Garden of the Week
Snowcapped mountains and angled sunlight help to create an explosion of fiery colour to bring the season to a close at Bodnant
Probably best known for its world famous 54m (180ft) long laburnum arch, first planted in 1880 and taking two gardeners five weeks to prune it in January, Bodnant Garden (bod meaning dwelling and nant meaning valley: the dwelling in the valley) in North Wales is a fiery spectacle of foliage colours in autumn.
John Rippin has an idyllic job. As head gardener, he looks after one of the country’s finest collections of plants in a fabulous setting. It even looks a spectacle now. As John says: “The snowcapped mountains and lower-angled sunlight help to create a really dramatic end to the season, and act as the perfect stage set for autumn and winter performers.”
Having worked at several other renowned gardens, including Castle Drogo in Devon, Hidcote Manor in Gloucestershire, Heale House in Wiltshire and the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens in Hampshire, John is now extremely happy to be at Bodnant. “It’s the pinnacle of my career,” he says. “It combines all the things I loved about the other gardens, creating a complete ensemble. It’s the most challenging garden, but also the most rewarding.”
And despite now working further north than ever before, the climate isn’t one of his challenges. “It’s wetter, but not noticeably colder, thanks to being reasonably close to the coast and the Gulf Stream. There are lots of different microclimates to experiment with, too, thanks to the garden’s topography and layout. We do have to protect and move the more tender plants into a heated greenhouse, but we can plant out earlier in spring, and everything grows away well.”
The autumn colour reaches its pinnacle in the garden now, weather permitting! In November, the vast golden backdrop of native oaks and beeches come into their full autumn glory.
The towering conifers in The Dell are must-see trees now, especially early in the morning when the mist is rising off the river and the low light is filtered
through the trees to create a dramatically beautiful scene. Other highlights include autumn cyclamen, nestling in sheltered spots throughout the garden, and the fruit from a variety of trees and shrubs.
“Rose hips, spindle (euonymus) berries, purple callicarpa, malus and sorbus all glow like jewels,” John says. “And our star plants also include the hedges, all now neatly clipped, showing off the bones of the garden to perfection.”
Even some of the tender perennials that starred in the summer, such as cannas, dahlias and salvias, can still be in full flower if the garden hasn’t experienced hard frosts. These include some of John’s favourite ‘Bishop of Llandaff’ dahlias and orange-flowered cannas.
The ornamental grasses come into their peak season now, especially when backlit by the low autumn and winter sunlight. These include cortaderia, deschampsia, miscanthus and panicum. Grasses, especially when grown with herbaceous perennials, feature in some of John’s favourite plant combinations. These include Deschampsia cespitosa ‘Goldtau’ with Salvia
verticillata ‘Smouldering Torches’, Cirsium rivulare ‘Atropurpureum’, penstemon ‘Raven’ and Knautia macedonica. These make up a part of the new Canal Border planting scheme.
He also loves red-stemmed dogwoods planted with
Miscanthus sinensis and white-
stemmed birch, such as Betula
utilis ‘Ramdana River’, as seen in the Winter Garden. “The stark contrasting stems look great in winter, whether it’s on a small or a larger scale,” says John.
The Dell is awe-inspiring, containing examples of some of the tallest conifers in the UK, including giant redwoods. Bodnant features 40 Champion Trees of the British Isles – noted for their age, size and horticultural merit – and many of these are located in The Dell. Like lots of plants at Bodnant, many of these were initial introductions by the plant hunters coming back from their expeditions across the world.
The Winter Garden, which opened in 2013, is now maturing nicely and the plantings look very intense and compact. “It’s a dramatic setting with paths and rises and falls, and the sunlight here, when it’s showing off the garden’s treasures, is magical,” says John.
“One idea we’ve used here is layering, creating a naturallooking community of plants, using a tree, a mid-height shrub, a smaller shrub or perennial and then bulbs at ground level. This gives visual interest at different heights and helps the eyes to move around the garden”.
Like most gardeners, John and his team are involved in a wealth of autumnal jobs. “It’s a busy transitional time for us – moving from summer to winter – protecting tropical plants, such as bananas and tree ferns, and taking cuttings of other tender perennials for restocking the garden next year.”
Bulb planting is also done in October and November. “We’re too busy with other jobs in September to plant bulbs!”
Even visitors to the garden help with the 25,000 snowdrops that are planted every year. “They love it, as it’s like planting a memory. They then come back to see if they can find them and see how they’re doing!”
And there’s lots of ‘editing’ as John calls it – redesigning borders, moving, tweaking, and even removing plants that haven’t worked where they were planted. Then there’s the cutting back herbaceous that has gone over, tidying up the borders, turf work and clearing the leaves from the formal lawns and formal beds and making them into invaluable leaf mould.
John never used to like autumn and winter. “I used to get a sinking feeling when autumn started, but at Bodnant the autumn colour is fabulous, making the garden look just as dramatic as it does in spring. Which is saying something, since it’s a fairytale wonderland in spring.”