Topiary Offshoot

Sitting in Diana Boston’s beautiful garden

Back in May I went to visit Diana Boston at the Manor in Hemingford Grey. It led to a fascinating story about the topiary crowns and orbs that Diana’s mother-in-law, Lucy Boston, created for the Queen’s Coronation back in 1953. Which then led to a conversation between Diana and Chris Crowder, the Head Garden at Levens Hall in Cumbria, about topiary and the delights of slow gardening. Some of the topiary under Chris’ care is over 300 years old! If you want to listen to the topiary episode you can find it here.

On that first visit to Diana’s house and garden I was aware that the ‘story’ was bigger than just the topiary that we were discussing. So this week there is an offshoot episode which takes us back to that magical garden. You can find all the details about the opening times of the garden and tours of the house on the Manor website, here.

Diana in the room where Lucy held the music nights.

This is a story about the power of nature to offer a place of calm in the midst of chaos, so prepare to imagine a scene of airmen from the nearby base relaxing and picnicking on the lawn you seen in the photographs. Apparently when flying over the garden they would also drop bones for Lucy’s dog! It is also a story of a woman who from her experiences in the first world war understood some of the feelings of those airmen and so put on music nights when she would play records from her gramophone collection. I got goosebumps just sitting in that room, as Diana played Abide with Me - often the record the airmen requested at the end of the evening, on an old gramophone player.

Elisabeth Vellacott’s painting of the Airmen listening during the musical evenings.

I hope that these Offshoot programmes will deepen our knowledge about the plant stories we have heard and in this case I think Diana helps us to better understand Lucy and the garden. We learn how she chose the roses and how those that didn’t smell got cast onto the bonfire!

Thanks to Alison Orr for the photographs - check out the blog post to read the story behind this Offshoot.

I hope also to visit Levens Hall in the Autumn to hear more from Chris about how they cut and shape those 300 year old pieces of topiary so if you have been inspired to buy a small Yew bush (I am buying one for my brother-in-law) there may be tips on how to shape it. Apparently from planting you have a couple of years to decide on the shape so no need to rush into a decision!