What makes a great garden? It’s a big question. But when I think of my true favourites, the thing they have in common is a personal vision, endlessly pondered over, enriched and revised over time.
There are the likes of Charlotte Molesworth’s garden at Balmoral Cottage in Kent, its disarmingly informal, lighter-than-air topiary, a decades-long labour of love. Or Andy Salter’s plot not far away, a passion project of strong colours and textural contrasts around a storybook cabin, enveloped by an expanding meadow. Salter has arranged his working life in TV to accommodate maximum gardening time. My neighbour Fred’s terraced-house yard is up there too; a postage stamp he toils in most days, impossibly stuffed with dahlias on begonias and chrysanthemums. In short, my favourite gardens are those that are adored.
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Recently, I’ve begun gardening in a different realm – ‘high-end’ private gardens. These spaces, designed and planted at substantial initial expense, pose the question of how to imbue that well-loved atmosphere – the spiritual life, if you like, beyond the outdoor sofa – when their owners will rarely, because of time, expertise or inclination, be physically involved in their ongoing care.
A great garden requires an ongoing relationship: unlike a glossy kitchen extension, it mustn’t be seen as finished at the point of handover.
As the gardener, you’re at a great advantage if the landscape designer was wise enough to realise and impart to the client that an important part of a garden’s beauty lies not only in regular care, but in its mutability. Nothing is more stultifying (and futile) than attempting to preserve a scene in stasis for years on end.
Sarah Price, whose projects I’ve been lucky enough to care for, understands the importance of dynamism. Designing in time as well as space, her layered, ever-changing plantings gently demand nuanced interventions from the gardener. It’s no coincidence that she is a keen experimental gardener in her own right. Among the Chelsea Flower Show’s smoke and mirrors, her romantic 2023 show garden of ochre-washed walls and off-coloured annuals felt like a real garden with soul. What moved me most was the midweek pile of deadheaded Benton irises discreetly deposited under a table. Far from shattering the illusion, this confirmed the sense of a gardener’s garden.
‘Low-maintenance’ schemes have long been a key selling point for designers, but the term can be misleading. Place maker Jo McKerr distinguishes between ‘low maintenance’ and ‘low intervention’ – which does not mean a way of gardening that is easier, or even less-time consuming, despite the absence of to-do lists and prescribed maintenance regimes. Dan Pearson is equally unequivocal when it comes to the importance of the right people taking on his projects. He believes the Tokachi Millennium Forest in Japan wouldn’t be what it is without the knowledge, application and eye of departing head gardener Midori Shintani.
‘Low-maintenance’ schemes have long been a key selling point for designers, but the term can be misleading.
Hearteningly, there’s a growing breed of sensitive gardeners-cum-designers who see little hierarchy between the two, among them Matt Wright, Marc O’Neill, Susanna Grant and Charlie Chase. As Charlie says, “Whereas typically a garden designer would look at planting as the end of a job,I see this as the beginning of a relationship that can only deepen with continued focus, care and risk-taking.” In other words, gardening. Another garden maker I know charges the same day rate for practical horticulture as design work – an approach that’s almost unheard of. But why? Yes, designers are likely to possess qualifications and skills gardeners lack – but the reverse is also true.
I’ve lost count of the times I’ve explained what I do and been met with surprise that I’m ‘just a gardener’, from people in the industry who really should know better. Many who choose this career condemn themselves to precarious existences. In common with other caring professions, hands-on gardening has long been undervalued.
A great garden requires an ongoing relationship: unlike a glossy kitchen extension, it mustn’t be seen as finished at the point of handover. Aftercare should never be an afterthought. This may mean shifting the balance so that garden owners expect to invest less in the initial design and more in their gardener, as well as shifting the conversation so it is understood how crucial it is to have a good one.
No matter how talented the designer, a great garden requires time to achieve its potential. Time, and a gardener trusted to think deeply and creatively about it over the long term, experimenting and bringing out its magic. In essence, to love it.