Holbrook Garden, Devon, England

It's been a while – I can't believe my last blog was almost a month ago. Summer always seems to make time fly by even faster than usual, especially for gardeners. Although I can’t count myself in that category right now due the lack of a real garden, I’ve still been busier than usual visiting gardens. There have been some really good ones, so I’m excited to get back to the blog and take stock.

The first garden trip of the year was to England at the end of May, and included some highlights I have already posted about, such as the 2010 Chelsea Flower Show and The Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall. The main part of the trip was spent in Devon though, where the first garden on the agenda was Holbrook. As one of the few new perennial gardens in the Devon area, and actually all of England, I clearly couldn't miss this one, especially when it's recommended by Noel Kingsbury as “one of the best examples of ‘New Perennial’ planting in Britain”.

Holbrook is a rather small, private garden with a nursery attached. It tries to pack in a lot of habitats, betraying a bit of the English plant collector spirit. There are dry, wet, and damp meadows, woodland edge, a pond, veggies and some chickens. The garden philosophy is firmly rooted in naturalistic ideas, with plantings designed to evoke natural plant communities. The owner’s inspiration comes from German naturalistic gardens, but I was also reminded of Dutchman Henk Gerritsen's garden – similar to his Priona garden, this garden also feels really relaxed and at peace with nature, although the design approach is quite different.


The first area close to the house is an open, dry prairie-style stone garden where the owners are experimenting with hot climate plants in strong colours. One unfortunate disadvantage of our visit was the timing – late May is not the peak of this garden area. It’s designed for fireworks in late summer. There were still some nice plants in bloom though, and some grasses were already making an impact. This area was quite small for a meadow planting, so I would have been interested to see how well it works at its peak. There are some beautiful pictures on the website to suggest it does succeed quite spectacularly.





Further down, the stone garden transitions to the wildflower meadow and woodland. Transition areas where you move from open sunlight to shade and enclosure often create some of the best effects in a garden.



On to the woodland area, which I thought was the most successful in the garden, though this may have been biased by the timing of our visit (although most early flowering wildflowers and shrubs were past). The relaxed and comfortable feel in this garden area fit perfectly with the domesticated English countryside where Holbrook is located - soft, un-cut grass, dotted by small woodland edge trees letting through filtered sunlight, larger oaks in the background, and a small stream on the boundary. Perhaps this may not be as exciting to the owners as some more innovative prairie and dry plantings, but as a visitor this felt like the most comfortable planting.







The pond with the surrounding marshy plantings took up the center of the garden, and like the woodland, fit very comfortably in its site. The wet meadow surrounding it was much further along than the prairie garden, although the full peak of this area is probably also right about now.


Overall, this garden had a lovely feel to it, and some nice naturalistic plantings. I do wish I would have seen the full climax of the meadow plantings, to better learn from the planting style and to see exactly how well they work in a small space divided in so many habitats.

The Lost Gardens of Heligan, UK

Visiting gardens around Europe has been a great experience, and I have learned something from each garden I have been to. But the best part of visiting gardens is that once in a while, somewhere between many nice and enjoyable gardens, you come across one that’s truly special. Like the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall, England.

Heligan’s history is as rich and complex as can be expected from an old English estate. In a nutshell, it was the property of the Tremayne clan, who poured a lot of wealth, enthusiasm and innovation into the development of the gardens, which became famous around the region. World War I was the downfall of the great family – with almost all able-bodied men being sent off to fight and few returning, Heligan was left with no staff and only one, unmarried, descendant of the main family. The large house was eventually split into apartments and rented out, and the grounds were left to fend for themselves. In Cornwall’s perfect growing climate, this meant that they were quickly swallowed by a tide of wild growth. But underneath the smother of brambles and ivy, the gardens remained alive and breathing, trapped in time.

Enter Tim Smit over half a century later. Along with a few colleagues, he rediscovered the Heligan grounds in 1990, immediately recognized their special quality, and set about the monumental task of restoring them. The story of the restoration is as fascinating a subject as the gardens themselves, and I can highly recommend his book – after reading about the incredible passion, perseverance and resourcefulness which went into saving this garden, just about anything seems possible.


Current-day Heligan is probably best described as a magical porthole to the past. It’s like a storybook garden for adults. The restoration has been done exceptionally well, by a team well aware of the potential pitfalls of such an endevour. They’ve chosen to capture the spirit of the garden by balancing its wild character as a garden growing without human intervention for almost a century, with a glimpse of what it must have been like in its manicured Victorian prime.

Ornamental Gardens
The gardens seamlessly incorporate both ornamental and productive areas. The ornamental gardens, or pleasure grounds, include everything from grand rhododendron walks, to a formal Italian inspired garden, to romantic grottoes covered by ferns and mosses. Many of the ancient looking shrubs, especially the rhododendrons, are the only surviving specimens of some of the first plants brought over by plant hunters to the UK. Sudden Oak Disease is threatening some of them (as well as some incredibly grand oaks), but work is being done to save them - see this relatively recent article in The Independent (courtesy of Bob, thanks!).




One of my favourite areas was the appropriately named Jungle. It runs along a steep valley on the far side of the estate and is where Jack Tremayne experimented with exotic plants, a fashionable novelty at the time. The look is lush and tropical, but it actually feels like a perfect fit for this Cornish valley – it’s surprising and unusual to find these plants here, but not garish.





