The French Connection

Le Jardin des Plantes, Montpellier

A Midi Oasis

Bienvenue aux amateurs de jardin!

I'm chasing a few deadlines so the next few postings will be more like bulletins for now and probably a bit rough around the edges. But gardens are racking up like cards in my hand - it's time to play a few. Trimming and pruning can wait a while.

Last week I spent a few days in Montpellier. Other holiday plans had fallen through for unforeseeable reasons, but I managed to book something a couple of days beforehand. At first, I'd thought of going to Marseille by Eurostar but, with only a short break to play with, the 7-hour journey wasn't the best option. An hour and twenty minutes after take-off from Gatwick, we were in Montpellier.

Une lumiere couleur

The heat struck us first - washing over and through you like a forcefield. And then the sunlight glowing on the runway and irradiating the palm trees and flowering shrubs lining the roads into town. Van Gogh and Gauguin came to mind - on the second to last day of our stay, we went by TGV to Sete where there was a Dufy exhibition at the Paul Valery museum (gardens surrounding the museum opposite). Dufy's South of France paintings are lit up with that azure and golden light - yet in the exhibition notes there were a few quotations from the man himself acknowledging its magnetic quality while distinguishing it from a kind of illumination even more essential for a painter:

A suivre la lumiere solaire, on perd son temps. La lumiere de la peinture, c'est tout autre chose, c'est une lumiere de repartition, de composition, une lumiere couleur.

Le peintre a besoin d'avoir sans cesse sous les yeux certaine qualite de lumiere, un scintillant, une palpitation aerienne qui baigne ce qu'il voit.

[Apologies for lack of accents as couldn't track these down on Blogger, and pasting in Word documents brings up 'typescript error' . . .. On the subject of glitches, just to mention that unpredictable font sizes are courtesy of the ghost in the machine.]

Heroes of the Plant World

Maybe it was this year's Van Gogh exhibition at the RA that put the idea of going to the South in my mind. Another part of Montpellier's appeal was that it featured in the lives of the sixteenth-century herbalists and botanists I'd spent years reading about: in particular, two botanists trained at the university's distinguished medical school, de l'Obel (after whom the lobelia is named) and de l'Ecluse, who influenced John Gerard, gardener to Sir William Cecil and so ultimately helped shaped English gardens and botany. (Incidentally, in the next century, the magnolia would be named after another Montpellier medical graduate, Pierre Magnol.)

De l'Ecluse translated an influential herbal by Dutch botanist Dodoens, which appeared in English in 1557, translated, in turn, by Henry Lyte; some think that Gerard based his famous Herbal on de l'Ecluse's translation of Dodoens. There was another botanical domino effect when de l'Ecluse went on to found the first botanic garden at Leiden, bringing his collection of tulips with him and helping to initiate 'tulip fever'.

From the middle ages onwards, the area around Marseilles was both the gateway to the south, in terms of trade, and renowned for its health-giving properties, resulting in a high concentration of merchants and doctors and, in turn, boosting Montpellier's School of Medicine.

The Jardin des Plantes is the oldest botanic garden in France, dating from 1593. Henri IV commissioned his physician Pierre Richer de Belleval, known as the 'father of scientific botany', to create a space modelled on the garden in Padua, laid out in 1545 (the earliest botanic garden was created two years earlier, in Pisa). Montpellier's botanic garden was the prototype for the Jardin des Plantes, in Paris, 1623 (England's first botanic garden, at Oxford, was created in 1621). Instead of dried samples, students were able to study real plants as materia medica - and in glorious surroundings . . .

Luxe, calme et volupte

The garden is huge in scale, covering 4.5 acres. It's also free and open late - till 8 - and, after experiencing the mighty heat of the Midi the day before, which drove everyone, even the locals, into the shade, we thought that by around 7 it would be cool enough to enjoy exploring the place. We made our way there by tram, after spending a day at the beach. On the way, though, it was still so warm that I thought we might just want to sit and read in the shade - as do many of Montpellier's students.

But as soon as we entered the garden, it was just a pleasure to walk along the avenues and paths, and our books weren't needed - like perfect days at the beach where you bring something to read, but it's enough to look and listen to the sea and enjoy the sunshine.

