“The autumn colour is amazing”
Fran Clifton and her team keep the gardens looking spectacular for autumn. She shares her insights
Fran Clifton has been Head Gardener since 2002 and manages a horticultural team of 15 staff, which vary seasonally, and 80 garden volunteers.
How did you come to work here? By chance really. I did my horticultural training in Germany and came to England in 1993 to work in different nurseries and gardens. A friend suggested I go to the Hillier Arboretum, as it was called then, which was just starting a new student scheme. I joined and I haven’t look back since!
How do you manage such a large site? The team is split into five areas. The estate team does the mowing and maintenance, and two arborists do all the tree work. Three garden areas – the Winter Garden, Centenary Border and the gardens around Jermyn’s house – each have a manager with a small team that includes volunteers.
What are the main gardening jobs for November? We prepare the borders for the following year, lifting and splitting herbaceous plants and cutting them back.
This is really when the Winter Garden team springs into action. They have to make sure the bark paths are mulched, the beds are tidy, the hellebores cut back, that the cornus are standing to attention and that the labelling is up-to-date and correct. We also spend time planning new plant acquisitions. We usually plant 250-300 new trees and shrubs every year, and in November we sit down with a list and decide what to grow. I might identify gaps in our collections for which we source new additions.
In our small in-house nursery, Sam, our propagator, propagates rare and unusual plants to replace sickly plants, so we can maintain the collection. We might have plants there that have come into the nursery from other gardens, and collectors from abroad often get in touch to ask if we would like to grow some of their seed.
What are the highlights in November? The trees look their best at this time of year, with the tail end of autumn colour and leaf fall revealing the skeletons of trees such as weeping beech. Our pinetum has a great collection of conifers too. These often change colour as winter approaches, so the yellow ones become more golden and the blue ones more intensely blue. The pond area becomes a lot more magical too because you get mists settling, giving the area a beautiful, ethereal look.
Are there any particular challenges gardening here? We do have a huge responsibility to manage the gardens and not let things go wild. For instance, a small rivulet runs through the garden that feeds into a local river, so we cut the flowers of the skunk cabbage when they fade so the seed can’t spread further downstream. It’s one thing having a rich collection of plants from around the world, but we must protect the native habitat from potentially invasive species.
What’s so special about the Hillier Gardens? It’s the diversity of the plants. One day you could be walking past a fir from Sicily, which is endangered on the island, and the next you’ll walk among trees from the everglades in America. You can’t find such dazzling contrasts anywhere else.