The double border, in fact, began life as a single border created to take advantage of the sunny south-facing outer wall of the walled garden, then being restored by George Carter. Consisting of four herbaceous beds with yew buttresses, it faced a new beech hedge. Over the years, we added more features, including two oak arbours with ornamental benches based on a design at Boughton House, Northamptonshire. Moon windows were cut into the maturing hedge to provide enchanting views over the open country beyond.
Within the alleé itself, at the eastern end, we created a castle enclosure from yew blocks bought from de Limieten in the Netherlands. At the western end, a mature walnut tree stood with a circular seat around its trunk. Some 30 yards in from the walnut, we placed a huge 8ft-high vase purchased from a French brocante in Beaune as an eye-stopper. The planting matured and, slowly, the lollipop yew cones were clipped into eight perfect balls.
Then, one evening in September 2018, we had one of those ideas that simply would not go away—that this was a job half done. How simple it would be to move the hedge five yards further into the field and to create another border to match the first?
Denne historien er fra May 12, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra May 12, 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.