I've run out of time to write much more but just to mention some highlights: myrtle hedges in various stages of being sculpted into shape, enclosing palm trees;



the perfect balance between trees and stonework (classical-style arches and wide stone walls and benches); rows of huge terracotta pots on pedestals;




an avenue of cypresses;



a lotus pond backed by an orangerie and conservatory, with enormous flowers with palest pink satin petals and bizarre showerhead-like seedpods;






students reading and writing on a little hill, stretched out on wide stone walls beneath a dense canopy of trees;
a bamboo forest;
a monumental greenhouse in the process of being restored;
the calm in the air, sweet scent of leaves, deep, gentle light and pellucid colours.
Last, but not least, a hexagonal herb garden divided into a symmetrical pattern of small beds each planted with a single species (an arrangement modelled on Italian botanic gardens).
An exotic tree stands at the centre: sapindus mukorossi, from China.

About twenty minutes before closing time, the headgardener took to his bicycle, furiously ringing his bell, hurtling along the paths like a man possessed (you can just make him out in the photo below, whizzing across at the top of the picture, about a third of the way in from the left), in huge contrast with the leisurely people, some strolling arm in arm, making their way out.


We were among the last to leave, around ten to eight (it was so lovely I could easily have stayed longer), and, although he looked tired and a little fraught after his high-speed circling of the garden - I joked with him about warning people to leave 'a toute vitesse' - he was happy to talk to us about the history of the garden and generously tried to look up details of a tour, but unfortunately the last for the season had taken place the day before. Next time . . .

Lastly, it was something to see beautifully engraved quotations by Paul Valery lining the paths. Here's the first, about the perfect time of day to visit the garden:

Le moment le plus agreable dans l'allee Cusson: de dix heures du matin a midi. C'est un admirable lieu de lecture cette allee sureleve au coeur du Jardin des Plantes entres deux murs de verdures variees.

A great place to read - a raised walk between two green walls - perhaps Valery meant the shaded path up a flight of steps where we'd met students lounging (and doing a little reading and writing while they were at it).

And the second:










Plants, people, poetry - what more could you ask for?


Next routine: more exotica, at Great Dixter

A suivre . . .

The Red Sun Pavilion

Stretches of leafy trees creating depth of field. An aura of calm floats in the air.

Jean Nouvel
Paris, March 2010



This year's Serpentine Pavilion by Jean Nouvel is a gazebo the size of a small jazz bar - and could match Ronnie Scott's for atmosphere, if you go with the continental mood.



Just the sight of this pavilion is a pleasure (so more photos than usual in this posting). If you can find a half-hour to while away some time there, even better - it's around until 17th October. I wouldn't have missed the experience: a huge contrast with my journey to get there, it set me up for the rest of the day.

I wasn't looking for a garden architecture cure when I arrived at Victoria Station around half-twelve on a simmeringly hot day in August. Just searching out a few interesting things to do before visiting a friend in hospital - ideally places I could take some photos or pick up a few postcards to show later. The geometrical design of this year's Serpentine pavilion might appeal; afterwards, I was going on to the Picasso exhibition at the Gagosian.

After riotously crowded train, tube and bus rides, fortunately, as mentioned in my last routine, I got off a stop too early and strolled over towards the gallery via a luxuriant avenue. Then it was on through the park, following aptly serpentine paths lined with ancient trees.


My first sight of Jean Nouvel's pavilion was a primary red wall futuristically radiating sunlight ('DAZZLING . . . A HAZE OF RED . . . like closing your eyes against the sun', in his own words). Past this impressively stark and monumental surface rippling with colour, the structure appeared so open that my initial impression was of scaffolding for a twenty-first century circus tent, probably because of a shapeless piece of canvas hanging inside (a stage curtain of some kind?). A little underwhelming, at first. But, as I discovered, I was missing the point: this wasn't a pavilion just to look at but to spend time in.

Not tempted by what seemed to be a makeshift stand-up cafe/bar and airport cafeteria tables and chairs (I later saw there was more to the interiors too), I headed over to a majestic bank of seating, with matching china red cushions, that reminded me of Gaudi's sinuous tiled mosaic seats in Parc Guell - Brighton also has a fairly recently built row of seating, with inlaid spotlights, in the pedestrianised New Road opposite the Theatre Royal. As you can see, what's different about Nouvel's infinity bench is that the support is diagonally slanted. If you let yourself go here, as most people ultimately did, though some took their time, perching on the edge or sitting bolt upright for a bit, that tilt will potentially transform your mood and personality (more dramatically than a Laz-E-Boy as you're in a public place and there's no inbetween stage). If you can allow yourself to lean back, before you know it, you are laidback. All I can say is it was very relaxing.


