MOSSES, like ferns, are unsung heroes. Quiet and unassuming, they soften difficult corners and provide a soothing air of permanence. Cracks, crevices, and tree bark are all perfect microclimates for the spores to settle, but they can be persuaded to live happily under shrubs or roses, intermingled with other creeping groundcover and as part of a shady woodland border. They don’t always need grooming to be gorgeous. Kazuyuki Ishihara’s Chelsea creations are immaculate, but it was the back wall of his Green Switch garden that sang out in 2019: a joyful, messy waterfall of mosses tumbling with hazel saplings, polypody ferns, and Lamprocapnos spectabilis Alba. No tweezers required.
At Windy Hall, on the shores of Lake Windermere, scientists David Kinsman and Diane Hewitt excel at naturalistic mossy beauty. They arrived in 1973 to find their steeply sloping four acres smothered with rubbish that had to be borrowed of the site. The resulting compacted path, curving up between native birch and cherry trees behind the house, then became a flourishing moss garden. Existing mounds of Polytrichum formosum were encouraged to spread and the ground was kept clear of competition. Canopies were lifted to emphasize the contrast between the smooth trunk and rumpled emerald carpet. ‘We let it tell us how to manage it,’ says Diane, ‘we simply weed out a few foxgloves and keep ivy at bay.’
Denne historien er fra February 12, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra February 12, 2020-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.
