Weeding the Web

A stunning plant to see at Wisley this December 2014

Sometimes it's easier to visit a garden in winter, don't you think?  The points of interest tend to be fewer, so it's easier to concentrate, and the set pieces stand out against the barer beds and dormant plants.

Last week, on a glorious sunny morning, we popped into RHS Wisley. Here's what we found:

The bedding scheme above is looking a bit patchy at the moment, but the idea is to create an impression of a landscape seen from above. Blocks of plants like Euonymus fortunei 'Emerald Gaiety", Primula 'Alaska Limelight' and Erica x darleyensis 'White Spring Surprise' will knit together into a patchwork. At the moment the silver birch stakes are saving it from too much prostratation.

  In the veg garden, Brussels sprouts glistened in the sun:

A display of pumpkins and squashes filled the floor of a small greenhouse:

In the walled garden at the far end of the formal pond, we were surprised by this parterre.  If I had a country house estate, I'd love to include something like this. It aims to inspire gardeners to go for majestic results on a small scale. It's the first time I've seen anything like this at Wisley and it's been designed by garden staff member Enrico Mailii. It had real presence and felt like a serene oasis, but  I fear all those Polar White chippings (supplied by Stone Warehouse) are going to really annoy the person who has to prepare the garden for its next incarnation.

You can't visit Wisley in winter without treating yourself to a blast of heat in the glasshouses. There's a bit of a theme going on. Under this pyramid of poinsettia is the entrance to Mr Tumnus' home, the faun in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  You can just see the warrant for his arrest pinned to the door.

And further round is the White Witch's throne.

Far more impressive than any of this, though, was Ravenala Madagascariensis. Related to the Bird of Paradise plant, you can see its flowers are similar (if a trifle bigger). Raised from seed at Wisley, it's already been moved from the edge of the tropical area as its head hit the glass, so I wonder if they'll manage to keep it.

Water runs down the leaves and collects in the base - hence its common name, the Traveller's tree. The leaves angle themselves to make best use of sunlight.

You can't really get more awe-inspiring than Nature, can you?

The Palm House, Sefton Park, Liverpool

At first I thought this was a rare flowering palm. Then I realised the petals had fallen from above...

Tell people you're going to Liverpool for a short break and it soon becomes clear that the standard response - at least, down here in the benighted and slightly superior South - is "Why?"

Which, I have to say, reflects more on the speaker than the city. We've just come back from our second visit in two years. If you haven't been yet, you're missing a treat.

We'd returned to mop up sites we didn't have time for last time. But we'd also added one: The Palm House, Sefton Park, which featured in Dan Cruickshank's very enjoyable Britain's Park Story on BBC4 back in April.

Sefton Park is one of those extensive parks we love but rarely create. Its 200 acres are filled with curving paths by cool borders, under shady trees, with large grassy areas for picnics and games, a boating lake, tennis courts, children's play area and a café. 

The park itself recently gained Grade 1 status from English Heritage.  Its design is pretty much unchanged since its opening in 1872 when designer Edouard André was the first to introduce French park design to England.

And, set in its own little enclosure, is the Palm House, opened in 1896. This, of course, extended the season for the Victorians and offered somewhere to promenade in wet weather. Back in the nineteenth century, it housed various water features and the warm air would have been filled with the sound of running water and thick with the scent of lilies.

 

One of the patrons was George Melly, who donated his cubist painting from 1947 to the Preservation Trust. Contact them to see if prints are still available.

I'm afraid the water features have gone, but we're lucky the whole structure hasn't disappeared. The Palm House, every bit a prey to the cuts in public spending as any other civic amenity, fell into disrepair and, with the danger of glass panes crashing to the ground, closed in the 1980s to threats of demolition. 

Local support gained a partial repair and reopening in 1993. More campaigning secured funding from the Lottery and English Heritage and a fully restored Palm House reopened in 2001.

And thank goodness it did. It's a glorious space, especially in the late afternoon sunshine that graced our visit.