The tables in front of the lounge seating had chessboards painted on them, but there were no pieces. Children loved the place, treating the cafe like a playground and the lounge seats like a climbing frame, not in an annoying way, amazingly, just having fun - scurrying up the slope as if climbing up a slide and only just making it to the top before perilously walking along the ridge behind adults who were now almost horizontal and just enjoying the spectacle. On that hot summer's day, the shady pavilion fulfilled the original function of such structures, as originating in Persian pleasure grounds where intersecting paths crossed a pool to meet in the centre at a life-preserving shelter from the heat.

After you've unwound and enjoyed taking it all in, you can wander about a little. Newly appreciative of the space, I walked through the cafe to the table tennis tables just out front and surveyed the scene. Everyone seemed happily absorbed in what they were doing - table tennis players, friends chatting or just sitting and relaxing in the cafe and in what I suppose might once have been called a chill-out area, though lounge suits it better perhaps. I discovered a little corridor behind the bar leading to a mirror-like artwork in alluring shades of red and dusky orange that was a see-through photograph of people sitting in the pavilion's cafe - a double-take. You could see people pass behind it and follow them around to an enclosed garden with raised flower beds - strips of summery planting with burgundy and orange canna ('FLEETING SUMMER . . . green against red . . . red berries, vegetables and flowers') with a wide red hammock as a centrepiece. This carefully ordered plot gave a sense of being encircled by gardens and grounds - a feeling of being cocooned, despite the public nature of the space.

The hot red pavilion maps on to the cool elegance of the gallery behind it: the structures are thrown into relief and complement each other. The wider landscape is embraced by this temporary building; although it will only be with us for another couple of months, there's something about a transient garden house that's celebratory - of the possibilities of architecture and summer? In Elizabethan times, a spectacular temporary structure was a keynote of festivities.

A pavilion gives you some time out - offers an escape. Garden structures gather people together to relax and enjoy their surroundings and each other's company in a less formal and more private way than usual.

A space like Jean Nouvel's Red Sun Pavilion shows us we're social beings: there's no need to do anything in particular, but it's good to be with other people. Free to stay as long or as fleetingly as you like, in wild contrast with my starting-point, Victoria, which passengers barrel through as quickly as they can, you will probably spend more time there than expected and will emerge recharged.

While you're there, don't miss the Wolfgang Tillman exhibition at the gallery - also free (donations welcome though).

Lastly, a Sussex connection. The Collector Earl's Garden, designed by Isabel and Julian Bannerman at Arundel Castle (opened 2008) has a charming, miniature banqueting house decorated with wooden antlers and leaves. What makes this garden a true wonder is the elaborate shell grotto based on an Inigo Jones stage set design with its mesmerising jet fountain with a spinning crown.

An extraordinarily inventive garden, it's the sort of thing I picture when reading rapturous first-hand accounts of gardens like Kenilworth, Theobalds, Nonsuch and Beddington.

Club Tropicana

Welcome to the jungle

Making a garden is often about transforming your environment; outside spaces can offer more scope for imaginative exploration and experimentation than interiors. They're more changeable and, if you garden in pots, moveable.

Brighton and Hove Council's gardeners have this summer planted up some of the busiest areas in the city with tropical flowerbeds designed to suggest an 'urban jungle'. On the Old Steine, near the Royal Pavilion, you'll find banana trees (musa trees), kangaroo apples (a shrub usually found, no surprise, in Australia) and ornamental grasses. I often drive along here but hadn't noticed any of this - I just happened to pick up a copy of our local paper the Argus at the gym and saw the news. The headline was 'Hot weather encouraging exotic tree growth in Brighton and Hove'. There seem to be the beginnings of an enthusiasm for cultivating banana trees here (see Michele Hanson's account of the thrills of growing them, 'Bananas in north London - whatever next?', 5 August '10).

On foot, I found that the new flowerbeds were grouped around a Regency fountain in what had become a traffic island - if you find them hard to spot, just look, as I did, for flag-like banana leaves billowing and flapping in the bracing seafront breezes and squalls. The new planting made me and others take a closer look at the candelabra fountain with its ferocious-looking dolphins cleverly supporting the middle basin with their tails. The fountain seems quite baroque in style; intriguingly, it seems that it replaced a stone circle and some of the stones were incorporated into the base ('Steine' means stone, and the area was once covered with stones used by fishermen to dry their nets).

