Industrial gardening
Enjoy a virtual tour of an inspiring wildlife haven that’s slap-bang in the heart of The Staffordshire Potteries
Twenty-four year old Arthur Parkinson has been the only gardener at Emma Bridgewater’s famous pottery factory in Hanley, Stoke-onTrent, for three years now. “I arrived here through chickens,” he laughs. Being a keen chicken keeper, his path crossed with owner Emma’s husband, Matthew, a fellow poultry expert. “It was meant to be,” Arthur says, “particularly as he was looking for a gardener, too.”
It was about five years ago that Matthew had a vision that the little walled garden next to the company’s pottery workshop could be turned into a bustling fruit and veg patch. But when Arthur was brought on board he had other ideas. “I don’t grow
veg really, but I’m a cut flower gardener so I suggested a flower garden to him instead.”
It turned out to be the perfect solution: visitors to the pottery can see how Emma’s designs have been inspired by, and are connected to, the flowers grown. The chickens, ducks and bees that live in the garden appear on the pottery as well, completing the circle. “The blooms really are spirit enhancing,” says Arthur, “so we also cut and arrange them in vases for the shop and café.”
It’s a little slice of countryside, a cottage garden at the heart of the city, but with industrial roots. Built as a working Victorian factory, you can imagine the growing soil was not just poor when Arthur got stuck in, but non-existent. The garden is built on concrete, with cobbles and rubble to cope with, so everything he grows is in two large central raised beds and two L-shaped corner ones. Black railway sleepers form the sides of the beds, while inexpensive, galvanised metal, industriallooking dustbins make fantastic containers for tulips and alliums.
“In autumn I layer about 60 bulbs like a lasagne to create a full impact when they flower,” explains Arthur. “These containers, as well as my reclaimed cattle troughs, fit their surroundings nicely. We like to work with what we’ve got.”
Arthur has two greenhouses situated above the firing kilns, which have proved to be a handy plant-heating mechanism, although “it can be a bit of a hindrance when the wallflowers scream that they’re too hot!”
When Arthur arrived there were just a few roses, such as ruffled, deep yellow ‘Maigold’, dotted about, but as he loves roses so much he has installed a big bed of them, planting some beautiful bare-root Old English varieties last winter. Come summer it’ll be awash with rich colour and scent. Some of his favourites are velvetpurple ‘Tuscany Superb’ and scented ‘Charles de Mills’.
Over the past few weeks Arthur has also been doing some essential jobs, including gathering slender silver birch branches to use as staking, as well as teepee and arch material for climbing thunbergia and sweet peas, and supports for some of the tall, gangly blooms. Birch gives a more naturalistic effect than canes or plastic supports do. He’s also pinching out and sowing some more sweet peas, dividing the dahlia tubers that were lifted at the start of winter so they’re all ready for planting undercover in April, and deciding which annuals to grow this year. “I’m also painting and rewriting all the blackboards that let our visitors know what’s what,” he says.
Indeed, with the garden opening for visitors, March is a busy time for Arthur. It’s the month the garden springs to life, and when he starts breeding new chickens and ducks which, he believes, are integral to the garden’s atmosphere, bringing a little life and jollity to the plants. In fact, it was chickens that got him into studying gardening in the first place, when, in his mother’s garden, he began researching which plants they wouldn’t eat!
“Most of our hens are bantams, such as Pekins, Belgians and Wyandottes, but I also have Buff Cochins this year, which is exciting as they’re great big, ginger, plodding giants among the rest. Bantam ducks also come and go; I hatch them and they grow up in the garden over summer before seeking new homes with proper duck ponds.”
April sees a riotous parade of tulips – a signature plant for the garden. The large parrot-types feature mostly in all their frilly, diva-like beauty. Arthur’s favourites include ‘Blue Parrot’, ‘Victoria’s Secret’ and the species
T. whittallii. T Then the alliums take over, displaying their big bobbing balls of flowers. He likes ‘Purple Rain, ‘Purple Sensation’ and ‘Violet Beauty’ and, once they’ve gone over, they’re dried and sprayed gold to decorate the shop’s Christmas trees.
Most of Arthur’s flowers have an open structure with lots of nectar for bees. Phacelia mixes with tulips to provide for them, but even some of the dahlias are single-flowered.
“I love dahlias,” says Arthur, “but rather than filling the garden with earwig-loving double decoratives, I prefer the black-foliaged ‘bishops’, such as ‘Bishop of Llandaff’, and the newly-bred anemone types like ‘Totally Tangerine’ and ‘Blue Bayou’. They’re packed full of nectar and result in bees and butterflies filling the garden in late summer.” At the same time, cosmos flower their socks off, welcoming bees and butterflies in droves and delighting
visitors. “My favourites are the deep cherry-red ‘Rubenza’ and tutu-like ‘Double Click Cranberries’,” he says.
Foxgloves dazzle in early summer, before dahlias and cosmos take centre stage in late summer complemented by lovely foliage such as the annual grass panicum ‘Frosted Explosion’. “I like it for providing structure behind the flowers,” says Arthur, “but also because it’s easy to grow, and creates hazelike firework explosions above the blooms. It looks amazing lining a path edge or in a pot.”
It’s a beautiful garden, with carefully planned successional planting ensuring that there’s flowers to see for at least eight months of the year. Arthur’s always thinking up lots of new ways to delight the factory’s visitors. This year he’s growing lots of cheerful and prolific thunbergia, and looking forward to a water trough – planted up as a container pond last summer – full of exotic, pink water lilies.