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A classic English country garden

IF YOU are looking for a truly classic and inspirational English garden to visit this summer then you would be well advised to see one of the country’s most popular and famous gardens: Sissinghurst Castle garden.

This much admired Kent garden was first created in the 1930s by poet and writer Vita Sackville-West and her husband, politician Harold Nicholson. The couple who were married in 1913, transformed the 10 acre site surrounding Sissinghurst Castle and in doing so set a new standard for design and horticulture which has not been matched in significance since. Sissinghurst is characterised by a series of contrasting areas or “rooms” which Nicholson laid out with structural hedging. These rooms were then designed and planted by Sackville-West in distinctive ways. One of the most interesting spaces which is still maintained and pleases visitors today is the White Garden; a garden populated with a wide range of white, grey and cream flowering plants.

  1. full bloom:   Billowing roses in the White Garden with the Elizabethan Tower in the background  at Sissinghurst Castle   Picture:  National Trust Photo Library

    full bloom: Billowing roses in the White Garden with the Elizabethan Tower in the background at Sissinghurst Castle Picture: National Trust Photo Library

Best enjoyed in mid-summer, the White Garden was designed to be viewed at night as well as in the day due to the reflective qualities of white foliage and flowers being particularly striking in the moonlight.

Although one of the most celebrated examples Sissinghurst was not original in its use of garden rooms; Sackville-West and Nicholson were influenced by another famous garden from this period which utilised smaller, defined and themed spaces.


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Hidcote Manor Garden was designed and nurtured from bare fields by Lawrence Johnston and was one of the most innovative and influential gardens of the early 20th century.

From 1907 the enigmatic and self-taught Johnston worked tirelessly on his Cotswold garden until his death in 1958. Hidcote’s garden rooms are formed by structural hedging of Yew, Beech, Box, Hornbeam and Holly. Sometimes this hedging is inter-woven to create a tapestry effect. Such is the significance and influence of this garden, which has inspired designers from around the world, that it was the first garden to be acquired by The National Trust who spent more than £3 million on its restoration.

The design of both Hidcote and Sissinghurst, like many other gardens of this time, developed out of the ideals and naturalistic style of the arts and crafts movement. Indeed there was an emerging overall philosophy that garden design was an art form in its own right.

William Robertson was an early and passionate advocate of a philosophical approach to garden style which was in line with the arts and craft movement. He promoted the “wild garden”, a naturalistic style of planting which utilised herbaceous perennials, and more hardy native specimens, which was a radical move away from the formal and tender, exotic bedding of the Victorian era. Robertson wrote a range of articles and books on his theories and these were very widely read – changing attitudes and influencing the style of gardens into modern times.

The two most famous names of early 20th century garden design are arguably those of Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens. He was an architect with an eye for detail and a good understanding of materials, she was a keen plants-woman, who having been an art student knew how to paint with plants. Together Jekyll and Lutyens were the most prolific garden designers of the time, having worked or consulted on hundreds of private gardens. The Jekyll trademark style was the use of herbaceous borders with year-round interest and perennials planted in drifts of colour. They also designed gardens around different areas, often planted for seasonal interest. These areas became the precursor to Hidcote and Sissinghurst’s garden rooms.

A visit to any arts and crafts garden will show just how forward thinking the designers of this time were and how contemporary their work still seems today.

Designers raid recycling bin for home decor


  • HomeGoods
    Artisans use paper in a number of creative ways, by folding, decoupaging or spooling it as in these vases.

  • 10 incredible topiary gardens around the world

    Topiary gardens are where lush greenery combines with structure and form for a magical result. Check out these amazing gardens, open to the public.

    • 1LEVENS HALL

      Levens Hall Gardens

      Located in England’s famously picturesque Lake District, Levens Hall boasts the world’s oldest topiary garden still surviving in its original design. Dating back to 1694, the topiaries reflect the late-17th-century taste for clipping trees and shrubs into abstract masses or geometric forms. Huge yew and beech hedges create garden rooms (state rooms, really), and parterres are punctuated with towering top-hatted shapes seeming to totter on a single trunk. The garden also includes an orchard, a nuttery for growing beechnuts and walnuts, and a bowling green.

    • 2DRUMMOND CASTLE

      Ray Biggs

      Drummond Castle and grounds were established in Perthshire, Scotland, in 1490. The tower house remains largely intact, but the gardens have been substantially changed over the centuries. Today there is some back-and-forth over the authenticity of the grounds (restored or re-created?), but most agree that they represent a grand 17th-century Scottish garden. The parterre, with its low clipped embroidery hedges, is in the shape of a large St. Andrew’s cross—geometric topiary forms being all the rage in the latter part of the 1600s. The regimentation of the layout is leavened with the addition of leaning topiary trees that lend an impish, Harry Potter–ish charm. These tipsy towers accentuate the long views from the garden, across verdant fields to distant hillsides.