What struck me most, however, were the six people happily squeezed on to a bench (count them) backed by the new planting, looking at the fountain, which was also popular with seagulls (there's one perched on the look-out at the the top, like a Brighton emblematic beast). The group of friends seemed like they'd been there for a while - and they were still there when I left - even though it was a stormy day. On another bench, backed by planting that mixes musa trees and kangaroo apples with dahlias, nasturtiums and millet, two friends were engrossed in conversation (see below: the man walking away, looking very happy, had just snapped the photogenic seagull on the path).

Successful gardens attract people and wildlife, and I think you can tell how they rank by how happy people and other creatures are there; with imaginative planting, this traffic island has been transformed into an elegant and, thanks to the tropical touches, exotic fountain parterre.

It's a month since the plants were put in and so now's the perfect time to see them - the gardeners said it would take that long for them to bed in properly. See them while you can, though: at the end of the summer, the banana plants and grasses will go back to the council nursery at Stanmer Park for the winter, to reappear next year.

Quickly, just to mention the council gardeners' soft spot for agapanthus this summer: see their eye-catching planting of blue flowers just along St James's Street in the New Steine (along the railings, opposite, and in a block in the middle of the garden square, see below, facing a bank of rhododendrons) and the profusion of blue and white flowers on the Drive, in Hove, near Cafe Nero (see below right). I took both pictures the same afternoon - Hove first, then on to Brighton where the skies darkened, though that didn't worry the people round the dolphin fountain. Shortly after I took the New Steine pics, there was a downpour, with raindrops the size of 10 pence pieces, followed by thunder and lightning; it brightened up again soon afterwards.

All this brought back to me how so many times in his Herbal, John Gerard, unofficial gardener to Elizabeth I, conveys the excitement of growing plants from distant lands - rising to the challenge yet again and pointing out that although the wonderful plants documented are "strangers to England, notwithstanding I have them in my garden".

(I could stop here, I realise, in the interests of brevity, as promised in my last posting, but after talking with a few readers of the blog, I'm going to add a few more connections, for those who like them - all those in favour of shorter bulletins, stop reading now . . .)

Round-the-world planting


A neighbour recently gave us a tour of his garden where he grows the increasingly popular agapanthus and other less-often-seen plants, such as snow-white gladioli, alstroemeria (Peruvian lilies), and, yes, banana trees. A great traveller, he is from Northern Thailand and has transformed a suburban lawn in Hove into a space where almost every inch is covered with unusual blooms, as well as interesting varieties of well-known plants. The border in the photo to the left surrounds a pond with an ornamental bridge and cascade. The swan statue just visible in the depth of flowers reminds me of Pope's garden at Twickenham: by the river bank there were two sculptures of swans, wings outstretched as if about to take off. When Swift came to stay with Pope for a couple of months in the wake of the furore after his anonymous publication of 'Gulliver's Travels', he paid tribute to him and his magical garden: "You have taught me how to dream".

Recently, our neighbour has changed his vegetable garden into an area for growing cut flowers such as helianthus and alstroemeria (see right); he also has, amongst other things, about a dozen sunflowers growing in pots and gave me two (different varieties - one with the usual dark centre and almond-shaped petals and the other like a golden pompom), now basking on my balcony.
There's a perimeter path around the garden that leads at the top right to an apple tree under which there is a flourishing blueberry bush, day lilies and agapanthus in pots (left).

Last connection for this routine: On my latest visit to the garden, my neighbour showed me an unusual type of canna - the leaves are light stripes of green rather than orange/wine-dark red (usual variety below).












By coincidence - or gardengoing synchronicity - on my way to see this summer's Serpentine Pavilion in Hyde Park, I got off one stop early and followed a beautiful avenue with magnificent planting (left), at the end of which was a glorious border with, you guessed, agapanthus (see below, at the back).

If you look closely, below the large-leafed plant, nestled in the earth in front of the red band of flowers, you can see a sunbathing robin - undeterred and unnoticed by the many agapanthus paparazzi, the robin soaked up a few rays before taking off when a lady leant a bit too far over the railings.
Leaving the avenue, the Albert Memorial was surrounded by 'hot' border planting, with gorgeous dark red dahlias and brilliant flowering canna, that reminded me of similar borders at Hatfield and the Walled Garden at Cowdray.






Next routine: Jean Nouvel's Serpentine pavilion and garden buildings ancient and modern

Garden Glimpses

The above close-up shows the planting in Paul Hervey-Brookes's Biodiversity Garden this year at Chelsea; combining beauty and usefulness, with plants and colour spectrum chosen to attract bees (the garden attracted more bees than any other I saw, and very happy they seemed too). The most peaceful spot at the show was, in my experience, this little garden-house with a portico, like a miniature classical temple - also delightfully practical as, if you look closely, in the eaves of the portico, you can see shallow funnels for birds' nests and thin tubes for solitary bees and other insects to hibernate.

