IT’S all about go big or go home.’ Head gardener Andrew Cannell is introducing the new planting at the American Museum & Gardens in Bath, which is epitomised by curving skeins of golden rudbeckia and shimmering stretches of Miscanthus sinensis. The heads of the 6ft-tall Allium ‘Summer Drummer’ march cheerfully through the beds and energise every view. ‘Summer Drummer’ has become a signature plant of what is, rather surprisingly, the first completed British commission for OvS, the prestigious Washington DC-based landscape architects Oehme, van Sweden (OvS).
‘Oh, the alliums!’ wrote lead landscape architect Eric Groft, describing his return to Bath for the opening of the revived gardens by the then American ambassador, Woody Johnson, in September 2018. ‘We planted upward of seven different varieties and thousands of each. They all seemed to be dancing in the wind and almost singing.’
The place is a fascinating mix of cultures. On the one hand, there is the Classical Claverton Manor of 1820, with 125 acres of downward-swooping parkland commanding views of the Limpley Stoke valley on the edge of Bath. To this has been added a ‘bold romantic’ garden in the New American Style designed by a team whose clients include the US State Department and Oprah Winfrey.
When OvS was founded by Wolfgang Oehme and James van Sweden in 1975, it revolutionised American landscape design. The pair’s mission was to replace the accepted style miles of manicured lawn and ‘funereal’ evergreen hedges with dynamic, prairie-like gardens containing sweeps of perennials and grasses designed to ‘move in the breeze and sparkle like stained glass’.
In historic and pastoral Bath, the words “new” and “American” are a tough sell
Denne historien er fra May 05, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra May 05, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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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.
