their' plants revolutionised garden fashions.

Even if I say so myself, these are damn good stories - and the book will  make the perfect Christmas read!

Voicing the Garden

The Winter Garden at the CUBG

Today is a certainly a day of good cheer from those folk at the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).  For Cambridge University Botanic Garden (Twitter @CUBotanicGarden) has been awarded a grant of nearly £10,000 as part of an innovative and exciting project entitled 'Voicing the Garden'.

The project at Cambridge is is one of the first to be paid from the HLF’s 'All Our Stories' fund, which was inspired by the BBC programme The Great British Story, which looks at historic events through the eyes of ordinary people.

The aim is to 'collect and share the stories of those horticulturalists who have made the Garden and the Friends and visitors who have enjoyed and influenced this this 40 acre oasis down the generations.' and as Juliet Day, development officer at the Botanic Garden, said: “We tend to always focus on the prime importance of our collection – the plants – but we have celebrated some significant birthdays this year, including 30 years of our support organisation, the Friends, and 60 years of our ‘staying in touch’ organisation for former members of staff.  This got us to thinking about the people behind the plants – those who have helped create the collections, gardens and landscapes and also our visitors, whose support and expectations have influenced its past and continue to shape its future."

There is more about the project on the CUBC Website and if you are or you know someone who would get involved in this exciting project, do contact the Botanic Garden.

Only for the Heart’s Amusement

I am absolutely delighted to be putting up a guest post from landscape architect and garden designer Julia Fogg (@fogg_julia) who also has a super blog of her own - Terrain.  Thank you Julia, and over to you...

The image on the template of this blog resurrected thoughts from a visit to Bosco Sacro at Bomarzo and Villa Lante at Bagnaia a while ago.  Both are described as  ‘Mannerist’ and have other similarities such as location – only 20 kms apart – and  their construction in mid-16C, if we believe the data. Also there is some thought that they were designed by Vignola although this is not conclusive. One, Sacro Bosco, was commissioned by a soldier Duke and, the other, by a cardinal.

Certainly, both these gardens are about exaggeration in composition. They also have many expected landscape features in common but they are poles apart in character.

 View from Villa Lante

The Sacro Bosco

Both gardens would be filled by guests enjoying music, comedy and dancing and it’s  easy to imagine the theatricality of night time revels and masques lit with flaming torches instilling intrigue, anticipation with their flickering shadows.

But the differences in treatment of these two gardens couldn’t be more obvious. 

In the Sacro Bosco, there are no visible straight lines, so no clipped hedging, no borders and no parterres. It is based on the story of a life – a journey through life of things seen and experienced, It is developed from a knowledge of the humanities creating a metamorphosis shown in the figures and sculptures struggling out from rock and earth.

The statues have an extreme physicality. They could equally be described as art but also as Disney scale tricks. They contribute to the sense of trepidation felt here, sometimes menace but the overriding atmosphere is of an earthly love formed with violence and passion. The garden was conceived as a memorial for the Duke’s wife. 

Villa Lante is an open stage. The prevailing sense is of organisation. Strict patterns of terraces and pathway network convey a measured crispness. The proportions are perfect and confident. Here there is no sense of playing with scale – all is correct – although surprises and excitement are ensured too. So a garden for promenading and for ‘la passeggiata’, for ambassadors, dukes and hostesses with grandeur and largesse but also maybe a hidden sense of secrecy and the potential for voyeurism.  

The Pegasus Fountain, Villa Lante

A view through the Pegasus Fountain building

Both these gardens could be described as playgrounds but totally contrasting in their sense of individuality and inner message. So tagging gardens – whether ‘political’, ‘gardenesque’, ‘wild’, ‘romantic’ or ‘contemporary’ to highlight just a few – and encapsulate within a known style is unhelpful. My conclusion is that it’s all about the atmosphere. And finally, a footnote to me as a designer, to learn from these examples and endeavour to create at least one part of the garden, if not the whole site, where the character is inherently sexy.

Words with a Garden History: Favela

 As always, another interesting post from GardenHistoryGirl... do take a read.

Restoration of Swiss Garden at Old Warden Park, Bedfordshire.

Image from Biggleswade Today

Located near Biggleswade in Bedfordshire and owned by the Richard Ormonde Shuttleworth Remembrance Trust, Old Warden Park is home to the Shuttleworth Collection.

The Swiss Garden, Old Warden Park, Bedfordshire, created in the 1820s by Lord Ongley, is a late Regency garden and an outstanding example of the Swiss picturesque In the 1870s the 9 acre garden was bought by the industrialist Joseph Shuttleworth who introduced Victorian ‘improvements’, while retaining the original layout of the Regency plan.

The Swiss Garden in 1901 Image from Bedford Borough Council

Within the 10-acres of gardens is a superb collection of rare and unusual trees and shrubs, including Britain's largest Pieris japonica (lily of the valley bush).

Pieris japonica

As well as the islands and ponds, the garden also contains a number of structures and features. However, as with so many historic gardens, the Swiss Garden has felt the ill effects of time and lack of investment.  

Image from the BBC website

But now, thanks to a grant of £2.8 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) the garden is undergo a large restoration project.  Specifically, and according to the HLF announcement the grant will: 

 

'help the Garden’s owner, the Shuttleworth Trust, and its partner Central Bedfordshire Council, repair and conserve the Garden’s 13 listed buildings and ornamental structures including the Swiss Cottage, the Indian Kiosk, the Grotto and Fernery, ornate ironwork bridges and arches, stone animals and birds, marble memorial tablets and stone and metal urns.

The project will involve local residents in managing the Swiss Garden, and two horticultural apprenticeships and two built heritage apprenticeships will be offered. An important aim is to promote the Swiss Garden to a wide range of people so that more visitors, including school groups, can come and learn about this remarkable green oasis. Work on restoring the garden will begin in early 2013 and is expected to be completed by summer 2016.'

There is a short video about the garden and the grant can be viewed on the BBC website (sorry I can't embed the video here).

A brochure (above) about the garden is downloadable as a pdf from this link