    • 3MARQUEYSSAC

      Les Jardins de Marqueyssac

      After you have eaten all the foie gras and truffles you can during your visit to the Périgord region of France, consider a postprandial visit to Marqueyssac. The original garden was created in the 19th century and enhanced when a new owner, Julien de Cerval, acquired the property and made it his life’s work. In 1861, De Cerval began laying out a dreamy topiary garden on a hill high above the Dordogne River. He spent the next 30 years overseeing 150,000 boxwoods groomed to mimic the surrounding hills of the Dordogne Valley or, when viewed from above, the backs of grazing sheep. This might be the most relaxing garden in France. Even the garden’s website evokes twilight thoughts of peaceful slumber: Gaze at the count-the-sheep topiaries, or just listen to crickets and snipping shears.

    • 4LADEW GARDENS

      Ladew Gardens Staff Photos

      When you find yourself caught in the seemingly endless tedium of Interstate 95 around Baltimore, take an off-ramp to the wonderful topiary gardens created by Harvey S. Ladew. A bon vivant born during New York’s Gilded Age and a famous cutup, Ladew (1887–1976) purchased a Maryland farm, later developed 22 acres of it for a garden, and then decided to do all the landscaping and garden planning himself. A sporting gent, Ladew often rode to the hounds during visits to England, which inspired his not-to-be-missed topiary hunting scenes complete with fox and hounds bounding across lawns and horses and riders clearing fences in pursuit. In another garden area, Ladew’s huge oval swimming pool is surrounded by wavelike topiary hedges topped with green swimming swans. Ladew was able to infuse his rooted-to-the-earth sculptures with a sense of motion that is unique in this arena of garden design.

    • 5LONGWOOD GARDENS

      Longwood Gardens/L. Albee

      Located 30 miles from Philadelphia, Longwood Gardens was deemed by Geoffrey Jellicoe, founding president of the International Federation of Landscape Architects, to be “one of the truly outstanding American estates.” Established and organized largely by Pierre du Pont in the early 20th century, the property originally belonged to founder of the Province of Pennsylvania William Penn. Penn sold it to a fellow Quaker named George Peirce who shared his curiosity and reverence for plants and the natural world. The Peirce family established an arboretum there and when the land came up for sale in 1906, Du Pont purchased it largely to save the trees. After traveling the world and visiting many famous gardens, Du Pont settled down at Longwood to begin building his own extensive gardens. Influenced by European topiary art, he established a garden of yews clipped into geometric forms and the shapes of animals and even a table and chair. Today the garden contains more than 50 topiary trees.

      See all 10 gardens at Architectural Digest

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    Matteo Thun & Partners designs Garden Villas residential scheme in Venice

    Consisting of 6.400m2 of space, the Garden Villas offers 32 small patio houses, providing contemporary camping bungalows in natural surroundings.

    Genius Loci, which refers to a location’s distinctive atmosphere, or a “spirit of place,” is the guiding force for the botanical architecture layout and floor plan. The scheme has retained a number of pine trees to enforce the concept.

    Covered in larch-wood cladding, the façade protects the homes from sun and wind. Connecting the two areas, the terrace roof provides shade and protection from rain.

    Houses are developed facing each other with a courtyard, including a terrace with a shower, a lawn and original pine trees.

    Each house feature two bedrooms and a bathroom on the one side of the garden. The living area includes dining, kitchen, a TV corner and a bathroom.

    Wide, double-glazed window fronts, natural stone floors both in indoors and outdoors create connectivity between the interior and exterior.

    The building construction used wood-cement blocks, an environmentally-friendly material to provide thermal and acoustic insulation.

    Camping Marina di Venezia situated near Venice is developed in a 70-hectare park, which provides holiday home accommodation with various upscale amenities like Olympic-sized swimming pool, large children’s pool, water slides, restaurants, bars, and shops.

    Inventor from InventHelp Designs Convenient Herb-Garden Hydration System …


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    Inventor from InventHelp Designs Convenient Herb-Garden Hydration System (MTN-1580)

    PRWEB.COM Newswire

    Pittsburgh, PA (PRWEB) July 31, 2013

    Many people like to use fresh herbs on food whenever they’re available, but sometimes the time and effort needed to maintain an outdoor herb garden deters them from taking on the responsibility. This inspired an inventor from Fishkill, N.Y., to design an alternative method of caring for an herb garden both indoors and outdoors throughout the year.

    “I needed a watering system that not only was easy to use but saved me from having to water my plants on a daily basis and allowed for convenient transport between the indoors and outdoors,” he said.

