UNDER the unflinching blue of a clear winter sky, the flaws in a garden are soon laid bare. At Morton Hall in Worcestershire, however, the structure sings through the sharp, frosty air. Beneath the meadow, hundreds of thousands of crocus, narcissus and fritillaries are holding themselves in readiness to carpet the grass in early spring, but their absence is barely felt. Instead, the gaze is held between colonies of precision-clipped evergreens that punctuate the transitions between house and garden.
The scene gives the illusion of effortlessness, but, amid the silent winter air, head gardener Daniel Jones is overseeing a full programme of works that usually begins in autumn with digging holes for 30,000 bulbs. Many are lost to squirrels each year, so they are planted with a hefty dose of chilli powder, which puts off rodents without affecting birds.
It takes the three-strong team 100 hours to clear the leaves from the lawns, paths and beds, creating a heap big enough, as former head gardener Harry Green used to say, to bury a two-bedroom cottage. Before Christmas, the compost produced from last year’s harvest of fallen leaves is spread across all the beds.
Not a leaf will be left un-gathered, says Anne Olivieri who, with her husband, René, moved here in 2007. Since then, as well as redesigning the eight acres of garden, they have been wedded to the careful management of the woods and parkland across the 90-acre estate on its prominent sandstone ridge.
Denne historien er fra December 01, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra December 01, 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.