Everywhere in the garden there were concealed shelters for wildlife (shaped like an upturned boat and made of wooden strips, the hedgehog's den reminded me of currachs on the beach in Ireland). Sitting in that garden, I felt as if I was on holiday, and the lush planting alone was so beautiful you could lose yourself in it.

After the last marathon routine on Japanese gardens, just to say I'll be posting slightly shorter epistles from now on (thank heaven for small mercies, some may say . . .). There have been a few technical hitches publishing postings the last few so it makes sense. Enough people have said they've read them (voluntarily) to keep going. So this is for you, and here's to you . . . though shorter routines, mostly of the don't miss, last chance to see, why not see for yourself/try this yourself kind. Plus 'one to watch' alerts, as this time. So worth your while tuning in now and then.

As for me, it's been an enjoyable experience writing about gardengoing, though you can't say it all in short (or too lengthy) postings, I've discovered - inevitably, perhaps, though it's come as a surprise to me, I'm going to write a book about it. If/when it sees the light of day, it'll be another book (like 'Elizabeth . . .') that's come about via a series of fortunate events. Beginning, probably, with going to gardens as part of research for a PhD on Alexander Pope and his friends and on to visits with students and research trips for book proposals, books, articles and routines and, of course (the best kind), gardengoing purely for pleasure.

Next routine: a Hove jungle

Eastern Promises

(Hirohige, 'Sugin Grove and Masaki')

No Motion

'To watch the sun sink behind a flower-clad hill, to wander on and on in a huge forest with no thought of return, to stand upon the shore and gaze after a boat that goes hid by far-off islands, to ponder on the journey of wild geese seen and lost among the clouds' - Seami

Time often slows down in a garden; so too in traditional Japanese drama. When the two go together, in a Japanese garden with an authentically No/Zen design, though you're hardly aware of it, you're in the moment. 'To wander on and on in a huge forest with no thought of return'. Whether you're in a bluebell wood or a small garden, a beautiful space creates a sense of freedom. 'To ponder on the journey of wild geese seen and lost among the clouds' - poets have always recognised the value of daydreaming; in the eighteenth century, some called it reverie and saw gardens and landscapes as the ideal settings.

There was a chain reaction when I went to see gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show and Open Garden Squares Weekend; two Japanese gardens and one Islamic garden with a Japanese connection held my interest for unexpected reasons. The sequence continued when these brought to mind Japan-inspired rock gardens at Leonardslee and, even closer to home, Preston Park in Brighton. The product of all this was that I paid closer attention than perhaps otherwise to a Japanese garden at the RHS Hampton Court Show.

Japanese gardens, so popular in the 80s, appeared to have dropped off the radar, but this year at Chelsea and Hampton Court they had something of a moment. Previewing the shows, I didn't notice the small Japanese gardens - though every year there are always gold medal winners. Was this a blind spot or, just as likely, a case of competing attractions this year in the form of gardens that recreated the Dolomite mountains in miniature glass statues, a Camaroonian rainforest and a Provencal landscape planted with lines of lavender and an olive tree? I thought I knew enough about Japanese gardens for now, though I hope one day to make a pilgrimage to Japan to see them (and other icons - cherry blossom and Hokusai's mountain come to mind).

Close encounters of the show garden kind

I was at Chelsea this year at 8am - to beat the crowds. Apart from the space and the simple fact that early morning is the best time of day, a flying start opens up the possibility (even if this seems wafer-thin before you set out) of meeting and talking with some of the designers and growers before they leave or are inundated with people. And there's another aspect to the timing: you're usually finished by around half-ten, which is opening time for the Pimms tent . . . (just the one to end the day on a high . . .). I'd caught a glimpse of a Japanese show garden on TV and was actively seeking it out, mainly because of its dreamy name 'Kazahana (A light snow flurry from a cloudless sky)', by Ishihara Kazuyuki, a piece of Zen poetry in itself.

After sailing by sensational (no exaggeration) gardens by Andy Sturgeon, Robert Myers, Tom Stuart-Smith and Roger Platts - I think a show like Chelsea is similar to a big exhibition, where I like to see what's there, especially the masterpieces in the last few rooms, before going back to the start and giving everything its due - I backtracked to take my time with the genuine show-stoppers. By accident, I was wandering past the blissfully empty 'Kazahana' when I realised that this was one of the gardens I most wanted to see: standing there alone looking at it seemed as unlikely as being the only shopper on the pavement outside Fortnum & Mason the day they launch their Christmas window displays.





