Isabella Plantation

April 30, 2024

It’s very easy to visit Richmond Park regularly and completely miss the Isabella Plantation. The deer are kept out of this part of the park, allowing for a wide variety of trees and a more garden-like feel.

Principally a woodland garden, it is in spring that the many flowering shrubs and trees come to the fore. There are witch-hazels, camellias and magnolias in early spring. In April and May it is the turn of azaleas and rhododendrons. Get ready for a technicolour tour.

The garden is home to the National Plant Collection of Wilson 50 Kurume Azaleas, introduced to the west from Japan in the 1920's by the plant collector Ernest Wilson. If you want to identify them all this website has the definitive list.

The Isabella Plantation sits in a natural dip and running and still water throughout is a major feature.

Most of the water features are man-made, water is pumped from Pen Ponds and the streams were dug out in the 20th century. The lower part of the Plantation is naturally boggy and the garden plants here reflect that with asiatic primulas, gunnera and this rather fantastic Darmera peltata.

Isabella Plantation has been subject to some significant investment in recent years. Ponds have been cleared of silt, the remaining invasive Rhododendron ponticum has been cleared out, along with rampant skunk cabbage. And the paths and loos have been upgraded. If you’ve got a blue badge you can park very close by and all the paths are acessible with a wheelchair. Dogs on leads are allowed.

Most people know that I’m not a big fan of rhododendrons, particularly in smaller gardens. Where they’ve got space to do their thing though they look majestic. I like seeing them in dark groves where they can look moody and mysterious, particularly on a gloomy day.

And just occasionally you come across some very delicate flowers, completely different. Unfortunately I cannot find the name of this one.

2023, a year in photos

December 1, 2023

I googled “what will 2023 be famous for?” There were some forecasts - war, climate catastrophe, financial turbulence and technological change - so far, so predictable. But a fashion trend for blackened teeth thankfully hasn’t come to pass (or did I miss it?).

The year started with a famously cold January. It was a near record of eight days in a row of freezing temperatures. Whilst Wimbledon Common looked fab in the heavy frost the weather took its toll in the garden. Many people lost plants, in particular Hebes, Erigeron karvinskianus and Penstemons. They were hard to replace initially as the frost had affected so many gardens as well as suppliers in the UK and Europe.

One answer to this is to plant a winter garden, full of plants that look their best at this time of year. I went to visit Wakehurst Place which has a fairly new winter garden. It didn’t disappoint and partly as a response to this we have developed a couple of winter borders in my local park.

Magnificent magnolia in Bushy Park in March

A persistent easterly wind in March and April meant that spring felt like a long time coming but finally, after a few false starts, I got on a plane for the first time in three years to go to the garden island of Madeira.

There were gardens aplenty on the island but one of the most fascinating sights was the ancient laurel forest on the north slope. Subject to frequent fog and mist the trees were already mature when the Spanish arrived in the 14th century. It is an eerie place and, as I found, it’s very easy to get lost.

May was a busy month. The weather warmed up a little and I found a great new bluebell wood in the Surrey Hills. The sun also came out for the Chelsea Flower Show and there was only one garden everyone was talking about - Sarah Price’s iris garden. It wasn’t overrated, almost worth the ticket price on its own.

Also in May I finished planting a new garden in Wimbledon. Throughout the year I have continued as a volunteer gardener in my local park. Luckily the summer wasn’t quite as scorching as 2022. The ox-eye daisies in a wildflower part of the park were stunning in June.

All through 2023 I have been learning how to use a 3D design software package. It has been challenging to say the least but considerable progress has been made. I’m not sure I’ll ever reach guru status, but it’s good to get to a stage where clients can see their prospective gardens in 3D and even walk through them. I haven’t had a client yet say they prefer the old hand-drawn way of doing things.

In July I caught up with a friend who I’d helped with the layout of her garden ahead of the installation of a new greenhouse.

