Get stately gardens working
Is the National Trust missing an opportunity, asks Peter
VISITING a National Trust stately home in Berkshire after touring the house, we visited the coffee shop before taking a walk around the surrounding estate. The walk took us to a locked wall garden and the remnants of a one-time quite elaborate range of glasshouses, frames and an adjacent former orchard.
The below-ground sectional, cast iron boiler, 4in (10cm) cast-iron heating pipes and brick-built foundations to the greenhouses were all that remained. It made me wonder why the stately home was so well maintained, while the once impressive glasshouse unit should be left abandoned.
When we visit a building, the contents do not change; one visit puts everything on show. Yet a production garden is changing all the time and is of continuing interest through the seasons. The Lost Gardens of Heligan are a perfect example of just how popular Victorian and Edwardian fruit, salad and vegetable gardens can be. Further such gardens at stately homes would be good suppliers of fresh food for the coffee shops.
Head gardeners at estates in the past had to produce food and flowers all year round, so practical demonstrations of just how this was achieved would be useful today. A friend wanted a source of British grown flowers to make funeral floral tributes and, approaching local ‘Flowers From the Farm’ franchise, found they only operated from spring to autumn.
Hot beds in frames to grow pineapples at Heligan indicate that flowers could be grown to flower through the winter and early spring in hot bed-warmed vacant polytunnels. Freesias raised from seed sown in April, potted into 15-litre bag pots in summer to grow on in a cool place outside until housed in the autumn, will yield fragrant blooms for months. Dried off once they have finished flowering yields, the corms can then be planted again in the autumn.
Creating year-round working gardens in stately properties will generate visitors, create produce and educate the public.
■ Peter’s final column (above) arrived in the week of his passing. Next week, we will republish his thoughts on sphagnum moss renewal and environmental issues as a final tribute.
“Heligan is a perfect example of what can be done”