Travels in time Dan Pearson’s garden design for the Garden Museum creates a link between the work of present and past plant hunters
Dan Pearson’s design for the courtyard garden of London’s Garden Museum acts as a bridge between early plant hunters, such as the Tradescants, and their modern-day counterparts
Three generations of Tradescants lie entombed at the Garden Museum; two of them, John Tradescant the Elder and his son John Tradescant the Younger, were early pioneers in planthunting and horticulture. This place of pilgrimage for modern gardeners was once the churchyard of St Mary’s at Lambeth, a now de-consecrated church next to Lambeth Palace. The Garden Museum (formerly the Museum of Garden History) was created here in 1976 by John and Rosemary Nicholson, who mounted an effort to save the church after they had traced the Tradescants’ remains there. The current director of the museum, Christopher Woodward, has spearheaded a substantial renovation. As well as upgrading the interior of the building to accommodate more exhibits, a visitor café and pavilions for learning have now enclosed the Tradescants’ tombs in a small courtyard surrounded by modern, glass-fronted buildings.
The Tradescants’ legacy was previously commemorated with a knot garden designed by the late Dowager Marchioness of Salisbury. This was an exercise in historical verisimilitude, containing only plants known to the Tradescants in the 17th century. Her garden was much-loved; but in step with the major renovation of the museum the time seemed right to create a new garden. Dan Pearson accepted the challenge. “As a designer, I enjoy responding to the context of a site,” he says. Rather than offering a literal interpretation of garden history, Dan wanted to re-kindle the same sense of wonder that 17th-century visitors to the Tradescants’ nursery may have felt. “Part of my inspiration for this garden came from a number of people who might be considered the modern-day equivalents of the Tradescants,” he says. “I thought of people such as Roy Lancaster, Sue and Bleddyn Wynn-Jones [of Crûg Farm Nurseries], Dan Hinkley [Heronswood Nursery], Paul Barney [Edulis] and Nick Macer [Pan-Global Plants] and tried to incorporate a number of their discoveries into the planting.”
Dan is keen to point out Akebia longeracemosa, which he considers far superior to its commonly planted cousin Akebia quinata – “It is less vigorous, but its inflorescences are much longer” – as an example of how important it is that we continue innovating with our plant choices. Plant enthusiasts may marvel at a number of very recent discoveries, many of which are new to science and yet to be named, including a Schefflera from Crûg Farm and a magnificent tree dahlia from Pan-Global Plants. But it was also important to Dan that the garden should work on many other levels beyond mere eclecticism. Although some of the plant choices are consciously esoteric, and each plant is a treasure in itself, all of them take their place in a cogent, multi-layered composition.
Huge London planes, Platanus x hispanica, hang over the courtyard from the street, the root systems of which were preserved at great expense during the construction of the new buildings. They form the suggestion of an upper canopy, under which sits a shrub layer of distinctive character, while the soil beneath them is carpeted with plants both rare and common. Foliage contrasts drive the composition, which contains a cast of strong individual characters: Tetrapanax papyrifer ‘Rex’ with its huge felty leaves; paddle-leaved Canna x ehemanii; the slender, otherworldly columns of Equisetum hyemale; the jagged clumps of Astelia nervosa. A surreal sense of wonder and of the exotic prevails, as though ambling into a Rousseau painting.
The sense of otherness in the courtyard is enhanced by subtle visual cues. Although the surrounding buildings are entirely transparent, permitting a view right through from the street, the courtyard is paved with old bricks reclaimed from Lady Salisbury’s knot-garden, in contrast to the polished concrete of the café floor. The planting beneath the plane trees on the street side, although distinguished in its own right, plays a supporting role and does not compete with the intensity of atmosphere within. Once inside the courtyard, visitors are encouraged to step up to the tombs (the Tradescants’ bones are accompanied by those of William Bligh, captain of the Bounty, whose tomb also resides here), and immerse themselves in the planting, stepping on the churchyard’s old ledger stones, which are placed carefully to infiltrate the beds.
The bulk of the Tradescants’ famous collection formed the basis of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford where it remains, but a handful of relics have now returned to Lambeth. The small collection bespeaks a 17th-century traveller’s wonder at the endless bounty and variety of the natural world. Although the world seems a much smaller place these days, the wonder still persists for those who would look.
USEFUL INFORMATION
Address Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1 7LB. Tel 020 7401 8865. Web gardenmuseum.org.uk Open Sunday-Friday 10.30am-5pm, Saturday 10.30am-4pm. Admission £10.
Right A collection of foliage plants with strong personalities are carefully combined here to create an otherworldly atmosphere. Slightly left of centre, Canna x ehemanii supports gracefully nodding flowers with its huge, paddle-shaped leaves. An as yet unnamed Dahlia species collected by Nick Macer buttresses it to the right, with a swathe of the jumpseed Persicaria virginiana var. filiformis nestling against the tomb of Admiral William Bligh – the ill-fated captain of the Bounty.
It was important to Dan that the garden should work on many levels beyond mere eclecticism. Although some of the plant choices are consciously esoteric, and each plant is a treasure in itself, all of them take their place in a cogent, multi-layered composition
Foliage contrasts drive the composition, which contains a cast of strong individual characters: Tetrapanax papyrifer ‘Rex’ with its huge felty leaves; paddle-leaved Canna x ehemanii; the slender, otherworldly columns of Equisetum hyemale