Kazahana had a mesmerising waterfall encased in glass running down the side of a grotto-like cave covered in moss. As I gazed at the garden, a couple joined me and then a serious-looking, elegant Japanese gentleman and his assistant arrived. Both looked business-like and very formal. But, seeing the show-going couple's fascination with the garden, the gentleman, who, it became clear, had to be the designer, lifted the velvet rope and invited them in. It was too heaven-sent an opportunity to miss, so I asked - or begged, probably - if I could join them: answering in Japanese (lost on me), Mr Kazuyuki let me in. I followed the couple up a meandering path flanked by gardens planted with irises, maples, ferns and moss past a pond lined with smooth pebbles to a cave where we found sparkling pools and cascades.

For a detailed virtual tour of this enchanting roof garden, go to: bbc.co.uk/chelsea/show-gardens/kazahana.shtml.

Talking of being let into an exhibitor's garden, Paul Hervey-Brookes generously gave me a tour of his wonderful garden (Bradstone Biodiversity Garden - 2010 is the UN's International Year of Biodiversity); I also enjoyed meeting the makers of the Eden Project's fantastical productive garden, Places of Change - more on these another time.

I recently met up with a friend who has spent some time in Japan. I started to say that Japanese gardens for me meant gravel, stone . . . I was thinking mostly about the famous rock garden a the Ryoanji Temple, in Kyoto, which you can never completely see. There are fifteen stones, which may represent mountainous islands, set in white gravel raked so as perhaps to resemble waves, but the garden is designed so that you can never see them all, only fourteen (fifteen is the Japanese number of perfection). My friend completed my list with moss, water, ferns and maples. (For photos of Ryoanji, go to www.sacred-destinations.com/japan/kyoto-ryoanji.htm)

After that, I paid attention when, in his commentary on his garden, Mr Ishihara kept coming back to maples, describing them as 'primordial plants'. As with so many gardens at Chelsea, you get to experience the variety of particular species (with the highest quality plants as demos): in the Kazahana garden, I saw red maple, green maple and light green maple.

Inside the deliciously cool cave, I wasn't aware that there was a river running across the roof but later recognised that the feeling of being surrounded by water because of the interior pools and mini-cascades was obviously magnified by the face that the source was flowing overhead. We happy few invited beyond the velvet rope were transfixed by the river, which looked like a geometric waterfall from inside. There's something wonderful about being inside a waterfall, behind that curtain of water. The linear, controlled nature of Kazahana's falls was also a little bizarre, though thrilling. In the programme notes, Mr Kazuyuki drew attention to the helpful, practical effects of plants and water in a city roof garden in high summer: 'A river appears to flow through the garden. In combination with the green walls, the presence of water helps to ease the urban heat island effect.' He also mentioned the sound-proofing qualities of plants.

Stone, water, primordial plants like moss, ferns and maples and clean, ionised air: a garden of the elements. This was a meticulously planted garden - in the BBC interview, he talked of how he hoped people would notice the flowers growing in the moss such as Pachysandra Terminalis, Japanese spurge, and that he'd chosen a mixture of Japanese and native British plants. Plants from Britain included Brachycome iberidifolia, Swan river daisy (pictured above) and Euonymus europaeus, Common spindle.

There's also a second interview with Mr Kazuyuki on the BBC site where he hopes that the garden will encourage people to smile - 'make people kinder through the sense of nostalgia'. He recommends growing plants from your childhood as a way of achieving this. (Go to bbc.co.uk/programmes/p007ybck)

Last thing about Chelsea, it might seem extravagant or, at least, sad that so many painstakingly created, costly gardens exist for so short a time and then they're gone - a student at a talk I gave at Birkbeck even likened the lavish and often transient landscapes of Elizabeth I's courtiers to them - so it was good to hear that Roger Platts's beautifully romantic 'country garden' (he prefers this term to 'cottage garden'), with its interconnecting rose arbours, has been donated to St Joseph's Hospice in North London.

'Gardens underneath which rivers flow'

I realise I've mused for quite some time about Kazahana so I'll cut to the chase on that chain reaction. A penthouse garden (meant as a compliment - to have a garden like that would be complete and utter luxury), Kazahana connects with the Ismaili Centre's roof garden in South Kensington (opposite the V & A). This is a 'charbagh' ('four gardens') garden, divided into quarters, with four paths meeting at a central fountain. In Islam, the garden is a foretaste of heaven.

