The Manor House Garden

One garden room at Hidcote Manor picture taken on my vacation 

Agatha Christie and many of my other favorite authors have written about the weekend house party at someone's manor house and there is always a scene when someone invites someone else out for a stroll in the garden. Once out in the garden there might be the "important talk", a dalliance, or even a murder. It didn't really make much sense to me to go for a walk in the garden because I was picturing my garden, but once I had been to England to see what a real manor house garden looks like it began to make all the more difference to my reading.

Gardening is serious business over there in England. Many of the gardens that I visited are even larger than my entire plot of land (1.67 acres). They employed designers and architects and engaged and maintained a staff. When Hercule Poirot is interviewing the gardener, this character was a full time employee with perhaps a "boy" or two working for him. Here I am, just me beavering away at my attempt at a cottage garden and a small vegetable plot. I've had to take a week off due to the rain and an aching back and the weeds have gone rampant from my neglect.

In researching about famous English gardeners I came across Vita Sackville-West, poet and novelist who funded her gardening passions with the proceeds from her literary career. She and her husband purchased Sissinghurst Castle and transformed the grounds, he did the architectural planning and she the plantings. I used the ever precious inter-library loan system to get a hold of a copy of her In Your Garden a collection of her articles written for The Observer during 1947-1950. Now I understand the inspiration that Katherine Swift had for her gardening column written 50 years later. I guess it is a testament to British gardeners that weekly gardening columns are still popular especially seeing the demise of the printed newspaper editions at least here in the US. I'm guilty of giving up the paper subscription when I found myself recycling stacks of them unread. There is always so much more good reading material than the morning paper.

I'm wandering just like one would along the crazy brick paths of a manor house garden. On January 22, 1950, Sackville-West wrote of her plan to design a garden with a single color scheme. She was envisioning a garden of just white blossoms against a backdrop of green and grey foliage. Of course this garden came to fruition as one for which she is famous.

Garden Reading Installment #3

Untamed garden

 "Read-a-little, garden-a-little, read-a-little, garden-a-little, weed, weed, weed...."  reminds me of that song  from The Music Man. Moving on. Yesterday's installment from Katherine Swift's The Morville Year was about those plants that move or seem to spring up out of nowhere. I've got a whole garden that seems to be that way.

Once upon a time I too set out to tame Nature by planting a garden and she just laughed at me and my hubris. But mankind continues to try to tame her with its borders and formal garden lay-outs. Granted I never started out that way. As a novice gardener I chose the things that looked pretty to me and planted them where ever I thought they would look best. Little did I know about the plants I chose or whether or not they would flourish in the spots I had planted them. The tag said full sun, but in reality it needed partial sun, or part-sun really meant full shade. You  get the picture. Things died. I cried. I tried again.

A foxglove which has
self-seeded.

I got wiser. I borrowed books from the library and spent time learning about the growing conditions of plants. I amended my soil. I watched and timed the number of hours certain locations in the yard received sun light. I started over. I shuffled plants around and lo and behold things took. Things thrived. Things spread. Oh how things spread. Phlox took over. Spiderwort wove a web throughout the garden. Even the white campion sprinkled itself about. This summer I am challenged with trying to bring it all under some semblance of control. I will not say order for I know there will never be order. As a science teacher I know that there is no control in Nature, the name of the game is called ENTROPY.

One challenge about reading Swift's book is the difference in the language of plants. She sprinkles the Latin formal names throughout like everyone should know what she is writing about. Then there are the common names for plants, which is the whole reason scientists went to a formal method of naming species in the first place. I find that I have to keep my phone close by so that I can look up on Google images the plants which she is discussing. Often I am familiar with them and other times I am not. As a more seasoned gardener (I will not call myself a master gardener just yet. I need to get through a few more seasons for that.), I know better than to run out and try to acquire the lovely things she writes about. For one thing, I know that the climate of England and New England are not the same and some plants will simply not flourish here in my garden. I have learned my lesson there; plant what will work. That's why she has her lovely garden open to the public so that people like me can go visit and see those plants which we can not grow at home.

Garden Reading Installment #2

Garden walk in progress

 Reading can be like eating potato chips, you can't eat just one, but if you know better you occasionally will put down the bag and come back to it on another day; so too is Katherine Swift's The Morville Year which I've written about previously. It's a book to go to when you need just a quick fix of gardening wisdom. Today it was her column entitled "Not a Bed of Roses" where she describes what happens when she took a week off from the garden. She returned to plants in need of water, attacking plant blights and pests, and weeds. She quickly through herself back into the work and only came in when her husband called out to her at 11:30 pm.

The pile of  bark mulch waiting to be
spread.

I too took some time off from the garden this weekend. It is the curse of the gardener that you can't be in two places at one time. You are either indoors cleaning or outdoors gardening, you can't do both. The house was in need of some attention so I broke down and gave it some. Tonight after dinner I went out to finally plant the marigolds before they die in the garden center pots. The sprinklers got run as we've had a couple of sunny and warm days. I plucked a few weeds but there are plenty more awaiting my wrath. Then there's the bark mulch that still needs spreading, and the garden walkway which I am building is but a pile of bricks. Swift was my inspiration, like a little garden angel sitting on my shoulder and encouraging me to get out there and get to work. Pretty soon it will be summer vacation and I will be able to work out in the garden every day if I want and have time to get some of the indoor projects done as well.

Reading in installments

Ranunculus

While in England on my April vacation, I had the opportunity to pop into some book shops for a browse. There was a charming one on the high street in Broadway where I purchased Katherine Swift's The Moreville Year  a collection of columns that she'd written for The Times. Swift takes her readers on a year long journey through her garden in Shropshire, describing all the work and enjoyment that goes with its creation and maintenance.

Anemone

One of the key things I wanted to do while in England, besides drink tea and eat scones, was to visit the gardens. My sister took me to visit several of the local National Trust Houses and Gardens in the Midlands area where she lives. One especially lovely property was Charlecote Park where they have their very own Garden Center. It was there that I spied a couple of the plant varieties that Swift featured in her writing. The ranunculus are not that popular in my area as we have much harsher winters here in New England for their liking. The anemones however can be found around here and I have since purchased some for my garden.

The best part of Swift's book is the fact that it is a collection of articles allowing for one to sit and read a bit at a time; a couple before bed or over a morning cup of coffee. Best yet is reading while sitting out on the patio over looking the kitchen garden with a glass of chilled wine after a long day of work (the paying job or the garden chores). I do so love to work in my garden, but I also love to read about other people's gardens and there are plenty of books in my collection and I'm so happy to add Katherine Swift's to the shelf.