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A Winter Walled Garden

| Gary Webb

I find myself sat under a large triangular shelter, built snugly into the southern corner of a three-sided walled garden open to visitors, known as Baddesley Clinton. In their down-season dress, ornamental flower borders line three of the garden’s walls, sprinkled here and there with red bows bringing a little Christmas cheer. The sky is fixed grey and moody, and after warming myself with lunch in the bright bustling café, this spot seemed as good a place as any other to sit awhile and write.

A Box shrub wrapped in a bright red Christmas bow, situated in the walled garden at Baddesley Clinton. Lawns and fruit trees beyond, and a moody clouds up above.
A little Christmas cheer, at Baddesley Clinton. Image: Gary Webb.

Built primarily as a shady summer retreat, I’m certain that in the heat of summer, this shelter offers cool respite for visiting guests, and for working gardeners too. In this shade, time served timbers and darkened joists support a thatched mossy roof, under which a tangled bird’s nest rests in the shadows; just like me. Red bricks line the floor,

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A Dream Garden

| Gary Webb

There is a place, where one glorious garden space after another can be found hidden behind tall foliage covered walls. The garden is the sum of many parts, each one offering a picture-perfect scene: a sunken pool with a cherub here, an ancient cold bath over there, and across the way, beyond an old sundial, old orchard trees grow, and bees float poetically above rich meadow grass.

At its heart and wrapped all around an evocative Tudor house this garden’s presence is delivered, unconditionally, through first-rate cultivation. Traditional flower borders grow deep and delicious, terraces are packed with perennials and tender exotics, and golden grasses gently

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Morning Garden

| Gary Webb

A valuable first hour of the day watching the garden and day unfold.

Being the first to awake, I pull back the living room curtains to let in the light, and reveal the garden. Sitting with a mug of hot water and taking time to appreciate some waking time alone, I relish the fact that for a while at least, all is calm. All is calm, that is, but for the occasional airplane and birdsong, both effortlessly travelling through air, brick, and glass.

Outside, bright sunshine splits the early morning garden clear in two, two thirds to the left is bathed in warming light, the remaining third looking somewhat cooler in shade. It’s a superbly serene beginning to the day, and as I sit quietly observing, blocking out the day ahead and thinking over the work that’s gone into the garden thus far, I begin to write.

Cloud pruned box just outside my window. Gary Webb

The scene before the picture window presents a young, maturing garden, green mostly and bordered by a fence recently painted black. As a composition, the garden’s content has been laboured over for some time, ideas initially

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A Feel for Gardens

| Gary Webb

Do you find that some gardens are so large and complicated that it’s hard to really connect with them? Occasionally I find this to be the case, and often it leaves me feeling a little cold towards them. That’s not to say I don’t always like what I see, it’s just that some places can be so extensive or so busy and involved, they’re a challenge to understand.

Now, this isn’t such a problem if I’m simply looking to enjoy a garden’s ambience and spirit, and if that is the case I just breeze around a garden and enjoy it for what it is. Indeed, some gardens which initially seem hard to read can become even more

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