Day 101 - Where's the money?

First an irrelevant picture -

It was the smaller of the two gardens which from the organisation's point of view carried most of the historic horticultural importance, with its orchard of old varieties and its dedicated dried-flower garden, and accordingly, the Gardens Adviser had drawn up a plan for its development which we were to implement when the money became available. However, for me, it was the larger garden which best suited my kind of experience and interest in laying out gardens in the context of their relation to a house. I got quite excited about the lack of enthusiasm shown generally for this project, and within three months of arriving, I had drawn up a plan for the development and improvement of the amenity, bringing the garden into some kind of unity with the building it served. My proposal was accepted in principle, and again was awaiting appropriate funding.

The problem with the garden as I saw it was that the house just sat there, above it, looking down on some relatively small lawns, and a parking space for a couple of cars. The more distant views were deliberately obscured by large trees, as the town lay between the house and the hills in the distance. In a much larger 18th century landscape setting, perhaps, placing the house in plain lawns might have worked, but here, there was no direction to it, nothing on which to focus and nowhere to lead your view. The house sat lop-sided in its setting -

Aspects I had to consider were the entrenched idea that the property would continue to stay afloat by holiday lets and weddings, so I had to provide opportunities for these. The current site for wedding marquees was slap in the centre of things, right where they would destroy the visual impact of the garden, and where visitors would stumble upon it immediately on entering the gate. Off to one side was a sunken lawn, which was historically a curling green, flooded in winter and allowed to freeze, so the owners could practice the locally popular sport of curling. This was large enough for a marquee, and I put it to the authorities that I would prefer this to be the site for such things in the future. I was ignored. They were insistent that the use of the property as a party venue was the main source of its income, and that we must give the punters what they wanted, even if it was ugly, ill-kept and in your face. The present site must stay. Well, as a gardener that's what you always get. Your job is to make it look pretty, and fix it when other people mash it up. You are a maintenance man. I was never going to get across my artistic calling to those people. Tin men, and women, with no hearts.

The plan I submitted looked as follows, and shows a new ornamental area centred on the front door of the house, with a (I hoped) modern sculpture as a focal point, and radiating sunburst beds opening out from, or narrowing in on, the house depending on which direction you were looking from -

The kitchen garden to the left was substantially how I laid it out that winter, except that the perennial veg area to the left, I incorporated at the end of the fruit cage, leaving the whole of the left side for dried flowers.

The advantage of the plan I had suggested was that it could be put in place at relatively low cost, as it had no structures at all, and only needed the sourcing and purchase of plants, many of which we would be able to grow ourselves quite cheaply. The sculpture and water feature could wait till later, once my point had been proved. I attached a written rationale to the plan before I submitted it, an extract of which follows:

'Where once the front door was aligned to double herbaceous borders (no longer in place, but providing historic precedent for focussing on the front door), now there is still a central axis, but one which encompasses the scale of the whole house, opening the view out from the building, whilst also focussing back to the house from the other end. The sunburst layout of the beds gives a symmetry which takes advantage of the architecture of the house being raised above the ground, giving views down onto the garden from the drawing room, dining room and the main bedroom. At the north end is a sculpture, modern and abstract, and at the other, a contemporary water feature (to be situated in the circle below the steps into the garden).

The sunburst theme is reflected in the purple western hedge, representing sunset, and the golden eastern hedge to represent sunrise, which also harks back to the original golden border in the garden.

The planting of the beds is to be informal, with the use of golden- and purple-foliaged plants in such a way that they are highlighted against the contrasting hedge. Flower colours to be mainly in the yellow, orange and purple range. There is scope to plant two arched walkways within the scheme, one hung with golden hop, the other with a purple vine. There should be glimpses into the area over the lower parts of the hedges to entice you in, with trees visible above the hedges.

The two hedges rise informally in three sweeps from one end to the other, evoking the nearby hills, the golden hedge to rise from south to north, and the purple one from north to south. Simultaneously, both hedges are to have a serpentine formation to recall the local river. When viewed across the bulb lawn, the lowest (middle) section of the two hedges will hold a view of the Abbey, in an apparent bowl.'

The document went on to describe a holistic concept for the garden.

To make my vision clearer I drew a rough sketch of the basics of the design. At that time, I had done no coloured pencil work ever, and I know my approach would be very different nowadays, now that I have experience and a certain amount of skill with the medium. Anyway, as ever, I am not embarrassed by my earlier failures, and attach said drawing here, because I think it might help to make the words clearer -

Two things to note - one is that the hedges rise in undulating form as well as snaking across the ground from side to side, and two, I have credited my wife with her initials, as she, with her design experience, had helpful input as I bounced my ideas around.

It would have been exquisite if it had got off the ground. More on that to come.