'Gardens underneath which rivers flow' occurs over thirty times in the Koran and symbolises bliss. The four rivers of paradise flowed with water, milk, wine and honey and were represented in Ancient Persian gardens by four water-channels which crossed at the centre where there was often a pavilion or fountain. (Whereas Kazahana was a garden above which a river flowed . . .)

I'll save a full account of my gardengoing experiences at the Ismaili Centre for later. But, apart from saluting the wonderful Kazahana (again . . .), my main reason for writing this routine is to alert you to the last opportunity this year to see the Centre's garden: during Open House London weekend, 18 & 19 September. (The Centre only opens to the public twice a year; check the OHL website nearer the time if you're going.)

The roof garden at the Ismaili Centre is one of the most unusual and beautiful spaces I've come across - the sunshine helped, but when I visited it looked superb. Just to give a sketch: there's a central hexagonal fountain, four water channels or rills, ornamental pear and fig trees, trellised white roses around a covered walkway and, the genius touch, thanks to its high walls, the garden 'borrows' the domes of the V & A and the Science Museum so that you feel you could be in Istanbul - or that those stately pleasure domes are part of the Ismaili Centre, transformed into a palace.

I was fortunate enough to take a few snaps with my camera phone before I heard that no photos were allowed: an extremely private garden, adding to the allure (the J D Salinger of gardens?), but the Centre's website has a couple of evocative pics. Go to: theismail.org/cms/807/The-Ismaili-Centre-London, look under 'resources', then 'other resources' and you'll find two articles with photos of the garden: 'Looking back on 25 years of the Ismaili Centre London' and 'The Middle East in London'.

Now for the Japanese link: one of the charming guides told me that the designer is Japanese and lives in Canada (name to follow, hopefully, when I hear more). By coincidence (no such thing, some say), straight after seeing this roof garden, we went on to the Hempel Hotel's Zen garden in Bayswater, which was participating in Open Garden Squares weekend for the first time.

Lastly, just to add that the Japanese roof garden at Hampton Court was about a pilgrimage to a shrine: 'Journey to Awakening' by Makoto Tanaka (see rhs.org.uk/Show-Event/Hampton-Court-Palace-Flower-Show/2010/Gardens/A-to-Z/Journey-to-Awakening).

As for the rock garden at the now-privately owned Leonardslee, I wasn't so keen on it - past its best, it seemed, and I preferred the public garden on the side of a hill opposite Preston Park, where, as children, my brothers and I spent hours jumping across stepping stones and chasing up and down the steep paths, weaving between elegant ornamental trees and shrubs. That was until I reached the top of a diagonal stone path and emerged into a small clearing. There was no one around; it was peaceful. Just a few flowering shrubs and trees - one with pure white flowers, dazzling in the sunlight - and a few dangerously tame rabbits. An experience that goes back to the lodestar of No drama, 'yugen', meaning subtlety or 'what lies beneath the surface'. Seami says it best: the symbol is 'a white bird with a flower in its beak'.

Next routine: who knows? Probably a few more Sussex gardens: Standen, Nymans, Monk's House (aside from I've never been there, need to make the most of my NT membership, and there are a few places in my guide to Sussex pubs that need testing), Great Dixter. Later on, dv: the restored garden at Chiswick House; Hestercombe (beautifully photographed by Linda Rutenberg in her recent exhibition at the Garden Museum); Alnwick.

Virtual Gardens

When I was teaching garden history at Birkbeck, one of the first things students had to do was complete a questionnaire. The most interesting question for me was why they were taking the course. There were the expected boxes to tick – to gain a further qualification (Certificate in Garden History), career development – but the most popular, and my favourite, was ‘purely for pleasure’.

(Woodcut from Thomas Hill's 'Most Briefe and Pleasaunt Treatyse, Teachynge How to Dresse, Sowe, and set a Garden', 1558)


The last time I taught the Introduction to Garden History, the venue was the London School of Economics, near Aldwych. The class was full – over 25 – and the majority ticked ‘purely for pleasure’. A great crowd. The course ran from September till March – all through what was quite a grim winter, and it amazed me that people would turn up to an evening class in blizzards, driving rain and various degrees of miserable meteorological conditions, even the weeks before Christmas and after New Year, when I have to admit that, on particularly bleak nights, my main motivating factor for turning up was that, if I cancelled, I’d have to run an extra session at the end of the year. (I only missed one session in two years when, on the train from Brighton, a fallen log held us immobile for 2 ½ hours somewhere near Haywards Heath before we had to turn back. Luckily, I had a good book, and, when it became clear it would be impossible to make it, I called Michael Symes, the programme director, and creator of the first garden history courses at Birkbeck, to apologise, he gallantly said he was sorry I’d had such an awful journey: also, there was a convivial group of homeward-bound businessmen who made the most of the buffet car’s facilities during the hold-up. When one of them tried to phone his wife to say he'd be late back because there was a log on the line, his friends joked about leaves on the line – as possibly unlikely excuses, at least it was a new one).

