Editor’s letter
In this issue of Gardens Illustrated we take the temperature of England’s gardens, with an eye to outstanding design and considered plantsmanship. From classic to city to coastal, what is the state of the nation from a horticultural point of view?
The garden at Prospect Cottage, Dungeness, is the former home of the late filmmaker Derek Jarman, and it has become something of a cultural icon, planted directly into the shingle and with views as far as the eye can see. A few minutes walk away, garden designer Emily Erlam has designed a garden that similarly celebrates the otherworldliness of the Romney Marsh landscape. In the crook of a house and influenced by Emily’s love of colour, almost everything planted there also grows wild in some form on the beach outside. Using shapes inspired by the surrounding landmass, as seen from the top of the Dungeness lighthouse, to inform the forms for the beds and paths, the planting has a loose expansiveness. Threads of yellow and bright-green Santolina chamaecyparissus and Achillea ‘Moonshine’ intertwine with blue and pink Amsonia tabernaemontana and
Persicaria affinis ‘Darjeeling Red’ to make an incredible space. At the end of a narrow lane in Devon bordered by hedgerows thick with wildflowers and large English oak, beech and ash trees is South Wood Farm. Designed by Arne Maynard, the garden at South Wood is in four parts that wrap around the hub of a 14th-century house; a yard, driveway and meadows, a front courtyard, a plum orchard with a serpentine path and a kitchen garden. Not only does the garden sit comfortably within the landscape but the landscape is very much part of the garden.
Following a trial at Parham House & Gardens, where he is head gardener, Tom Brown urges us to reconsider the genus Gladiolus in this month’s Plant Profile. After a huge amount of hybridising work gladiolus feel once again aligned with modern tastes. Forget brash and gaudy; as with tulips, the darker, subtler and more compact types have pushed their way to the fore. Tom describes 12 of the best to grow and how to use them in the garden.
I hope you enjoy the issue,