It would be a travesty if they were regarded as merely an add-on, for what they do is keep alive the plants and the growing skills that have made British gardens the envy of the world.
It may be the show gardens that steal the newspaper headlines: this year, we are promised a Bridgerton Garden sponsored by Netflix. One only hopes that the ghastly artificial wisteria that flowers all year round on the townhouse owned by that family in the television series is not a feature. Yes, the show gardens themselves offer inspiration (although their six-figure construction costs are eye-watering), but it is the expertise of specialist growers in the Great Pavilion that deserves every bit as much attention and praise.
Having attended every Chelsea since the late 1960s and presented the BBC coverage for 30 years, it has been interesting to observe and commentate onits development over the decades. Back in the 1970s, the same garden designers would pop up year after year Donald Farthing for the Daily Express, John Brookes for the Financial Times and Dougie Knight with his Lancastrian rock garden on what is still known as the Rock Garden Bank. Now, such creations are consigned to history --but perhaps only temporarily...
Esta historia es de la edición May 15, 2024 de Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
