Gardens

Trim and Propper

| Gary Webb

Today I’ve brought forward and rewritten an article originally created whilst working at a garden in Northamptonshire, called Sulgrave Manor. My aim now as then, is to pay homage to the formal garden hedge, an often overlooked feature that in my opinion deserves more understanding and appreciation. After all, given that much of our land is laced with hedgerows of one form or another, is it that we’ve grown to see hedges simply as dividers of territory? 

If like many other garden folk you already have a longstanding respect for a good garden hedge, not just those ones between gardens but those placed within gardens themselves, you’ll understand exactly my angle of approach to the subject. If however you’re a ‘flash the trimmer over and move on’ kind of gardener, and don’t wish to hedge your bets by reading to the end, (pardon the pun) then I wish you well on your own hedge trimming journey of discovery; farewell my friend.

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Growth Potential – Down at the Allotment Garden

| Gary Webb

Think allotment gardens are just about food and flowers? Think again! Thoughts on an afternoon session of growth on the allotment.

Cabbage whites out on manoeuvres,

Get through those nets if you can,

Sunlight is bright despite all this cloud,

Trimmer blades rattle along a hedge in the distance,

Beans are climbing their canes, at last.

–

A welcome breeze sways taller stems back and forth,

Spins now and then two little sun bleached windmills,

Raises goose bumps on my now resting arms,

Maybe later, rain will come after all.

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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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Writing on Gardens and Nature

| Gary Webb

I might have sunk into the depths for a while there, but I’m back now and getting into my old writing ways, on gardens and nature.

If you gave me the stage with an open mic, words would probably fade and I’d likely find myself with little to say of consequence. However, if you gave me a scribbling stick and asked me to write something down, I’d likely be back to you in no time at all asking for more paper, and a pencil sharpener. Writing does something for me, and over time it’s grown to the point where I couldn’t imagine living without it in some shape or form. Lately however I have needed to step back a little.

Recovering from illness, I’ve hardly found myself not able to write for a few weeks now, and I have genuinely missed it, indeed my last post back in April took quite a while to pull together. Feeling under parr has made it

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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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Morning Chair

| Gary Webb

Sitting soon after day break in my living room, freshly opened curtains reveal an autumnal garden in the midst of change. The soft lawn is lending a carpet-like neatness to the open central space, and shabby margins wrap around the garden like a thick fluffy scarf. Welcome to the view from my morning chair.

Halloween pumpkins continue to scowl from just beyond the window, glistening from yet another night of rain. On the ground nearby, a cluster of silver leaved lamb’s-ear plants sit quietly in their now soggy holding pots, and a baby maple already bares its wintry frame from a wooden tub. A lush lawn, some well-stocked borders, a sprinkling of trees and a mug of hot coffee: what more could I want for this moment?

It’s a grey morning, but as a pendulum swings audibly in the room daylight incrementally grows, casting light on the ever-changing outdoors. In the garden, foliage light-green

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Autumn Is…

| Gary Webb

As if by magic we find ourselves in autumn again and preparing for the inevitable changes that come to challenge our seasonal preferences. Some feel the loss of a memory-filled summer deeply, disliking the inevitable tumble towards chilly days and long dark nights, whilst some, me included, don’t begrudge the tumbledown season at all, in fact quite the opposite.

I feel the natural landscape craves the autumnal change like dry oars need water, or thirsty bees need nectar. Indeed if plants could talk, I’d imagine them right now whispering wearily of how they’re needing this slower more restful time, after their long and somewhat arduous season of growth. This year alone they’ll invariably have seen off extreme temperatures, drought, flooding and attacks from predators, so surely they’re due for some rest and recuperation. In many ways I’m attuned to their situation, feeling mindfully at one with gardens and the great outdoors, although despite ambition, I doubt if paid ‘hibernation leave’ will ever come to be.

Spring and summer seasons for me, as for many folk in the horticultural world will often have been long and challenging after negotiating the fastest growth periods, new season or ongoing projects, and numerous progress checking delays – holidays included. Last year for example in 2022, drought impacted so many places and

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Hugging the house and garden

| Gary Webb

There aren’t many in the gardening world who’ve not heard of Munstead Wood, the former home of gardening icon Gertrude Jekyll VMH (1843 – 1932). As a place largely off the garden visiting trail, it’s more than a little charged with mystery and intrigue. It was something of a treat then to be given the opportunity recently to visit, and I couldn’t help but put pen to paper to record my experience.

After a warm welcome and much discussion, I stepped from some worn flagstone steps beside the house to explore the garden. Venturing across the soft moss-filled lawn I turned about, looking carefully to really understand the place, and began to see that it wasn’t indeed all about the garden.

Edwin Lutyens’ Munstead Wood
© Gary Webb 2023

Cut into the hillside terrace before me was a large and quietly confident local stone house, rooted as firmly as the trees all around. It was a long handsome building of simple lines and shapes which brought control to the predominantly leafy scene; it was the Lutyens architectural masterpiece I’d looked forward to seeing.

The house was longer than tall, an aspect emphasised by parallel runs of white edged leaded windows nestled in silvery oak frames. Up above though, a pair of tall chimney stacks contrasted, adding bold vertical strokes for balance. The structure for me

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