Starry, starry light
The Salutation Garden, Sandwich, Kent
Jacky Hobbs explores the exotic dahlia collection at The Salutation Garden in Kent
A fascinating blend of heritage and modernity, the garden around a famous Lutyens house is, these days, home to a burgeoning collection of dahlias and other exotics. Jacky Hobbs explores
‘Although Arts-andcrafts garden style rests on our shoulders, it’s not a noose around our necks’
IT could be thought a travesty to uncover a neglected garden designed by Edwin Lutyens in 1912 and then choose to deviate wildly from historical planting. However, the restoration of The Salutation’s garden, secreted in the heart of historic Sandwich on the Kent coast, successfully marries the listed heritage grounds (Country
Life, September 13, 1962 and September 1, 1983) with spirited, contemporary planting.
Following a late-20th-century period of neglect that affected the house and its grounds, the head gardener, Steven Edney, undertook the task of a partial restoration, following months of meticulous research into piles of historic records and architectural plans.
The garden’s disciplined geometric layout of straight lines and cross-axes was designed by Lutyens but, in this instance, his famous plantswoman accomplice, Gertrude Jekyll, was not involved. As for the original Edwardian plantings, only overgrown trees and yew hedges have survived earlier moments of neglect. In the absence of hard evidence as to what else was grown, Steven has endeavoured to ‘step outside the shadow of Gertrude Jekyll and definitive Arts-and-crafts cottage-garden style. Although it rests on our shoulders, it’s not a noose around our necks’.
The Grade I-listed property, built on the site of an old public house and market garden, was completed by Lutyens in 1912 for three bachelor brothers, William, Henry and Gaspard Farrer, as their country retreat. He carved the 3½ acres of gardens ranged around the house into a series of interconnecting geometric rooms, divided by thick yew hedging.
In 1945, on the death of the last surviving brother, the house and garden witnessed mixed fortunes, changing hands several times and entering a period of neglect.
In 2003, enchanted by its possibilities, Dominic and Stephanie Parker bought the house and its then virtually impenetrable garden. Although focused on restoring the house, they appointed Steven to untangle the garden and reveal the legacy of the Lutyens layout.
He recalls that 150 tons of rubbish were removed from the vegetable garden alone
and, as the layers of leaf litter were peeled away, Lutyens’s cambered, red-brick pathways, which criss-cross the garden, reappeared. The original trees were tamed and yew hedging was chiselled back to its original lines. Despite a serious setback in 2013, when a tidal surge flooded the gardens wiping out 15,000 plants, nine of the original trees, two massive hedges and all the glasshouses, the garden layout is now recognisably restored once more.
Fired up with his own love for exotic plants, and with a nod to Miss Jekyll’s verve for colour, Steven has drawn inspiration from one of the hot-hued themes at her own Munstead Wood, where a 50ft-long border spilled with vibrant summer flowers. The Salutation’s Long Border mirrors their fiery colours, but in bold, somewhat exotic plant- ings. ‘This garden’s free-draining, alluvial soil suits the exotics, which overwinter outdoors here,’ he explains.
Part of it is a vibrant, towering jungle of bananas and bamboos, palms, seed-fringed grasses, stripey cannas Bethany and Durban and fiery dahlias, such as Mel’s Orange Marmalade and Lady Darlene. Larger exotics include huge-leaved Tetrapanax
papyrifer Rex and towering Arundo donax Peppermint Stick.
The main borders flank the original Grass Walk: a turf path margined by long, rectangular beds that stretch away from the east front of the house. Here, various roses and Solanum laxum Album wind around a series of evenly distanced metal obelisks; statuesque artichokes and delphiniums parade through the borders, apparently without support.
An extensive collection of Echinops— some 20 varieties—and more than 70 different Plectranthus are among the amassed collections spread through the floral areas of the garden. At summer’s end, a cacophony of dahlias and colour-saturated asters enliven their spent and skeletal bedfellows.
‘I can coax some into bloom from June and others persist to December’s frosts
Steven’s obsession with dahlias dates back to his childhood, when he helped his grandfather, whose six-acre, commercial cut-flower farm was located a few miles further up the coast, at Broadstairs. Together, they bred and introduced Dahlia Weddington Pink, a cultivar that now flourishes (together with some 350 other dahlia varieties) in The Salutation’s grounds. ‘It’s hard to conjure up a flower of greater generosity,’ he observes. ‘I can coax some into bloom from June and others persist right through to December’s first frosts.’
Dahlias appear in all of the mixed borders. A further collection, of exclusively darkleaved varieties, grows among ripening produce in the vegetable garden and new cultivars are put to the test annually in a 130ft-long trial bed.
As a connoisseur of the genus, Steven recommends Magenta Star, which he calls simply ‘first class’, Classic Rosamunde, which ‘looks more like a Japanese anemone than a dahlia’, and Hadrian’s Sunlight, another dark-leaved must-have.
Following a long-standing breeding programme, Steven is on the brink of introducing a new series of his own dahlias. The Salutation, formerly a family country bolthole and now a stylish boutique hotel, is also making waves on the horticultural scene.
The Salutation Gardens, Sandwich, Kent (01304 619919; www.the-salutation.com). A dahlia festival will be held in the garden on September 16 and 17, 10am–5pm