CATHERINE MACDONALD was hopelessly lost. She had been wandering around the National Gallery, zigzagging from room to room, so absorbed in the artworks that she no longer knew where she was. 'I had to go and find a map to get myself out,' she laughs.
Her confusion was more than understandable, however. Dr MacDonald, the principal landscape designer at Landform Consultants, had been touring the National Gallery for more than three hours and hadn't merely been admiring the paintings. She had been studying them closely to draw inspiration for her latest project: a commission by jeweller Boodles to design a garden for the 2024 RHS Chelsea Flower Show that would mark the National Gallery's 200th anniversary.
Dr MacDonald decided early on that she didn't simply want to bring one painting alone to life as a garden. Instead, she harvested ideas and elements from several artworks that struck a chord with her, from a varied selection of artists encompassing the obvious (the master of garden painting, Claude Monet), the unexpected (Gustav Klimt) and the relatively obscure (Finnish painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela). In short, she says, her garden is conceived 'almost like another room in the gallery'.
Green shoots
Claude Monet's The Water-Lily Pond, 1899
Denne historien er fra May 15, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra May 15, 2024-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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Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning
