Topiary Bonus
Chatting to Chris Crowder at Levens Hall in front of one of the Yew shapes he has created. (Just as well I had the yellow jacket, otherwise it would be hard to spot us!). With thanks to Pink Harrison for the photograph.
When I started this podcast I don’t think I had fully appreciated how much it would lead me into garden history. That was a bit naive because of course when you delve into the stories of plants you are investigating their ‘roots’, maybe not the ones that give them life but the ones that enable you to understand how they grow and where they grow and that often leads to discovering how they got into our gardens. Gardeners from the past are very much in my mind from editing today’s bonus episode but I have also been reminded of past gardeners by two books I received at the weekend. My cousins have spent much of the summer carefully sorting through their parents belongings, after my Aunt’s death at the beginning of the year. They asked if I would like some of the gardening books and so it is I find myself reading two ‘Garden Encylopedias’. One is the News Chronicle Home Gardening Edited by Walter Brett, FRHS and the other is The Garden for Expert and Amateur edited by E.T. Ellis FRHS. Sadly there are no printing dates. I thought I’d share thoughts from the Forewords of these books. One reminds us “There is nothing to fear in starting gardening earnestly; worries and failures begin when earnestness flags” and the other warns that “half this world’s gardening mishaps are due to concluding some job with: “There, that’ll have to do.” Lessons from gardeners past!
I’m including the episode page text in today’s blog and if you want to see more photographs do click here to see them on that page.
It feels extraordinary that a garden, Levens Hall, designed 329 years ago has only had 10 Head Gardeners. An average stay for each of 33 years. Chris Crowder who is the current custodian of the topiary which is near Kendal in the Lake District, has been here for 37 years. I think you can sometimes sense ‘continuity’ in gardens. I have felt it at Great Dixter - where there have been 3 gardeners: Daisy Lloyd, Christopher Lloyd and Fergus Garrett. I felt it at Kiftsgate Court Gardens - created by 3 generations of women. It doesn’t mean they are preserved in aspic, constrained by a planting plan that must be observed but they have a continuity; knowledge, observation and care that has been passed down. At Levens Hall you multiply that by several generations and you stand in a garden where every year for over 300 years, gardeners have observed, cared for and clipped the topiary each Autumn, working their way around about 100 pieces.
Chris Crowder agrees that he is ‘standing on the shoulders’ of previous Head Gardeners but he has also added his own pieces of topiary to the garden - something for future generations to tend and clip. Perhaps they will hold their shape for the next 300 years like the Umbrella, seen on the right or perhaps like the Henry Moore that Chris can be seen cutting, they will bend or twist and be reshaped. ‘Shape’ was a word that came up several times in our conversation. This is not the place for topiary squirrels or elephants to dart or roam, this is a place of shapes though as Chris has described previously those shapes do ‘people’ the garden. I love the thought that generations of visitors have gazed up at the topiary whilst also admiring the planting beneath them which has changed and Chris does not feel constrained by any management plan, it’s a creative space.
I also love the thought that they have welcomed other topiary enthusiasts to come and spend some time in the garden helping them with the topiary clipping. I follow many topiary accounts on Instagram, I wonder if any of them have ever thought of writing and asking to spend time at Levens? I hope this episode will encourage listeners who haven’t listened to the original Topiary Plant Story to take a listen to that and its Offshoot. If you want to try growing a yew tree and shaping it there is plenty of advice from Chris in the Plant Story episode. Just remember his key piece of advice - ‘don’t tell anyone what it is because you’ll just end up with a ton of advice on how you could do it better!’
I have started a Facebook page for Our Plant Stories which you might like to follow and there is also of course the Instagram account Ourplantstories_podcast. Have a good week - I am off to record some conversations for series 2!