Luckily we didn't have a smartphone with us to check  opening times, or we wouldn't have gone. Normally it closes at 4 pm but, throwing down our bags after arriving at the hotel, we hurled ourselves onto a bus and eventually (having no map) arrived on spec to find that a private view of artwork from a local college was keeping it open till six.

In the normal way of things, I could have done without the adornments, but as they were the reason we gained entrance, I couldn't really complain.

One of the artworks exhibited by Holly Lodge Girls' College, Liverpool.

I thought at first that this was an Indian maiden, posed by the Asian border, but she turned out to be Highland Mary, a popular subject for sculpture in the 19th century.

Sculpture by Benjamin Spence, 1854. Mary Campbell was loved by Robert Burns. "The golden Hours on angel wings/ Flew o'er me and my dearie,/ For dear to me as light and life/Was my sweet Highland Mary." Burns, a great poet (I'm told).

Around 300 plants from 50 countries are housed in the Palm House: 

   

 

 But for all the exotic flowers, it's the Palm House itself that is the real star.  I was sorry that this overhead walkway was firmly closed to the public.  That would have been a great view.

A Grade II* glass cathedral, 25m high, with 3710 flat panes of glass, all individually cut. Three cheers for the Victorians and a sense of civic pride:

If you are staying in Liverpool, take a bus up the Aigburth Road and get out at Lark Lane. This is a delightful approach to Sefton Park, full of bistros, delis and boutiquey shops, and a great place to grab lunch or an ice-cream before enjoying the park.

For pictures of the transition from dereliction to restoration, see Sefton Park Palm House Anniversary pictures from BBC News Liverpool.

Julian Pettifer's three-part BBC Radio 4 series on The Age of the Park from 2004, on the history and prospects of public parks, is still available to listen to.

 

Batsford Arboretum - Wellington's historic tree

Funny what appeals. With little fanfare, indistinct in the midst of other trees, in Batsford Arboretum I found a cypress. It doesn't feature on Batsford's website, yet it gave me a greater thrill than even the most scenic corners of the arboretum.

The notice nearby read:

Cupressus Sempervivens

On 1st November 1852 The Duke of Wellington's funeral took place in London. A cypress wreath from the funeral carriage fell in Piccadilly. An Eton boy aged 15, Lord Redesdale, secured a cone from the wreath and planted the seed at his home in Exbury in Hampshire. A cutting from one of these Exbury trees was sent to Brayfield in Buckinghamshire. This tree, planted in 1959-60, is a cutting from the Brayfield cypress and so a great-grandchild of the Duke of Wellington's wreath.*

A third generation tree - not very exciting? Well, that securing of the cone was not straight-forward. In a letter to The Spectator in 1942, George Farrer, grandson of the aforementioned Lord Redesdale, revealed:

As the gun-carriage went by where he stood a cypress wreath fell from it and desperately he tried to get this, but an old woman in the crowd was before him and would not part with it for anything. However, at last he persuaded her to let him have a cone off it for a shilling, which was all he had in the world.

The crowd was surely a dense crush. Certainly around St Paul's, it was so thick that the lamplighters couldn't reach the gas lamps to turn them out. Onlookers near the carriage would have been dwarfed as the enormous vehicle, made from melted-down French cannon captured at Waterloo, slowly rolled down the centre of the street.**

So, for decades after, mementoes of that day and the Iron Duke grew at Exbury. I'm not the only one who finds the story moving. New owners of the estate in 1919 (a date when the funeral was still within living memory), Lady Rothschild and her husband grabbed billhooks and "literally hacked our way through a glade dense with scrub and sycamore saplings," in their eagerness to find the trees, which bore very old labels recounting the funeral story.

Today, the trees have gone, blown down in the storm of 1987. So it's only thanks to a happy seating arrangement at a dinner table in the 1930s, when a member of the Mitford family (which includes Lord Redesdale) recounted the funeral tale to a neighbouring Rothschild, and the latter promised a cutting from the Exbury tree, that the essence of the original tree can be found at Batsford.***

For me, standing by the tree, history telescoped. Touching the trunk, I touched a memory of one of the greatest funeral processions ever seen in London.****

Sentimental? OK. But don't you think more should be made of these living relics? Around Britain there are descendants of trees that link us with all sorts of events, people and places (the myrtle from Queen Victoria's wedding bouquet seems to have been spread far and wide). It's the fact that these huge organisms were living and breathing at a time long gone that makes them so evocative. I'd love to hear if there are trees with historical connections that send a shiver down your spine.

Batsford is currently holding a raffle (with some rather luscious pampering prizes) to raise £40,000 to build a new schoolroom. Tickets are on sale at the arboretum or you can donate direct to the Leaves for Learning Project.

PR and Marketing Manager, Susie Hunt, says, "We already offer around 700 local primary schoolchildren the chance to learn more about how plants and trees grow and the importance of natural spaces and conservation. But a new schoolroom will give us the opportunity to extend our education programmes and give us flexibility to hold adult courses and events too."

All good aims. But I do hope the Duke's cypress gets a well-deserved mention.

 

*The date should read 18th November.

**With such an enormous carriage, they really should have practised more, as I discovered when I researched an article on St Paul's.

"When his coffin arrived [at the cathedral] on its monstrous carriage, proceedings were held up for an hour as the bearers tried to figure out how to move it, fifteen feet above them, on to the waiting bier. Thousands of mourners, seated in specially built stands in the nave, suffered as the freezing wind swept through  the open West door."

***It seems possible that the Rothschilds were quite generous with the cypress; Sir Stephen Tallents, also in the Spectator, admits to one with a very similar provenance.

****The fact that it's a cypress makes perfect sense, as it has long been the tree of mourning. (At the time, cypress hatbands were offered for sale, no doubt bought by many of the million onlookers.)

 

 

 

 

The Gardening Concept Pigs Out

As anyone who's self-employed can tell you, one of the most difficult aspects of running your own business is seeing the wood for the trees. So an entrepreneur who seems to have a full understanding of the big picture is particularly fascinating, especially when at the centre of the Big Picture is veg growing.

Robin Hutson made his name creating the Hotel du Vin group. Beginning in 1994, he chose mainly listed, quirky, often derelict buildings to turn into boutique hotels and quickly grabbed the public's imagination. His concept brought relaxed chic to conservative towns such as Tunbridge Wells and encompassed large, comfortable beds, good but affordable wine, and good service.

Hutson went on to win industry awards such as Hotel of the Year (2000) and Hotelier of the Year (2003). In 2004, ten years after setting up the group, he sold the seven Hotels du Vin for £66.4 million.

Now a new concept is in the making. The Pig, a former hunting lodge in acres of grounds, sits on the edge of Brockenhurst in The New Forest, Hampshire.  The concept? A full recognition of today's hunger for home-grown food. Indeed, it's part of the portfolio of Home Grown Hotels. In June, I was part of a group of bloggers invited to sample its delights.

To offer a completely home-grown menu would be unrealistic, so the emphasis, for most of the ingredients, is locality. The restaurant 25-Mile Menu gets most of its ingredients from local outlets, including farms, butchers, a flour mill and beehives (OK, so local olives is pushing it a bit, but they are marinated down the road). The hotel also employs Garry Eveleigh, who forages for wild food in the Forest. Most local of all, however, is the produce from the walled garden.

Dug out from tons of rubble which had been dumped over the years, it now bursts with constant sowings of saladings, root veg, tomatoes and trained fruit. It doesn't provide every green leaf on the plates but in summer provides up to 50% of the ingredients used by Head Chef James Golding (ex-Le Caprice and J Sheekey) and his team.

A fascinating article in EP Magazine makes it clear how carefully The Pig has been positioned. While clearly a hotel, it's marketed as a restaurant-with-rooms because locals often fight shy of hotel restaurants, seen as too expensive or just not good enough, and local, repeat custom keeps the tables busy (the 70-cover restaurant was almost full even on a Wednesday lunch-time).

Influenced by Petersham Nurseries, Hutson and co-Director David Elton made the kitchen garden concept central, plugging into today's aspirations. If we're not growing it ourselves, then at least we can choose to eat it out.

Hutson is quoted in the article: "Our next Pig project, assuming planning is successful, will feature a new kitchen garden and restaurant in the garden. We are not the first to do this but I think we will be the first to have brought the kitchen garden right to the front of everything and make it the central plank of what we do."

It's timely, too, that the problem of provenance has been so prominent in meat in recent months. Like all good entrepreneurs, Hutson and Elton have put their finger on the current pulse. They certainly know how to please customers. It's won various accolades already, including Independent Hotel of the Year 2013 (The Cateys) and a place in the Michelin Guide and, with one accord, we bloggers left with a sigh of satisfaction, a bad case of garden envy, and singing the praises of delicious food that had had us eyeing each other's plates with a desire to taste it all.

Naturally, the garden is a feature. Visitors are encouraged to wander round and there's nearly always one of the three-strong garden team on hand to answer questions. Tomorrow, in recognition of World Kitchen Garden Day they're even sending diners and hotel guests away with seedlings from the walled garden, to recreate a patch of The Pig at home.

Is it a concept that will last? Well, it's currently growing. Two more hotels are scheduled to open with the help of a £4.8 million finance package : The Pig - on the Beach, Studland Bay, Dorset, and The Pig - near Bath. (Both will open with established kitchen gardens.) But Hutson has already said that he's sure the hotels will be sold eventually and I suspect it'll be about the time that GYO enthusiasm begins to wane, or when he's got half a dozen properties, whichever comes first. Successful entrepreneurs move on at the appropriate moment.

In the meantime, however, The Pig, Brockenhurst makes a thoroughly enoyable destination for a day in The New Forest (you need to book to ensure a table). Go while Hutson and Elton are still in charge; businesses are never the same when the originating force has gone.

And while you're there In the midst of the wood, why not take a drink out on the terrace and enjoy the view of the trees?

NB My own description of the veg garden and gardening methods is scheduled to appear in a forthcoming Kitchen Garden magazine. For more of our bloggers' day out and some great pics, see A Taste of the Good Life from Vegplotting, From Kitchen Garden to Table in Minutes from The Galloping Gardener, Matron in Hog Heaven from Down on the Allotment, The Pig Hotel from Nick Mann at Habitat Aid.

Other restaurant reviews can be found at Steeple Times and Laura Ivill.

 

 

The Bloggers' Cut: Coffee and Walnut at Rose Cottage

Oh, duplicity!

[Me, 3 days ago, knowing it better to creep ideas up behind Husband]: Brand-new NGS garden opens Sunday.

[Husband]: Hmm?

[Me, 2 days ago, casually interested]: That new garden has a veg plot.

[Husband]: Hmm.

[Me, yesterday]: Lovely day. We could visit that garden and have coffee. And cake.

[Husband, puzzled]: You've only just had breakfast.

An hour later, we were negotiating the extremely rutted mud track to Rose Cottage and worrying about the exhaust system, while my aged Mother bounced on the back seat.  It wasn't my moment to tell them we were there to take a photo of cake. 

Yesterday saw The Bloggers' Cut, a virtual Chelsea Fringe event, encouraging garden bloggers around the country to get fat pamper a sweet tooth in a garden. What cake would we have? Would it live up to expectations?

Rose Cottage is the sort of garden that ticks all the boxes for garden visitors: a pergola, archways, a pond, a stream, lots of lawn, herb beds, veg beds, tucked-away corners (and teas!) - and none of the tickboxes that Helen Yemm surmises appear on the Chelsea judges' clipboards. 

It wouldn't have got a look in with the judges, but would have had a chance with the People's Choice. Giving the impression of having nurtured generations of growing children, it was actually created only 16 years ago. At the same time that the garden was laid out, the exterior of the house was built around the dilapidated 18th century interior. But for the too-clean, only-slightly-too-red brickwork, however, you wouldn't spot its youth. Ivy sprawls over the garden walls. The narrow approach of aged-looking York Stone widens across the front of the house, edges hidden under a froth of aquilegia and euphorbia. The house looks the epitome of centuries-old Surrey vernacular architecture.

Particular highlights were a planting combination I haven't seen before:

 

 Alliums:

 

 A pond:

 

And a (short) laburnam walk:

 

 The Cake? Coffee and Walnut.

 

This has been a stalwart sustenance of garden visiting but I think I have to review my choice. Many C&Ws, like this one, now have icing so sweet it makes your teeth bleed - something to do with a fashion for butter icing (instead of that hard-top, thin layer of icing-made-with-water), and it generally contains too little butter.  Husband said I should have gone for the strawberry/cream flan affair, but with the filling oozing the way it was, three forks between us didn't seem adequate equipment.

This new-found discernment (and I prefer that description to "criticism") is something I'm beginning to bring to NGS gardens. Quite why I hadn't done so before is a mystery, but the realisation dawned when reading a discussion on Anne Wareham's Veddw Blog.  Until recently, NGS gardens were just a nice day out, with the added pleasure of snooping on private property without the threat of trespass, the possibility of a few interesting plants and (of course!) cake. 

Now I look specifically for the bits that work (that laburnum pergola and statue, those alliums) and the bits that don't (a long border, with blocks of planting, all the same height, and an overwhelming bushing of geraniums in front of the alliums), rather than just interesting plant combinations. 

I'm looking forward to bringing equal interest to the quest for new flavours of cake...

The Bloggers' Cut was the brainchild of Vegplotting, where you'll find round-up of the other participants in this, the first ever Virtual Chelsea Fringe event. (Thank you, Michelle. Any excuse to eat cake!)

A great (Dixter) reason for repeat garden visits

All over the country this weekend, you can hear the crash of doors being thrown open as houses and gardens receive the public.  You may have noticed over the past few years an increasing tendency for properties to run a programme of events throughout the summer season in the hope of luring visitors back for a return visit.

OK, it's understandable, and presumably aims to capture local interest, but it does make a lot of properties seem all the same. Several times over the last couple of years while on holiday we've found ourselves folding and unfolding leaflets, looking in vain for information on why we should visit a particular landmark, beyond its generic procession of Easter Egg hunts, face-painting, woodland craft demonstrations and food fairs that makes it sound just like any other visitor attraction.  The National Trust is particularly prone to this.

Great Dixter also opens for 2013 this weekend.  This hardly needs introduction, as Christopher Lloyd's garden has drawn visitors for decades, but if ever a garden had reasons to return built in, rather than cynically manufactured, it's this one.  

At the moment the gardens are on the cusp of bursting into growth. A carpet of crocuses spreads in front of the long border. Borders are orderly and low-slung, waiting the upsurge of vegetation, while primroses, daffodils, hellebores and snowdrops sprinkle the space. (There's always the debate of whether hellebores should have their leaves cut away. Here they do because 1) they suffer from unsightly blackspot and 2) it looks good. The flowers do look particularly elegant without them.)

But come back in a few weeks' time and all will look totally different. Head gardener Fergus Garrett is truly a plant enthusiast, even going to the lengths of measuring the width of tulip leaves to pinpoint the perfect choice for his beds, and much attention is paid to finding combinations that will succeed each other easily. In the Sunk Garden, snowdrops are just going over, but hidden amongst them are euphorbias waiting to hide them from view, while the as yet unemerged Rodgersia will add contrast in colour and leaf.

Fergus has plenty of photographs which show how completely a space will change its character: a dry stone wall that is a mass of ox-eye daisies one month may flow with hypericum and bramble another. Plants grow up and through others, fresh foliage and flowers obscuring with startling distinction the plants that have had their time in the spotlight.

Elsewhere long-season cultivars such as Geranium "Russell Prichard" provide a backbone of colour over several weeks or months. amidst a sea of changing pattern. Christopher Lloyd believed that no gaps, showing bare earth, should be visible from late May on, apart from the most recent replacement plantings. Fergus continues to maintain this tapestry effect.

The result is a supremely skilful and, to a degree, educational display. I say, to a degree, because of course this garden is famous for not inserting plant labels. For Christopher Lloyd, Great Dixter was a home before it was a show garden. Now that he's died, I'm inclined to think a few labels wouldn't go amiss (after all, they don't have to be startling white plastic) but there is an army of students and volunteers who, I've found, are extremely helpful to anyone asking questions. Much of what is grown is also sold in the nursery.

Not everyone is lucky enough to live close enough to Great Dixter to make repeat visits feasible through the summer, but if you are it's worth considering visiting regularly through the open season.

If the far reaches of Sussex are just too much of a drive (and sadly the nearest train stations with bus connections to Northiam are Rye and Hastings), then on April 13th 2013 they are laying on a coach service to meet the 10.15 from Charing Cross at Robertsbridge Station, giving you three hours in the garden before returning you to catch the 16.13.

(For more takes on Great Dixter, have a look at Vegplotting, where you'll find a round-up of posts by the bloggers who enjoyed the same day out as I did.)

RHS Wisley in January

Needing to ferret out some garden history books was the ideal excuse to visit Wisley last week (before The Snow).

In case you've missed it on your stampede to the cafe, the library is a calm oasis on the right where the charming assistants are extremely helpful and you can browse the latest gardening magazines and immerse yourself in books.

They're keen for more people to use it, though I must admit I think that would be a shame. Always nice to have the place (almost) to yourself.

Before I bore home a cache of literature that would challenge a weightlifter, we had a mooch round. Currently starring in the glasshouse are exotic butterflies (there till 24th February).

There's a fascinating emergence case, which displays hundreds of pupae, suspended in rows from dowels (I can only assume they glued them on. The caterpillers can't be that well trained).  Some butterflies had just emerged and were thinking about their next move. Others had just begun the sustained fight out of their case.

Outside, Wisley looked lovely in a serene, pared-down manner which really emphasised shape and colour. The lake was partially frozen, but this didn't deter one duck, which paddled breast-on against the ice, gradually breaking itself a path.

On the bank dogwood features strongly and, combined with salix and the ghostly white thorny canes of the Two-Flowered Raspberry (Rubus Biflorus), created a muted flame effect. 

Dogwood had also been artistically employed elsewhere, as branches pruned from some out-of-the-way bushes made decorative screens to enliven the beds by the rectangular pond.  It's a little early to cut dogwood down, but it's hardy and a passing Wisley gardener said it would survive. Yellow and red had also been combined in a display in one of the urns.  It created a lovely sinuous line and combined well with the daisy cultivar, Bellis perennis 'Pomponette' at its feet.

Incidentally, if you plant Bellis next to a lawn, it's likely to cross-pollinate with the lawn daisies and you'll get pink variations. That's tempting.

 

 

 

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Wisley Has Gone to Bed



Fuchsias - bally ballerinas or beautiful blooms?

Are there flowers of which you have an irrational dislike?  My dartboard pin-up for many years has been fuchsias. Why? Possibly because someone once likened their flowers to little ballerinas and, ever since, I've rebelled against the cutesy image they conjure of all those little girls whose socks never fell down in junior school.

I am, of course, cutting off my nose to spite my face. "How lovely," I purred, as Husband revealed his latest purchase. Compact bush, fat, richly coloured flowers. Then I realised it was a fuchsia (albeit not one of the the skinny-flowered, prissy ones) and went right off it. I fear it felt the pain. Last winter it turned up its toes.

A couple of months ago we visited Shrewsbury and I had to review my prejudice all over again. Shrewsbury has The Dingle, which has to be one of the most delightful public parks in Britain.  Completely unprepared for what lay within the walled enclosure, I was breathless at the impact of the brightly planted flowerbeds, fountains and lake. And, of course, featuring strongly were fuchsias.

A number of fuchsias here have a pedigree that is particularly precious to those of us who remember Percy Thrower as the Blue Peter gardener. He was Parks Superintendent here from 1946 to 1974, and some of the fuchsias still used are descended from the plants he chose when he renovated the garden after the Second World War.

And who am I to argue with Percy? The displays were stunning. One of his choices, Checkerboard, says Potash Nursery, is easy for beginners and to train as a standard. It is, regrettably, one of the skinny, prissy fuchsias, but I guess I can forgive it if it it flowers as freely as Simply Fuchsias say it does.

So, perhaps I'll just have to give in and admit I was wrong. There's a lot to be said for fuchsias. There's also a huge amount to be said for the Dingle - for more, do read my review at Garden World.  In the meantime, what flowers would you rather see on the compost heap than in the garden?

The National Botanic Gardens of Wales renew their extended ticket and inspire computer peripherals

One of the places on my list to visit is National Botanic Garden of Wales. Our holidays haven't ventured as far as Llanarthne, Carmarthenshire, though. If they ever do, it sounds as if we'll need to schedule more than a day to see it. The main gardens are centred on the wooded valley of Pont Felin Gât but, if you include the attached Waun Las National Nature Reserve, there are 600 acres to get lost in. 

Visitors' grumbles that it's too much to see in a day have instigated the return of the "return ticket", which allows visitors back in free for seven days after their initial visit. 

Head of marketing David Hardy  said: “We trialled this last August after getting lots of feedback. We do say, ‘You won’t be able to see it all in a day,’ but people from out of the area not familiar with the garden are often caught out. This is a good way of ensuring that, if they want to come back and see some more, they can – and for free.”

Nevertheless, doesn't this seem a bit mean, or am I just a real skinflint (answers below, please)? After all, there are plenty of visitor attractions that allow you free returns for a year. If they offered that, it might encourage more return holidays to West Wales. Still, if you want to take advantage of this you'll have to be quick, as it only applies to tickets purchased at full admission price up to September 9th 2012.

Apart from the 600 acres, the gardens are offering a fungi exhibition, a new Green Technologies Trail around the Garden’s various sustainability exemplars, and an archaeological dig to uncover the remains of what they think might be a medieval mansion and garden.

Incidentally, the gardens inspired award-winning, Welsh-based Hannah Davies in her Floral Foray design for Logitech wireless keyboard, mouse and webcam. Won't be getting them myself - my computer's a tool, not a decoration - but if you've been to the gardens you might like them to remind you of your visit.  If you buy the keyboard and mouse from John Lewis before September 14th, you'll get a free webcam.

And if you want to see more of her intricate, nature-inspired illustrations for cards, stationery and prints, visit Hannah Davies' website.

The right piece in the right place: placing sculpture in the garden

Sculpture in public places draws controversy. I could list a few pieces that have aroused fierce opinion, but Orbit, Anish Kapoor’s cross between construction debris and a fairground helter-skelter, is currently the most prominent.

Of course, you may be struck by what you see as its (very) peculiar beauty, but I’d argue that it’s a good example of a problem encountered in much garden sculpture: trying to fit the right piece to the right place.

Over at Thinkingardens, Anne Wareham has just posted pictures of Art in the Garden, Painswick Rococo Gardens’ annual exhibition, now in its third year (and running until 31st August).

It’s difficult to tell how successfully the pieces sit in their surroundings. The website tells us that many of them are either site specific or created in direct response to their environment (the balancing boxes in the orchard don’t strike me as entirely successful), but on a general point Abbie Jury, who runs Tikorangi The Jury Garden, New Zealand, comments, “A garden setting can enhance sculpture but I have never seen sculpture enhance a garden.” Sculpture, she feels, must always draw attention away from the garden.

Hmm.