Going Italian at Blenheim

On Sunday I visited Blenheim for the first time thanks to Patient Gardener (PG) who'd given me a ticket to hear Helena Attlee in conversation with our very own Victoria about her new book (Helena's not Victoria) Italy's Private Gardens: An Inside View. Sadly PG couldn't make it as she was busy watching her son take his first flying lesson (which she's written about here - sounds most exciting).

Blenheim held a literary festival over the weekend, sponsored by The Independent (hence Victoria's involvement and my attendance) and my ticket allowed me to have a thorough wander around the park and gardens beforehand: more on that to come. The photo is of the Italian Garden, the one part which unfortunately isn't open to wander around, hence my rather poor shot taken over the hedge. Whilst there I was pondering how many gardens like Blenheim were strongly influenced by those found in Italy during the 18th Century and anticipating how this subject might be tackled during the talk.

However, my preconceptions were totally wrong and in the most positive of ways. Helena has travelled extensively in Italy over the past 20 or so years and has got to know many of the contemporary gardens and their makers during this time. Instead of a dry talk about Italy's well known gardens, we were treated to a warmer, much more intimate portrait of the people who garden in Italy today. Helena's tales were illustrated by the gorgeous photographs taken by her partner, Alex Ramsay who'd not only captured the beauty of the gardens they'd visited, he'd breathed life into them by showing the owners and their gardeners going about their daily tasks, or just showing them using their own space.

By the end of the talk I found myself grinning with the sheer pleasure from what I'd seen and heard. The book is (dare I say it) lovely, but different from most garden volumes because it's a record of the conversations Helena and her partner have had during their extensive travels and illustrated with informal portraits of the people they've met. This approach gets under the skin of why each garden is just so and for me is much more satisfying than the usual plant descriptions, views of each garden and their history, though plenty of this is also peppered in each article in the book. This approach also meant that the in conversation format of the talk was appropriate and worked well.

I left not only wanting to visit Italy to see all this for myself, I was also intrigued by Helena's implication during her talk that garden design and landscape architecture in Italy today isn't the art that it once was and is now in the hands of just a few, who more often than not hail from these shores. It seems strange that where we once revelled in the ideas of our Italian cousins (and epitomised in my photo) we now are the exporters of our gardening expertise and passion to Italy.

I also found myself giggling from time to time because unlike most of the day's other talks at the festival which were accompanied with a glass of wine, this one had tea and cake. I'm sure it was because of the time of day (4pm), but I like to think that it was in deference to garden visiting!

Comments

  1. Helen/patientgardener21 September 2010 at 19:49

    I'm so glad you enjoyed it and am sorry I missed out although we also had a fab day and it would have been physically impossible for me to do both.

    Sounds fascinating and I have noticed that when they feature Italian gardens in the horticultural mags they are often being renovated by British gardeners

    ReplyDelete
  2. Victoria Summerley21 September 2010 at 22:40

    I'm so glad you enjoyed it! It was lovely to see you - I hadn't got your email because I hadn't been near a computer for about three days. GQT are at Blenheim, in the Orangery, next weekend. I'm going to ask them if they can come for the festival next year.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Esther Montgomery21 September 2010 at 23:25

    Tea and cake is just right.

    (For everything.)

    Esther

    ReplyDelete
  4. Susan Tomlinson21 September 2010 at 23:43

    The book sounds marvelous. I may have to see if it's available over here.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Plant Mad Nige22 September 2010 at 07:41

    Wish I'd been there. Since gardens - good ones - are so intensely personal, it's great to hear about the people who make them and run them, as well as learning the dry bones about their structures and styles.

    Blenheim looks to be a reasonably impressive pile itself, too, so a great setting for your day. Lucky you!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hermes22 September 2010 at 07:43

    Love Italian gardens, and Blenheim is a wonderful place.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Alex Ramsay24 September 2010 at 13:02

    Thank you VP for your kind remarks, and also for the link. I'll let you know when the book is officially published (the Saturday Telegraph is doing a big spread on it at the beginning of October)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous24 September 2010 at 18:44

    Hi dear VP, you have certainly whetted my appetite to read this conversational book about Italian gardens. I agree, it is the personal touches, learning more about the owners and gardeners that makes the difference between a sleepy same old same old and a riveting read. I wish we could have been there as well to see you and Victoria. :-)
    xxxooo
    Frances

    ReplyDelete
  9. VP27 September 2010 at 08:40

    PG - thank so much for the ticket. It was great to have the excuse to go to Blenheim at last :D

    Victoria - yes it was great and lovely to get the chance to catch up with you. I'm glad to see your course at Great Dixter went well :)

    Esther - well it's coffee and cake in my case as I'm allergic to tea, but I understand your meaning

    Susan - it's the kind of book that I hope will be

    PMN - a more in-depth look at Blenheim itself will follow

    Hermes - I could get 'lost in the landscape' there

    Alex - thanks. It's great to hear from someone so personally involved in the book. Thanks for the link from your blog too :)

    FG - I kept on thinking how you and Gail would be feeling if you were there with us. I wish you could have been there - I still miss you lots xxx

    ReplyDelete

New comments are not allowed.

Your essential reads

That blue flower: A spring spotter's guide

Image
Spring is a prime time for blue flowers and my daily walks currently have several from the same plant family* lining the local footpaths. As I walked past the Donkey Field the other day, I overheard some children ask their parents** what the pictured blue flower was. It reminded me it's often mistaken for those other familial blues and this time was no different, as they said it was forget-me-not, instead of the green alkanet it actually is. As well as similar flowers, most of these plants are hairy in their nature, flower around the same time, and favour damp, shady places. Many of them are great for pollinators too, especially bees and this week's warm weather has certainly drawn them to these flowers. This makes it even more likely for these plants to be mistaken for each other and it's a great opportunity for me to put together a spotter's guide in case you find the same flowers on your outings. Staying with green alkanet, the key features which set it
Read more

Jack Go To Bed At Noon

Image
Last year this rather exotic looking flower appeared on mine and several other allotments for the first time. Having been stumped (again) by Mr Allotment Warden as to its identity, I rushed home to find out what it was. It's salsify, aka the marvellous Jack Go To Bed At Noon - named as such because its flowers always close by midday. Here you can see both open and closed flowers - making it seem even more exotic and alien than in the first picture. I think this must be the cultivated version because the flower in my Francis Rose Wild Flower Key looks exactly the same in form, but is bright yellow in colour and called meadow salsify . Its other common name is Goatsbeard, which must be a nod to the fantastic dandelion-like clock which forms the seed head. With 'parachutes' like those shown above, who knows how far our plotted plants came from. I rather like the photographic dissection of the seedhead found in this link . Salsify is edible: its lateral shoots and fl
Read more

Red Nose Day - Gardening Jokes Anyone?

Image
The nation goes ever so slightly bonkers on Red Nose Day - hurrah! Previously, it's been very easy to join in - usually via a dress down day at work plus lots of people up to mad things at the station and in the office. Everyone smiling for once - it's a real feel good day and all in a good cause. This year's different - every day's a dress down day for me now - my friend L suggested yesterday that perhaps I could have a dress up day instead and whilst that's a good idea, I confess that ballgowns and tiaras don't really feature in my wardrobe: scruffy student's always been my favourite look. So my Red Nose Day contribution for this year is to compile a list of gardening related jokes. For each one (clean ones only please) you leave in the comments below, I'll make a donation of 50p to the cause. Here's a few for starters just to get you warmed up: Q Why do potatoes make good detectives? A Because they keep their eyes peeled. Q What did the grape
Read more

Salad Days: Mastering Lettuce

Image
I've decided one of my salad challenges for this year is to grow as many lettuce varieties as I can, ready for the publication of my planned Factsheet* later on. The idea is to grow as many of the Tried and Trusted lettuce varieties last year's Salad Challengers helped compile, then provide a visual guide and as many lettuce facts as I can muster. So far I've found around half of those listed**. Then naturally whilst I was out searching - because such is the way with seeds - a number of other varieties found their way home too ;) A couple of weeks ago I sowed 22 varieties***. Just the simple act of sowing them has me intrigued. Why are some lettuce seeds black and others white****? They split into about half white to half black in my sample and as far as I can tell it's nothing to do with whether they're a type of cos, iceberg, or whatever. I sowed them indoors and popped them into a propagator on the windowsill. The soil's too cold outside for sowing
Read more

VPs VIPs: Derry Watkins of Special Plants

Image
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Derry Watkins at her home, garden and nursery - the acclaimed Special Plants - just a few miles along the road from me. I first met Derry at one of her open garden days last year and was keen to find out more about her wonderful garden and running an independent nursery. She specialises in tender perennials and regularly goes on plant hunting trips to find new treasures, particularly in South Africa. As well as running Special Plants and opening her garden under the NGS scheme , Derry holds day courses at her nursery, hosts Special Tuesdays from April until September, lectures and has written a couple of books. How did you find your way from Connecticut to the UK? I'd started a biodynamic vegetable garden in Connecticut and we used to have people come along at weekends to help out. A particular young man turned up: he returned many times and at the end of the summer I married him. So it was all down to love? Isn't that the
Read more

