SOME people garden in the same place all their adult lives. Others are restricted by their careers, but have gardening in their blood and are constantly planning for the time when they will settle and put down gardening roots. Chris Dodd and Liz Jolley are such a couple. As geologists, they spent 30 years travelling the world working in oil and gas before settling in 2016 at Low Crag, where the house and two-acre garden sit perched on a slope overlooking the Lyth Valley.
When they were students, the pair had acquired a copy of Violet Stevenson's book The Wild Garden, first published in 1985. It accompanied them on all their travels and its central proposition, that a garden has a responsibility to accommodate wild plants, insects, and other creatures, became gently embedded in their own gardening philosophy. Added to this, their encyclopedic knowledge of geology has given them a particular love for and understanding of the land.
The Lake District is one of England's most iconic natural landscapes. Some of its most beautiful parts are around the edges-mostly in what was the county of Westmorland: an unspoilt patchwork of small stone-walled sheep pastures and gentle rounded foothills with pockets of woodland. The Lyth Valley, which runs past Kendal and down to the coast at Morecambe Bay, is just such an area and it provides the enviable setting in which the garden of Low Crag has evolved.
If a garden is sustainable by virtue of being in close bond with its surrounding landscape, both physically and in its management, then Low Crag is a good example. The gabled house was carefully sited, in the lee of a curving bank that gives protection from prevailing westerlies, with views to the south and east along a broad sweep of the Lyth Valley and up to neighbouring fells. The garden itself merges into the surrounding sheep meadows.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June 29, 2022 من Country Life UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June 29, 2022 من Country Life UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Kitchen garden cook - Apples
'Sweet and crisp, apples are the epitome of autumn flavour'
The original Mr Rochester
Three classic houses in North Yorkshire have come to the market; the owner of one inspired Charlotte Brontë to write Jane Eyre
Get it write
Desks, once akin to instruments of torture for scribes, have become cherished repositories of memories and secrets. Matthew Dennison charts their evolution
'Sloes hath ben my food'
A possible paint for the Picts and a definite culprit in tea fraud, the cheek-suckingly sour sloe's spiritual home is indisputably in gin, says John Wright
Souvenirs of greatness
FOR many years, some large boxes have been stored and forgotten in the dark recesses of the garage. Unpacked last week, the contents turned out to be pots: some, perhaps, nearing a century old—dense terracotta, of interesting provenance.
Plants for plants' sake
The garden at Hergest Croft, Herefordshire The home of Edward Banks The Banks family is synonymous with an extraordinary collection of trees and shrubs, many of which are presents from distinguished friends, garnered over two centuries. Be prepared to be amazed, says Charles Quest-Ritson
Capturing the castle
Seventy years after Christian Dior’s last fashion show in Scotland, the brand returned under creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri for a celebratory event honouring local craftsmanship, the beauty of the land and the Auld Alliance, explains Kim Parker
Nature's own cathedral
Our tallest native tree 'most lovely of all', the stately beech creates a shaded environment that few plants can survive. John Lewis-Stempel ventures into the enchanted woods
All that money could buy
A new book explores the lost riches of London's grand houses. Its author, Steven Brindle, looks at the residences of plutocrats built by the nouveaux riches of the late-Victorian and Edwardian ages
In with the old
Diamonds are meant to sparkle in candlelight, but many now gather dust in jewellery boxes. To wear them today, we may need to reimagine them, as Hetty Lintell discovers with her grandmother's jewellery