Yet when I got there each time, the beautiful garden images and their stories (not to mention those lovely students . . . ) made me forget everything else. And, of course, it was always spring or summer there [below right, cowslips from Leonhart Fuchs's herbal of 1542, 'De Historia Stirpium'].




There were students of all ages and histories on the introductory course – one or two in their twenties were in training as garden designers or horticulturalists, and all were enthusiastic gardengoers. But what stood out from that first session was when, after I'd shown the most tempting and tantalising slides I could find, as advised by my programme director, so as to transport my audience (some of whom were still prospecting, not having registered yet) on what I hoped was an irresistibly enticing whirlwind tour of the world’s gardens from Ancient Babylon to the eighteenth century, I asked my students why they were doing the course. Memorably, one of the youngest students, who was training to be a garden designer, said he didn’t have a garden so he was taking the course to enjoy ‘virtual gardens’.


At the time, I was living in Croydon and going to yoga classes at the local Buddhist centre – and, reading up on yogic philosophy a little, became interested in one of many forms of meditation, positive visualisation - projecting beautiful images on to your mind, maybe a lake, a forest, the sea, a garden. I wondered if showing images of gardens was the same kind of thing, except with slides as props.

Far Other Worlds

I recently gave a talk at the Cheltenham Music Festival – apart from the pleasure of being invited, a main draw was that this was a pre-concert talk for a performance by the Musicians of the Globe. It was a perfect summer's day, and the elegant Pittville Pump Room surrounded by a sea of lawn made a sumptuous venue. One of the interesting things about the programme was that almost half the composers were anonymous; song titles tended to celebrate much-loved and emblematic flowers of the era - ‘Sweet Bryer/Eglantine’, ‘The Gilleyflower', ‘The Honi-suckle’, ‘The Marigold’. My favourite piece was ‘Thyrsis and Milla’ by Thomas Morley; it was also lovely to hear such a well-known poem as Thomas Campion’s ‘There is a garden in her face’ set to music by Robert Jones [below right, wood engraving of Elizabeth encircled by Tudor roses and eglantine, 1588].



I knew little about Elizabethan music beyond a few compilation CDs and the songs of John Dowland as blazingly reinterpreted by Sting and Bosnian lutenist Edin Karamazov in ‘Songs from the Labyrinth’ (2006). In the concert in the Pittville Pump Room, ‘All in a Garden Green’, I was unexpectedly captivated by one of the last songs in the performance on the most famous of all garden poems, Marvell’s ‘The Garden’, arranged by an anonymous composer. It was particularly striking how the composer repeated a line about the ‘garlands of repose’. Director Philip Pickett and his musicians played with extraordinary vigour and control; soprano Joanne Lunn was superb.



The high point of ‘The Garden’ is just the blissful experience of being there: ‘Annihilating all that's made/To a green thought in a green shade’. That single couplet alone has made Marvell the patron saint of garden poets ('Stumbling on melons as I pass,/ Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass' has also won him a few fans . . . ) [Painting, above right: Juan Sánchez Cotán, 'Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber', 1602] But till now I hadn’t clued into the lines that come directly before this: in Marvell’s ‘happy garden-state’, the mind transcends itself and creates ‘far other worlds, and other seas/ Annihilating all that's made /To a green thought in a green shade’.

Taking a journey with Marvell to your own ‘far other worlds’ compares to Keats’s travels in the ‘realms of gold’ on first reading Chapman’s Homer; imaginative exploration packs a punch. And Paul McKenna has described how, as far as impressions go, the nervous system responds as strongly to what it imagines as to real events, giving an insight into the power of books, films and, of course, hypnosis. Not to mention virtual gardengoing . . . (which brings to mind Bill Burroughs' concept of the writer as an 'astronaut of inner space' - and reading as a creative activity.)


Next routine (I promise!): Japanese gardens at Chelsea, Open Garden Squares Weekend, Leonardslee and Preston Park, Brighton