Garden to visit
Trengwainton gardens in Cornwall are filled with botanical treasures
Spring comes early to the western tip of Cornwall. For most of us, February means snow and frost, but at Trengwainton garden, just outside Penzance, the first glimpses of spring can already be seen. The garden enjoys a mild climate thanks to the Gulf Stream, which brings warm air north from the Caribbean, and shelter from woodland and walled areas. This means these lush gardens have an exceptionally long growing season where tender exotics thrive and blooms are coaxed into flower earlier than elsewhere. The garden at Trengwainton (whose name means ‘farm of the spring’ in Cornish) is the creation of two families. Sir Rose Price used his vast wealth from owning sugar plantations in Jamaica to build a house and landscape on a grand scale, but the abolition of slavery in 1833 depleted the family’s fortune and the death of Price the following year halted the garden’s development. The Bolitho family bought Trengwainton in 1867, but it wasn’t until 1925 when Colonel Edward Bolitho inherited the estate that the garden enjoyed a renaissance. Edward’s cousins owned Caerhays (another famous Cornish garden) and his contacts included Lawrence Johnston at Hidcote. This gave him access to exciting new plants discovered by plant hunter Frank Kingdon-Ward during an expedition to India and Burma in 1927-8.
“These lush gardens have an exceptionally long growing season where tender exotics thrive”
Trengwainton, gifted to the National Trust in 1961, is a long, linear garden with a cluster of walled gardens at the entrance to the estate. These were built by Price during the 1820s, with one section – the kitchen garden – said to be constructed to the same dimensions as Noah’s Ark. Unique vegetable beds were created here, sloping west to improve drainage and capture as much sunlight as possible, allowing the growing season to be extended. There’s also a ‘Cornish hedge’: a stone and earthwork structure designed to keep the wind and cold out, which over time has become a rich tapestry of mosses and ferns. Herbaceous borders and massed plantings of agapanthus bring summer colour to the garden, while autumn is heralded by the golden leaf tints of beech trees and the fiery tones of acers. Much of the lush planting remains throughout the year – the glades of towering tree ferns, some more than 4m (13ft) tall, retain their foliage and look just as magnificent in the low light of late winter as they do in the height of summer. But, like many Cornish gardens, it’s spring when Trengwainton is at its peak of horticultural perfection. February brings early flowers of Magnolia campbellii, with one specimen in the lower walled garden exceeding H20m (66ft). Its enormous cup-andsaucer-like flowers are an impressive sight, particularly with a crisp blue sky as a backdrop. Rhododendron ‘Christmas Cheer’ and its frilly pink blooms will have already been flowering for several weeks. Camellia williamsii hybrids are in flower and cover the paths of the Camellia Walk with a colourful confetti of fallen petals. Drifts of snowdrops meander through the gardens surrounded by the emerging foliage of lamiums and the marbled leaves of Arum italicum. Dainty woodland bulbs appear and the first daffodils burst into life. Trengwainton’s impressive collections of magnolias (such as M. campbellii ‘Kew’s Surprise’, M. veitchii ‘Peter Veitch’ and M. sprengeri diva) and rhododendrons continue the colour into March and April. A succession of head gardeners in the 20th century nurtured seeds brought back by Kingdon-Ward and crossed them to create
rhododendrons unique to the garden, such as ‘Fusilier’ and ‘Morvah’. It might still be winter in our own gardens, but a trip to Trengwainton brings hope that spring is just around the corner.✿