England’s most famous gardens tend to be long-established. Sissinghurst, Hidcote and the famous planting schemes of Gertrude Jekyll have roots in the Edwardian era. Visitors flock to see landscapes designed and planted by the Georgians. At places with layered histories like Hampton Court, you can see gardens stretching back to the Tudors ... though the plants have been refreshed in modern times. English garden tourists are likely to tell you, with grave sincerity, that a really great garden needs many decades to sink its roots into the must visit list.
It’s quite a surprise, therefore, that the two most noteworthy gardens in England’s Northeast are newcomers. The Alnwick Garden (above) only opened its first phase in 2001, with its core complete less than 15 years ago. The RHS gardens at Harlow Carr are similarly young; though there had been gardens here for years, the RHS only took over the site and started its redevelopment in 2001. Both places, therefore, benefit from the kinds of conveniences many older gardens don’t have: ample parking and dining facilities, digital guides, modern shops and learning centres and adventurous approaches to design.
Given that the Royal Horticultural Society is best known for its flower shows at Chelsea and Hampton Court, where designers magically create pop-up show gardens that look like they’ve been in place for decades, I suppose it’s no surprise that Harlow Carr, just west of Harrogate, appears far more established than its years. The site is a long, gentle, rectangular valley, once the spa gardens for a now defunct hotel and later trial gardens for the Northern Horticultural Society. The topography means you can stroll along the brow of the hill where the entrance is located, looking down into most of the gardens and taking in long vistas without much exertion. This is unlike the main RHS garden at Wisley where, though there are grand spaces, they tend to be separated into more distinct sections by hedges or architecture. Harlow Carr serves up most of its delights in one extraordinary panorama.
Those who know Wisley will find the main elements of its Northern sister familiar. There are deep, long perennial borders, alpine houses, rock gardens, demonstration fruit and vegetable sections, shade beds and an arboretum. I didn’t have time to explore it all, but I loved what I saw.
I have a theory that Northern gardeners like a brighter colour palette than Southerners ... perhaps building on a legacy of vivid Victorian annual beds in public parks that didn’t go out of fashion here as they did down South. Harlow Carr certainly supports my theory, particularly in its “sun border” planted meadow-style with poppies, cornflowers and other semi-wild favourites in a density that recalls the “mille fleurs” style of Medieval tapestries.
Elsewhere, abundant dahlias in bright purples, reds, yellows and oranges .... and shocking combinations thereof ... were often planted side-by-side with equally bold canna lilies, reinforcing a love of colour. Things are a little calmer along the stream that runs through the valley bottom, where my favourite section mixed hostas with a variety of Japanese maples. Though the palette was more muted, there was still a vast variety of leaf colour.
Like Wisley, this is a vast, diverse garden that would reward multiple visits. And like all RHS gardens this is a place for learning, full of interesting plants to inspire horticultural experimentation. Unlike Wisley, it’s also the home to branches of Harrogate’s famous Betty’s Tea Rooms, so you can break your wandering with a hot drink and one of Betty’s famous “fat rascals” purchased from a hut in a woodland dell at the far end of the valley. There’s also a full tea room and a take-away bakery counter outside the paid entry point, the former with views over some of the gardens, so there’s a shortcut for killing two Harrogate tourism birds with one stone.
The Alnwick Garden has less horticultural variety and less interest in its planting schemes, but is far showier in its hard landscaping. This is, fundamentally, a water garden, with an enormous cascade at its heart. Jets put on a Vegas-style “dancing waters” show roughly every half hour, with wide lawns at the bottom intended for families to lounge, picnic and watch the show. Children are encouraged to splash and paddle, whether in the corridor through the middle of the cascade where you’re never sure when plumes and jets will come on to drench you, or in gentler streams and fountains to the side and top of the cascade. Locals clearly know this and treat the garden like a water park, with cautious parents kitting their kids out in wellies and waterproofs while others let their progeny strip down to a bathing costume and get drenched.
I couldn’t help thinking with wry amusement of the Princess Diana memorial in Hyde Park, which was designed for children to play in its streams but changed its rules soon after opening due to Health and Safety fears. The Northerers are clearly made of sterner stuff.
This all provides for much spectacle and amusement, but it inevitably means that this isn’t a particularly calming garden. Even at the very top, in a walled garden divided into grids of different colours and plant types, where serious gardeners will find the greatest horticultural interest, you’ll also find children stomping down cobbled rills of flowing water and reacting with gleeful delight to the central water feature that bubbles intermittently, like a pond in a geyser field.
Water features sprinkled around the garden all have different points of interest, from one that seems to drain like a sink from its centre to another that’s reminiscent of a giant water clock and sends jets up and out when its reservoir fills. Many of these are in, or led to by, towering walls of hedges that give much of the garden the feel of a giant maze.
Two areas offer a respite from aquatic merriment. There’s a large and diverse rose garden, dominated by David Austin varieties, planted in a spiralling pattern in a walled corner of the garden behind more screening hedges. It’s not at its best in August, though I enjoyed the secondary bloom on some varieties, highlighted by clematis planted throughout to add late summer colour. In late May and early June, however, it must be spectacular.
The other “quiet” area is the poison garden, for which Alnwick is probably most famous.
Though the link isn’t made overtly, most people will associate the poison garden with the Harry Potter franchise and its potions classes, given that the neighbouring Alnwick Castle stood in for Hogwarts in the first two films. The concept stands on its own, however, and is a fascinating exploration of plants that can do harm. Many are obvious: there’s hemlock, henbane, monkshood, deadly nightshade and others that fans of Poirot, Miss Marple or Brother Cadfael will recognise as devious paths to murder. There’s also a wide variety of plants common to many gardens, and only dangerous if treated in certain ways or exposed to specific types of people (like pregnant women). These include rosemary, hellebores, foxgloves, lily of the valley and daffodils. Perhaps most interesting are the plants that can be used for medicinal purposes but are often abused to the detriment of our health, or lethal overdose. The coca plant, khat, hemp, marijuana, tobacco and the opium poppy all grow here, and are the focus of a local programme encouraging teenagers not to do drugs.
Access to the poison garden is limited, you’re not allowed to touch or smell anything and it’s small enough for the guides working there to keep an eye on everyone. The only negative? It’s not actually a very attractive garden. Many of these plants look like struggling weeds; or at least they did in August. The garden scores high on intellectual interest but low on visual appeal.
Alnwick and Harlow Carr were created for two very different purposes, and they serve them beautifully. As the RHS anchor in the North, Harlow Carr carries on its organisation’s wider mission of education while giving members an HQ for horticultural events in the region. The current duchess of Northumberland created Alnwick (despite sceptical criticism) as a major tourist attraction that would draw visitors North and as a community garden with a variety of outreach programmes for locals. In both cases, it’s great to see England’s grand old tradition of gardening being used to bring new, fresh and exciting life to the areas these gardens beautify.
No comments:
Post a Comment