Brilliant blossoms

The collection of magnolias begun by a former president of the RHS is being continued by his daughter in the arboretum at Llanover in Monmouthshire, reveals Stephen Anderton

- Stephen Anderton

IF someone asks ‘Have you seen the Great Whites?’ you must either be in shark-infested waters or a woodland garden. In this case, it’s the latter, at Llanover House just outside Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, the home of Elizabeth and Ross Murray. The Great Whites in question are Prunus ‘Tai-haku’, Great White cherries, planted in a powerful line along the outside of the walled garden. As do the sharks, they take your breath away.

Even so, it is the 43 varieties of magnolia that makes Llanover so remarkable through the early spring. The house does not nestle in a sheltered Cornish valley—in fact, as it sits on the level flood plain of the River Usk running down to Newport, it is no stranger to frosts early or late—but there are species that flower right at the beginning of the magnolia season, when the flowers are highly susceptible to frost damage. Indeed, southeast Wales is known to be good magnolia country; Cardiff is famous for them.

For the core of its magnolia collection, Llanover has to thank Mrs Murray’s father Robin Herbert, former president of the RHS, who lived there from 1960 to 1999 and was effectively the maker of the arboretum. It runs in a long line past one side of the house, following the course of the stream Rhyd-y-meirch, which, in the 1790s, was developed into a kind of informal water garden with simple bridges, cascades, ponds and a circular walled space from which to view it. The whole area now covers 18 acres.