Gertrude Jekyll

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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Trust In The Gardener

| Gary Webb

Many people have ownership or responsibility for an outside area, a conservatory or balcony. The idea though of actively working one of those spaces into a garden, of cultivating plants or improving that space does not always come easily.

“I’m not a gardener,” and “I know nothing about plants,” are statements I’ve heard many times, and it’s often through a fear of failing, of being judged or maybe, of having a space for growing but not knowing how to approach it.

Time’s well spent in the garden….

Now I’m not for a second going to judge or wag a green finger of disgust, because everyone is their own person, in their own unique situation and gardening shouldn’t be a forced activity. Indeed, gardening actively for some people can be next to impossible.

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Gertrude Jekyll Garden

'Bumps' Gertrude Jekyll
| Gary Webb

Last week an opportunity presented itself to visit one of those gardens that has sat on my must-see garden bucket list for a very long time. Historically speaking, it is an important garden for being planted many moons ago by none other than renowned planting designer Gertrude Jekyll. However, it’s not the garden alone that made this visit special but the location in which it was born. I shall explain…

Jekyll walled garden at Lindisfarne, in winter.
Winter structure in the walled garden at Lindisfarne. ©Gary Webb 2018

This relatively compact walled garden accompanies a castle on the tidal island of Lindisfarne, Northumberland. Continue reading →