On 2013-02-14 23:26:43 +0000, The Original Jake said:

On Thu, 14 Feb 2013 22:16:03 +0000, David Hill
wrote:

Watched a bit of this Prog on BBC 4 last night.
That's a garden I wont be going back to.
I remember it in its early days, well the 50's when if you were visiting
by car you parked at the side f the road, you went in under the archway
and left your donation on the trestle table that also had some plants
for sale.
It was a very good domestic garden that was in the throws of developing,
I sure I remember the white garden being planted, the lime walk was one
of the features.
At the time we lived just outside Hastings so it was in our visiting range
Now it looks like a large commercial venture.
David @ the sunny side of Swansea (or is that the moon?)

One feeling I often have when it comes to National Trust gardens is
that the powers that be seem fixated with the ethos of preservation as
is. In the case of a building, they may have a point though if that
building was still lived in, and unfettered by the NT thinking, the
decor would change a bit, the furniture would change a bit and so on.
There is an element of "unreal", albeit countered by the preservation
of "history".

But gardens are different. They change, develop. Christopher Lloyd
regularly changed his garden, sometimes for the better, sometimes for
the worse. But it changed, it developed and that process goes on. New
plant varieties become available and we experiment with them. How many
of us can say that our garden today is almost exactly as it was 10
years ago?

The NT seems to apply its preservation thinking to gardens too and, I
think, this is a big mistake. I guess that in years to come, when
climate change dictates that we adapt our gardens to the climate or to
other factors, the NT will still be trying to maintain massive beds of
impatiens walleriana and ignoring the "disease" that kills them off.

Most NT gardens seem tired to me. Now they've taken over Dyffryn
Gardens, here in South Wales, I hope they won't call a halt to the
process of regeneration that's gone on over the last 10+ years. Whilst
some may say those gardens are "institutionalised" following years of
local authority rule, a lot has happened there and it would be a great
pity if they suddenly became frozen in time.

And I guess that Vita is turning in her grave, probably getting dizzy!

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling from the East End of Swansea Bay where sometimes
it's raining and sometimes it's not.

The NT doesn't have gardens as its top priority, I suppose. The
buildings are their first concern. I've often wished the NT and RHS
could get together and help each other out, as well as those of us
who'd like to see great gardens at NT properties and buy RHS plants!
However, all too often NT gardeners are constrained by comparatively
small budgets, the man who's head gardener ends up doing masses of desk
work instead of gardening and 6 plants are trying to do the work of 12.
That said, the previous head gardener did a fabulous job at Coleton
Fishacre about 3 years ago, so we must go back and take another look at
that. And the NT is restoring the 5th Countess's garden at Osterley
Park, so it's obviously prepared to spend the money, if it's going to
complement the need to raise money to maintain the building. But as
far as I'm aware - and you may know better - they tend to take the view
that the property has to be maintained as it was at some fixed point in
its heyday. Iow, when a famous person lived there, some interesting
historical occurrence took place or something of that sort.
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk