The various utensils, paper bags and home-made envelopes that have been accumulating all summer were grouped together recently for examination. I find it hard to resist when seed is there for the taking and it is something that I want or could do with more of. If I am lucky and have had a pen handy, the makeshift envelopes are scrawled with notes to make identification easy. The unmarked vessels might need a rattle and a closer look to remind me, but the excitement of a haul usually burns the find into the memory, as long as I act before winter blurs the clarity of this past growing season.
Fortuitously, autumn is the best time to sow the hardy plants and I would rather have them in the cold frame, labelled up and ready to go than degrading and waiting until the spring. In the wild, seed will start its cycle within the same growing season, so emulating the natural rhythm makes perfect sense. Most seed will now sit through the winter to have dormancy triggered by the stratification of frost, but some will seize the damp and comparative mild of autumn to germinate before winter and begin their grip on life.
The giant fennel are a good example. In the Mediterranean and Middle East where they are dependent upon the winter rainfall for growth, summer-strewn seed is now germinating with the first rains. My own sowings from August have already produced their second true leaf and are now potted on in long toms so that they can continue to establish their strong tap roots in the mild periods ahead of us. The winter green of Ferula communis (main image) is remarkable for this late season regeneration, gathering strength when it isn’t too cold and pushing against the general retreat elsewhere.
Sowing seed of Ferula communis in Autumn
Seedlings of August’s sowing of Ferula communis in the cold frame
I first saw giant fennel in my early twenties when I was a student at the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens. Michael Avishai, the Director, had driven me to the Golan Heights to see them in the minefields where they grew freely and undisturbed. We stood at the roadside, taking heed of the sign saying ‘DANGER MINES! Go no further.’ Mile upon mile of cordoned-off ground, back-dropped by the mountains of Syria, was populated by a legion of uprights which bolted skyward in a scoring of perfect verticals. You understood why the Romans had used them as ferules, their stems making a lightweight measuring rod. Amongst their feathery mounds of basal foliage, a flood of acid-green euphorbia and scarlet anemone scattered the rocky ground between them.
You need open ground and the room to be able to let giant fennel have its reign in the garden. Whilst the plants are gathering strength, the early foliage needs the air and light they are accustomed to. Once they have bolted all their energy into the lofty flower stem, the foliage withers to leave a space, so you need to plan for a companion such as Ballota pseudodictamnus that can take a little early shade, but will cover for the gap in high summer.
I first flowered Ferula tingitana ‘Cedric Morris’ in my garden in Peckham and brought seed from there to here. It is the first of several giant fennels to have flowered here and did so in its third year after planting out. This lustrous form of the Tangier fennel is spectacular for its early growth, which is as shiny as patent leather, but finely-cut like lace. The flowering stem, which is shorter than F. communis, which can grow to 3 metres, holds an inflorescence that is just as flamboyant, despite reaching just half that height. My plants originally came from Beth Chatto where it appears in her gravel garden and this is how they like to live, with guaranteed good drainage in winter. I mean to ask if she was given the plant by the great man himself, for I am amassing quite a number of his selections and enjoy the connection of these horticultural hand-me-downs.
Ferula tingitana ‘Cedric Morris’ flowering in late May
Coincidentally, I was given a brown paper bag with ‘Ferula tingitana blood’ scrawled on it by one of the gardeners from Great Dixter at a lecture that I gave for the Beth Chatto Education Trust earlier this summer. It is one of several ferula that Fergus Garret has passed on to me over the years. He too is under their spell and has given me seed of several of his wild collections from his homeland in Turkey. Once, when I asked him what the mother plant was like, he said, ‘No idea. It’s bound to be good though. Try it !’. And with giant fennels I am very happy to take him on trust.
Fergus uses them as punctuation marks in the garden where they bolt above moon daisies and rear over the hedges like giraffes. They have started to hybridise there and, when they are established enough to plant out next spring, the ‘tingitana blood’ seedlings are destined for my new planting. The secret to growing them successfully is to plant them out before the long tap roots wind around the pot for, to support the huge flowering stem, they need their purchase deep in the ground like a skyscraper needs its footings.
A hatful Ferula communis seed gathered in Greece
This summer, whilst on holiday in the Dodecanese, I collected a hatful of Ferula communis that had flowered beside the road and somehow escaped the ravages of the island goats. Though I had not seen it in flower, it was impossible to pass it by and the thought of it reappearing as a memory in the garden here will allow me to relive this find when it comes to flower. The seed left after my own sowing is now sitting in a bag waiting to go to Fergus, with a scrawled message of well wishes and the happy thought that they will soon be on their way to another good home.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan & Dan Pearson
Published 7 October 2017
Last Friday I was honoured to speak at the University of Essex in support of The Beth Chatto Education Trust, of which I am a patron. My brief, to talk about the importance of education in horticulture, was an easy one to meet and that much more relevant with the Trust firmly up and running. Julia Boulton, Beth’s granddaughter and Managing Director of the Gardens and Director of the Trust, has made it her mission to utilise the garden as an educational resource and it was with much excitement that we met to celebrate the fact that the garden now has this important new future.
Beth Chatto (centre front) with behind (left to right) Dave Ward, Garden Director, Julia Boulton, Managing Director, Dan Pearson, Karalyn Foord, Education Trust Manager and Åsa Gregers-Warg, Head Gardener
Beth’s work has always been important and the garden is as relevant today as it ever has been. At the forefront of the naturalistic movement in this country, and instrumental in originating the ethos of ‘the right plant in the right place’, Beth’s displays at The Chelsea Flower Show were ground breaking in the 1970’s. I remember their singularity, for no one else at the show was using the plants that she was cultivating or combining them as intelligently; plants that were wild in feeling, always close to the species and grouped according to their habitat needs, not the whim of colour themes or border compositions. Apparently, in the early days, some show judges are said to have dismissed her displays as being nothing more than cultivated weeds, but the message to gardeners was strong, practical and consistent; put a plant where it wants to be and it will thrive. It is barely credible now that this approach should have been seen as unusual, but in the days of annual bedding, hybrid tea roses and prize dahlias Beth’s was a shock doctrine.
And she was far more than simply the nurserywoman who presented her wares at the show. You could also depend upon her not only for her impeccable taste, but also for her ability to educate you through her plantsmanship. For years Unusual Plants was the only place to go to get the plants I wanted to grow and I pored over the evocative descriptions in the catalogue. My borders in my parents’ garden were stocked with her treasures and it was through a love of her plants that I bonded with my first client, Frances Mossman, with whom I created the gardens at Home Farm. We had both fallen under the spell of Beth’s catalogue and I remember very clearly a key conversation about Beth’s description of Crambe maritima. A seaside wilding brought to life and into horticultural focus through words. A world of opportunity that was suddenly possible once you made the connections. When I started travelling to see native plants growing in the Himalayas, Israel and Europe in my ’20’s Beth’s ethos was plainly articulated in every plant community I saw and helped me make the connections between the wild and the cultivated.
Earlier last Friday, before the talk, we took a tour of the gardens with Dave Ward, the Garden Director and long term member of the team. At the Gravel Garden (main image) we stopped to catch up with Beth, who had come out to greet us and marvel at the Romneya. Just two days after celebrating her 94th birthday she had lost none of her fervour for the importance of horticulture and was vocal about how good education and competitive salaries are essential to encourage young people into the profession. It was so good to see her in her environment and I remembered how she had once talked about being in New Zealand with Christopher Lloyd and had dreamed of making this garden after they had come across a dried up river bed.
Repeated Genista aetnensis set the mood, its peppered clouds of gold, luminous against the dark hedges. Nothing looked out of place, with all the plants chosen for their drought resistance and moving about in the gravel as if they had found their way there and their companions quite naturally.
Verbascum chaixii ‘Album’ and Stipa gigantea
A repeat of vertical verbascum to arrest the eye; Verbascum chaixii ‘Album’, dull white and caught in a gauze of Stipa gigantea, with a smattering of pink Dianthus carthusianorum. Felted Verbascum bombyciferum standing alone and breaking free at the very edges of the planting. Romneya coulteri fluttering close to the path so that you could inspect the boss of golden stamens. A stand of Stipa barbata given their own space and floating like seaweed in the breeze.
The feathered seedheads of Stipa barbata with Verbascum bombyciferum and Romneya coulteri against the hedge
There were many plants that I am using at home which Beth introduced me to as a child (Eryngium giganteum, Lychnis coronaria, Crambe maritima, Romneya coulteri, Stipa gigantea, Dianthus carthusianorum, Phlomis russelliana) and others that I have come to from other directions, but surely because of Beth’s influence. An acid-yellow mist of Bupleurum falcatum through which the dark orbs of Allium sphaerocephalon were suspended. Buttons of pale yellow Santolina pinnata subsp. neapolitana, hunkered down and throwing off light. Splashes of electric-blue Eryngium x zabelii, metallic and architecturally jagged amongst the softness.
Allium sphaerocephalon, Santolina pinnata subsp. neapolitana, Bupleurum falcatum and Perovskia ‘Blue Spire’
Eryngium x zabelii with Bupleurum falcatum
We moved from there into the lower sections of the garden where the compositions were driven by green and texture. Head Gardener, Åsa Gregers-Warg reminded us of Beth’s love of ikebana and the asymmetric triangle that repeats in her compositions. Watery reflections, plants adapted to their foothold, be it edge of the dry oak woodland or spearing Thalia dealbata amongst scale changing Alisma plantago-aquatica in the shallows of the ponds. Splashes of fiery candelabra primula amongst green umbrellas of Darmera peltata and in a narrowing on the way to the Reservoir Garden, the oversized creamy plates of Sambucus canadensis ‘Maxima’, a plant that I haven’t grown since I was a teenager. On enquiring about its availability (I had the nursery set firmly in my mind as a highlight of the day) Dave tipped me off. “You can get that at Great Dixter.” More connections from my early education. A plant I had all but forgotten about but, all these years later, am just as excited to be revisiting.
The Water Garden
Alisma plantago-aquatica with foliage of Thalia dealbata on the right
The best gardens are all about connections and the garden here at Elmstead Market is full of them. Talk to Beth and she will very quickly tell you about the importance of her husband, Andrew’s work as a botanist in identifying plants from all over the world that had the ability to grow together. She will tell you too about her friendship with Cedric Morris, and you will find his collections and selections in the garden if you dig a little and ask the right questions.
My notebook filled rapidly – the nine foot Allium ‘Purple Drummer’ and Agastache ‘Blue Boa’ amongst Deschampsia caespitosa ‘Schottland’ – and it continued to do so in the nursery where we had a behind the scenes look at the industry of the place and saw at close quarters all those treasures that have gone out into the world to fuel passions. My order of new-to-me and untested plants came together without hesitation. Deschampsia cespitosa ‘Schottland’, Eupatorium fistulosum f. albidum ‘Ivory Towers’, Nepeta ‘Blue Dragon’, Salvia verticillata ‘Hannay’s Blue’ and Teucrium hircanicum to name a handful. They have just arrived, within the week, beautifully packaged as ever, bringing all the excitement that has been coming to me from this inspirational place for the best part of forty years.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 8 July 2017
The Woodland Garden