    Ideal for organic-food enthusiasts, vegetarians and foodies, the new product, YEAR ROUND GARDEN, provides a convenient way to nourish and maintain an herb garden year-round. It eliminates the need to water each plant manually each day, which enables the user to leave for long periods without worrying. In addition, the system makes it easier to move the plants indoors or outdoors, and it customizes temperature and amounts for each plant. The inventor has created a prototype of his idea.

    The original design was submitted to the Manhattan office of InventHelp. It is currently available for licensing or sale to manufacturers or marketers. For more information, write Dept. 12-MTN-1580, InventHelp, 217 Ninth Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, or call (412) 288-1300 ext. 1368. Learn more about InventHelp’s Invention Submission Services at http://www.InventHelp.com.

    Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/InventHelp/Garden-Invention/prweb10974862.htm

    From the ground up: NewBo demonstrates universal design principles in gardens

    Have you ever seen a garden designed using universal design principles? Would you like to discover different varieties of delicious vegetables to grow in your own garden? The Learning Garden at NewBo City Market, 1100 Third St. SE, Cedar Rapids, offers visitors all that and more. Linn County Master Gardner and NewBo City Market volunteer Lori Klopfenstein describes the project and what you will find when you go for a visit.

    Q: What is the story on that garden project going on at the NewBo Market?

    A: The Learning Garden is a joint community outreach project between the NewBo City Market and Linn County Extension Master Gardeners. Located directly in front of the NewBo’s 5,000 gallon, rooster-emblazoned cistern, the purpose of the Learning Garden is to promote nutritional self-sufficiency by demonstrating the growing, harvesting and preparation of food crops. During the growing season, there will be a presentation on some aspect of food production technique each Saturday at 10 a.m. at the garden site (a list of upcoming presentations is at the end of this article).

    This year the garden plan has focused on plants that are included in the Slow Food USA’s “Ark of Taste,” varieties of food crops typically grown in our Midwestern region that are at risk of becoming extinct. (For more detailed information on the Ark of Taste, go to Slowfoodusa.org.) Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah has been the generous sponsor of this year’s Learning Garden plant materials. At the moment, you can find squash, corn, ground cherries, tomatoes, peppers, beans and watermelon all trying to make up for lost growing time in three of the eventual five raised beds that will comprise the 2013 Learning Garden. (For detailed information on each of the plants being grown in the Learning Garden this year, go to newbocitymarket.com/garden.)

    The Learning Garden was designed using the principals of universal design, a design philosophy that strives to make any space accessible to the greatest possible range of individuals. To this end, it consists of five raised masonry beds — raised for access by people of all heights, as well as those in chairs, and masonry for durability and to provide a working ledge. Three of the five beds are finished at this time, with the remaining two to be finished in time for cool season planting. Each bed is 4-feet-by-26-feet long and roughly 2 1/2 feet high. There is a base layer of gravel in each for drainage and the remaining 18 or so inches is compost. Before this area is considered complete, there will be some sort of level, permeable path laid between each bed. The beds are spaced 36 inches apart from each other. This construction project has been executed by volunteers.

    The Learning Garden is a work in progress. Plans for 2014 include a continuation of the raised bed curriculum, a permanent compost demo site, hops grown on the “living wall” structures already installed near the Learning Garden (to subsequently be brewed for a NewBo Market beer), and “living tunnels” for the playground area, which is also under development. Master Gardener demonstrations each Saturday in August will include: Judy Stevens this week; Debbie Main on Aug. 17 and Beulah Dvorak on Aug. 24. Taste the garden bounty at an event at 10 a.m. Aug. 31.

    Events

    • Koi for a Cause, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. today at Morley’s gardens, 6702 Spring Cove Ct. NE, Cedar Rapids. Free with donation of a non-perishable food item for the HACAP Food Reservoir or monetary donation to Eastern Iowa’s food drive to be Free From Hunger.
    • “Visit to the Farm,” 4 p.m. today at 825 Abbe Hills Rd., Mount Vernon. The event, sponsored by Iowa Learning Farms and Practical Farmers of Iowa, will focus on urban conservation, sustainable vegetable production and practicing conservation on farmland to improve water quality. Free. Contact: (515) 232-5661, Practicalfarmers.org.
    • From Seed to Table, 1 to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday at First Congregational Church, 361 17th St. SE. Linn County Master Gardener Barb Wing will follow a growing season from planting to menu planning. Get tips for favorites and new varieties and how to adapt to a very dry growing season.
    • NewBo Learning Garden Speaker, 10 a.m. Saturday at NewBo City Market, 1100 Third St. SE, Cedar Rapids. Linn County Master Gardener Judy Stevens will give practical advice and answer questions about vegetables. Free.

    Questions on gardening, land use or local foods? Contact Michelle Kenyon Brown, community ag programs manager at Linn County Extension, mkenyonb@iastate.edu.