#mygardenrightnow: heading into summer with the Chelsea Fringe

Image
Ahhhhhh, that's better! I love walking through dewy grass in bare feet, not that there's much in the way of grass on my back lawn this weekend. My wild and woolly lawn has morphed into meadow of sorts this month, which even NAH admits looks attractive*. It's also proved a great source for my Flowers for mum project so far, yielding self-sown perennial cornflowers, lamb's ears, and lemon balm in addition to the blooms you can see. These originated from elsewhere in the garden, the ox-eye daisies must have blown in from the A350 nearby. * = he got very stroppy about the weeds aka self-sown foxgloves in the lawn one year, so he's come along a bit since then. Skimble's demanding to say hello to you too. He does enjoy the patio when it warms up. If the embedded video doesn't work try this link instead. The Nectaroscordum are a revelation. I planted the bulbs around 2 years ago, but it's only this year they've bloomed properly. The bee
Read more

The Resilient Garden

Image
  Part of Tom Massey's Resilient Garden at RHS Hampton Court I've been pondering VP Gardens a lot lately. Last year's drought conditions set me off initially, then our harsher than usual winter combined with this summer's flip and flop weather means the thinking continues. It's a huge topic which I freely admit I'm struggling to get my head around. Tom Massey's Resilient Garden  at Hampton Court recently  tackled this topic brilliantly and was a timely interlude which gave me much food for thought. There he encapsulated the detailed research he'd found which informed both his show garden and book of the same name. I think it's one of the most important show gardens I've ever seen. It's clear the way I garden needs to change so that I have my own resilient garden. I haven't worked out the exact details yet, but Tom's book plus a couple of others (see below), alongside the rainwater management handout from the show garden's  sponso
Read more

Testing Times: Tomatoes

Image
  I've run a couple of tomato trials this year. The first is a revisit of the biochar trial with Oxford University I attempted some years ago (with a different organisation this time), and the second is a trial of a water gadget called Plantsurge which I was given to try at Malvern Spring Show earlier this year. Most of you have probably heard of biochar already and the claim that this inert, carbon-rich material can help soil fertility and plant health. The RHS information in the above link says results can be mixed, with reduced effects found in alkaline soils. This may help to explain the lack of difference I found in my previous trial as VP Gardens is on a lime-rich soil. Plantsurge is a different beast altogether. It's a strong magnet which is attached to a hosepipe as shown in the photo above. It's claimed that it softens water, with the result more like watering with rainwater. The higher nitrogen found in rainwater is thought to be beneficial to plants. Gardener
Read more

Chelsea Fringe 2014: Shows of Hands - Episode I

Image
The gloves NAH used to build the raised bed . The effects are L to R, top to bottom:  Original photo, Warhol, HDR, Green tint, B&W, Posterize, Boost, Cross process and Sepia Welcome to Shows of Hands - my Chelsea Fringe project for 2014! As you can see I've been having a bit of a play around in Pic Monkey for my first contribution. You're welcome to join in between now and 8th June 2014. The idea behind this year's project is to highlight the tool most precious to a gardener: their hands. How do I take part? It's simple. All you need to do is take a photo of hand(s) in a gardening context and then share it via your blog or other social media (such as Twitter or Facebook), then make sure I know you've done so. I've set up Mr Linky below for your blog contributions. The Chelsea Fringe photo on the right sidebar links to this post, so you can easily find it again when you're ready to add your contribution. If you share your photo on Twitter,
Read more

Make Use of Mildew

Image
On my garden patrol this morning I spotted some powdery mildew on a couple of my new Verbena bonariensis plants. I suppose it was almost inevitable as I prefer to grow my plants hard - this means no water for them unless they look absolutely desperate. This approach means plants root themselves more deeply and have a better chance of survival during spells of dry weather like we've had lately. However, it also means I run the risk of problems like today's, especially with any garden newbies planted late in the season. We've had a good drop of rain overnight, so this should help my plants survive. I'll mulch them later today to help lock in the moisture as it's water stress which encourages the mildew to take hold. I've also removed the infected leaves and sprayed the rest with a milky drink.* I'm also pleased to find there's a use for my infected leaves. Oliver Ellingham at Reading University has started a PhD - sponsored by the RHS - researchi
Read more