Further away from the Jungle is the woodland walk through ancient oaks and beeches, and the Lost Valley. At the time of our visit in late May, the picture was perfectly completed by the most English of things, bluebells.




Productive Gardens
In Victorian times, the productive gardens were absolutely central to the estate, and would have been the main focus of the gardening staff. At Heligan, there are no less than three walled vegetable and fruit gardens. The most interesting is the smallest one, which features several sheds and greenhouses, and was likely the central working hub of the gardening staff. It’s also the site of the famous pineapple pit, a special construction designed to grow pineapples using the heat of composting manure. Apparently, one of the snags of manure heating is that it’s quite unpredictable and requires constant attention. As a result, there is a small loft in one of the buildings where a junior gardener had to sleep in order to check on the temperature of the manure every 3 hours! All that effort so that the Treymayne family could be one of the only in the country to serve pineapple at their dinner table.

As a side note, the latrines were located right underneath the pineapple monitor’s loft, and there’s an interesting story about these as well – let’s just say that no good fertilizer was wasted at Heligan.

As part of the restoration effort, all productive gardens are now actually producing fresh fruit and vegetables using many of the same techniques and plant varieties used in Victorian times (minus the special fertilizer). That includes the pineapple pit – after some glitches in the system, the second ripe pineapple produced here was delivered all the way to Buckingham Palace (the first was used for tasting, just in case).





So in the end, what’s so special about Heligan? I guess it’s the same as all great gardens – a strong theme and spirit of place. An unforgettable place to visit if you have the chance.

Park Güell, Barcelona

Barcelona is a fantastic city for many reasons, but its greatest attraction is probably the architecture of Antoni Gaudí. Scattered throughout the city, Gaudí’s 19th and early 20th century works blow away the concepts of traditional architecture in favour of wildly imaginative works of art.

Gaudí’s style is most often described as completely original and unique, and he was indeed a pioneer in his period. But at the same time, his ideas didn’t come from a vacuum. His two greatest influences were the architectural trends of his time (mainly gothic and traditional Catalan), and the natural world (which is especially interesting from a gardener’s perspective). Park Güell, covering a hilltop in the city of Barcelona, is a great example of the combination of influences which gave rise to his work.

The park is quite large, and unfortunately somewhat lacking on the living natural side – the planting is boring and not particularly maintained in most parts. However, one can still appreciate the overall layout design, and of course the many compelling architectural elements scattered throughout. All the forms are organic, from the curved paths, benches, walls and fences, to the randomly angled columns supporting arches and canopies meant to evoke the forest.

In many cases, living natural elements are also combined with architectural ones, as in the wall and fountain at the entrace to the garden.

A key influence which I was happy to recognize having just come from Turkey was the tile mosaic. Brought to Spain via the Islamic Moors, mosaic was a great inspiration to Gaudí, who took the traditional decoration and turned it upside down by employing multiple, complex patterns in loose designs and using it to cover unexpected shapes. The many mosaics at Park Güell are works of art, and one the main reasons visitors flock here.

Even today, Gaudí’s works continue to be highly original and inspirational. I always find it interesting to try to understand how new art is created. Often, the elements already exist, as in the case of the Gaudí’s mosaics. But it takes someone with special vision to truly understand these existing elements, and then combine them and shape them into something new and revolutionary.

Turkish gardens

In my last blog on wildflowers in Turkey (before the all important break for the Chelsea Flower Show), I mentioned that the country is not known for its gardens. While this may be true today, it is not to say that there is a lack of gardening tradition. Turkey was the meeting point for the ancient world’s great cultures, and this cross-pollination gave rise to an incredibly rich and diverse cultural landscape. Both the Greeks and Romans from the East, and the Persians from the West, brought with them celebrated gardening traditions. Combined with Turkey’s fantastic climate and inspiring natural landscape, one can easily guess that impressive gardens were built during the great Ottoman Empire. Unfortunately, many of them do not survive today, and what has remained is not well preserved or restored.

The majority of traditional Turkish gardens are courtyards. Almost all buildings, from grand mosques and palaces to private homes, feature a courtyard. I’ve always loved courtyards – they create a feeling of peace and protection not found in any other outdoor spaces.





Most courtyards were paved, either in part or fully. I spotted many beautiful paving patterns, including the one below from an historic palace courtyard.



A crucial element of Turkish courtyards is water. Fountains, pools or some source of water is almost always present in a courtyard. In one example in the magnificent Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, a small channel system was designed to gently carry water from a central fountain to all corners of the courtyard and finally into the elaborate pattern shown below. The water would then flow into a large, deep pool one level below. A further level down, a boxwood garden was designed to provide a green backdrop to the whole composition. Unfortunately, today the fountain is dry, the pool empty and the box garden merely rough grass, so it’s left to the imagination to conjure up the intended image. (If this sounds slightly negative, I should mention that the palace itself is exceptionally well preserved and maintained).


Since most courtyards are paved, courtyard plantings often come in the form of potted plants. We did, however, see some examples in private homes and some restaurants of extravagantly planted courtyards. Lush green foliage plants dominated, with flowers added primarily for fragrance.



In terms of outdoor decoration, ceramic tiles are a highlight of Turkish aesthetics. One can marvel for hours at the craftsmanship and artistic quality of these tiles, which are used to cover almost any surface. In outdoor courtyards, they formed the perfect complement to the otherwise simple and understated spaces.