Editor’s letter
Jimi Blake’s brilliant, beautiful and experimental garden at Hunting Brook is a quirky mix of foliage and flowers. Hunting Brook is an eight-hectare chunk of up-and-down woodland and meadow carved out from Jimi’s family farm in Co. Wicklow where he grows a notable collection of wild-collected plants as well as thrilling combinations of shrubs, trees and perennials.
In this issue Jimi shares four inspirational planting ideas with colour and architecture at the fore that capture the dynamism of Hunting Brook, including a combination of bold-leafed cannas, Ensete ventricosum and Angelica sylvestris with long-flowering perennials, and a plan combining small trees and woody shrubs, such as Pseudopanax crassifolius, with verbascum, kniphofias, agastache and grasses.
Tim Richardson takes the first look at the new garden designed by Oehme, van Sweden for the American Museum & Gardens at Bath. Considered the American voice of the New Perennial Movement, their perspective is a bolder and more robust one than the European look, using a more minimal palette in broad strokes. The garden is based on the concept of a circular walk, inspired by Thomas Jefferson’s historic garden at Monticello.
As gardeners we are perhaps more aware than most that small changes can make a big difference. With this in mind, in this issue we highlight the British nurseries that are taking strides towards an organic approach. The benefits of organic methods of gardening when growing things to eat seems obvious, yet choosing organically grown, ornamental plants not only results in a remarkable increase in the biodiversity of our own gardens but is also better for the planet.
I hope you enjoy the issue,