In August there was an overload of garden visits to Ham House, Waterperry Gardens and the best garden I’ve seen in a long time, Le Jardin Plume.

Whilst in France I also visited the garden festival at Chaumont and the formal gardens at Chenonceau.

Autumn took a long time to arrive, an unexpected heatwave followed by what seemed like endless rain, and then finally, some spectacular colour. Piet Oudolf describes a fifth season, somewhere between summer and autumn. The garden at the Hepworth Wakefield is a great example of how good a garden can look at this inbetween time.

Allium sphareocephalon and Perovskia in October

And my photographic year ends there, somewhat abruptly. The big camera is out of action and the camera on my phone doesn’t really cut it as a replacement. Normal service will be resumed shortly, hopefully in time for some winter photography.

Ham House

August 2, 2023

It’s been a few years since my last visit to Ham House. This time, amazingly, I went in the house and had a quick whizz round. Lots of paintings and tapestries, fab windows and staircase and really good views of the surrounding 30 acres. Mature trees mean you can’t see the Thames even though it’s only a stone’s throw away.

Ham House was built in 1610 by Thomas Vavasour, an Elizabethan courtier to James I. It was then leased, and later bought, by William Murray, a close friend and supporter of Charles I. The house achieved its greatest period of prominence following his daughter Elizabeth's second marriage—to John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale.

The design of the garden was considered as important as that of the house and has a strong French influence. There are formal avenues of trees radiating out from the house and the garden is divided into a number of smaller, though still very large by modern standards, walled areas.

The property was donated to the National Trust in 1948 but renovation of the gardens did not begin until 1975. The works have focused mainly on the Wilderness, the kitchen garden, known as the Orangery, grass squares called The Plats and the Cherry Garden. In recent years there has been a concerted effort to increase biodiversity with large areas of the grounds planted with wild flowers.

In early August the most interesting features are the Cherry Garden and the Kitchen Garden. The latter is the most recent to be renovated and the focus is on producing fruit and vegetables for the cafe and flowers for the house. By no means does this cover the whole of the original Orangery garden.

The garden is laid out in a grid pattern with corners often marked with these topiaried variegated hollies and many of the paths are lined with lavender or teucrium.

The garden was buzzing with wildlife, mainly bumble bees and butterflies (I spotted Red Admiral, Large White and skippers). This pigeon was helping itself to the borage.

I don’t know if it was just the time of year or a deliberate design intention but the kitchen garden was overwhelmingly orange and purple - Hemerocallis, Calendula, Dahlias, Lavender, Agastache, Teucrium, Salvias - and it was very effective. The orange-red brick amplified the effect.

In contrast, the Cherry Garden is a lesson in restraint, definitely a less is more approach. Although the layout of pleached tree avenues and parterre of box topiary and lavender is very 17th century French in style, all is not as it appears.

Archeological investigations in the 1980s showed no signs of a formal garden on this side of the house. Happily the National Trust has decided to keep this as a formal garden rather than be puritanical about keeping to the 17th Century design.

It is a designated as a quiet space and the limited palette of plants - pleached limes, yew hedges, box topiary and lavender - was very restful and quite modern in feel. The structure and evergreens mean this would still be a still place even in winter.

The slanting sun in late afternoon in the second half of summer gave all the edges a silvery glow, almost, but not completely, caputured in my photos.

I didn’t try the cafe although it looked very nice, situated in the kitchen garden. No doubt the fare is standard NT stuff.

There’s also a second hand bookshop (quite good, but not as extensive as the one at Mordern Hall Park). There seemed to quite a few outdoor activities for children but most seemed to be having fun just running around.

There’s parking at Ham Street Carpark or you might get lucky and park for free on Ham Street. It’s a bit of a schlep from a railway station.

If you’re out for the day you’re just a short walk from The Palm Centre (access via Cut Throat Alley….). and Petersham Nurseries (more restaurant than nursery).

Thanks to Wikipedia for a potted history.