    Capel Manor garden design student wins Provender Garden competition

    By Sarah Cosgrove
    Thursday, 01 August 2013

    A garden design student has won a Provender Nurseries-sponsored competition to design a show garden at Capel Manor College.

    Second year Capel Manor diploma student Esra Parr has been will now revamp one of the 60 show gardens at the specialist college and visitor attraction in Enfield north London.

    The competition brief specified that the planting must only involve varieties not already grown at Capel Manor and be vibrant and interesting, with a strong focal point or centre piece.

    Students could only select plants starting with eight letters of the alphabet: A, E, L, S, T, V, W and Y.

    Judges from Capel Manor and Provender Nurseries chose Parr’s design because of “the rhythm created via planting throughout the garden and the innovative, interesting and varied plant palette.”

    Parr, who previously worked in television and has started a garden design business since her studies began, said: “The knowledge I’ve gained from the training is what’s given me the confidence to open my own business. It’s been a steep learning curve, despite my background in design and so winning the competition has cemented my belief in my abilities. I feel like I am a great advert for the saying that it’s never too late.”

    Once Parr’s Provender Garden is planted it will remain at the site for the next three years.

    Capel Manor Gardens attracts around 60,000 visitors per year.

    My Design – Houghton Lodge Herb Garden

    02 August 2013

    Garden Feasts

    We turned to the experts to create our magical moments with products and accessories that exude both creativity and realness. Into the mix, we threw a piece of outdoor furniture selected from the Richard Schultz line from Knoll. Each designer had to incorporate either the Petal End Table, Topiary Bench, or Fresh Air Chair from the collection into their setting.

    Our lucky break came with Rhode Island based garden designer Louis Raymond, who offered one of his on-going projects, a lovely urban backyard in Providence, Rhode Island, that proved the ideal one-stop location for our three planned scenarios. To Raymond’s gardener’s lunch, Erin Heath and Rose Mattos, floral and event designers from Foret Bespoke Floral Installation Design in Somerville, Massachusetts, added a picnic in the park, and interior designer extraordinaire Kate Coughlin of Boston, pulled out all the stops for festive formal dinner. All three are a feast for the eyes.

    Here are some candid photos from the day, enjoy!
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    A gardening world of success for Sharon Hockenhull

    A gardening world of success for Sharon Hockenhull

    By Angela Kelly

    GREEN FINGERS Sharon Hockenhull at RHS Tatton Park in 2011

    AWARD-winning Bolton garden designer Sharon Hockenhull’s success has grown organically from some unusual roots.

    The 39-year-old mother of two from Harwood didn’t initially train to be a landscape gardener but was eventually able to marry a love of growing things with a graphic design career that helped her create her own thriving green business.

    Now, she has just completed a stint at the BBC Gardener’s World Live event at Birmingham’s NEC after coming in the top four of a competition to create a garden, winning a silver gilt RHS medal to add to the two other RHS medals she has already achieved with her gardening talents.

    Sharon’s story goes back to her Billinge home where gardening always fascinated her. This interest remained through her years at Golborne High School and when she was an English student at Manchester University. “I loved growing plants and always had lots of pots with greenery and flowers,” she said.

    At this point, the thought of making a career out of her interest in gardening hadn’t occurred to Sharon and she embarked on a working life in publishing, copywriting and marketing which led her into graphic design. “It was really only then that I began to realise the possibilities of garden design as a job,” she said.

    In 2006, Sharon started her own business with garden maintenance for clients which grew into garden design and landscaping. Her imaginative skills and knowledge have not only pleased a variety of individual clients but have won her official national recognition as well.

    In 2009, she won her first silver gilt medal for a fruit-garden at the RHS Tatton Show. Then in 2011, she won another silver medal in the “back to back” category of small garden exhibits at the RHS Tatton Show. For this she devised a special garden entitled “Embrace” to mark the 40th birthday of St Ann’s Hospice at Little Hulton.

    The secret of Sharon’s success is not only listening to exactly what clients want but also taking into account all the colour, height and texture that give each garden that enjoyable, award-winning standard. She applies the same principles she offers clients to the garden of her Bramhall Avenue home where she cultivates plums, apples and raspberries alongside the roses and perennials, and also keeps chickens.

    “The chickens mean that the garden sometimes has to change,” as the chickens take a liking to a particular plant and I have to change it,” said Sharon.

    She met her future husband Nick at university — he teaches at Thornleigh College — and the couple have two children, seven- year-old Isabel and 10-year-old Jude. So is being green-fingered hereditary?

    “Well, they do help me on the allotment and can grow things from seeds,” added their mum.

    For Sharon, gardening is still an enjoyable and rewarding job and she believes that people are now appreciating their own gardens more and more.

    She added: “They’re our own little oasis, aren’t they? And the Summer weather has helped us appreciate them more than ever.”

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