Brilliant Botanicals

Anglophiles sprout a new interest in the English garden

March 28, 2013

9:25 AM

The world has long been fascinated with English gardens, but shows like Downton Abbey, the media's constant coverage of the Royal Couple, and even the 2012 Olympics have fostered a new affection for all things British. The gardening world is no exception—this year the renowned Philadelphia Flower Show in March chose an English theme: “Brilliant!”

So how do you achieve the look of an English garden in the Susquehanna Valley? What are the elements that define it as quintessentially English? A meander through a garden called Millbourne, in York County, provides examples of an English landscape garden. While Millbourne’s scope is on a larger scale than what you might have to work with, the fundamentals can be applied to a smaller scale.

Defining Design

Rather than a sweeping, sprawling garden, the English garden separates areas and creates entryways with closely clipped shrubbery, or hedgerows. This creates visual barriers that introduce surprise discoveries as you turn a corner or spy an entrance. Likewise, suspense builds as you walk up a curving drive to a defined area that gradually becomes visible. Gates and archways create drama for the garden wanderer, like having a butler announce each area formally as you approach.

Alternatively, open lines of sight offer striking views. As he leads you to the Chapel Tower, a butler might instruct you to look to your left for a glimpse of the Tower Ruin. Sans butler, as you examine each area of your own yard, you’ll begin to see its possibilities. What is the terrain, and what does it suggest—formality or informality?

While some sections of an English garden are formal, dominated by straight lines, others are more naturalized, similar to a cottage garden. This creates an interplay of civility and restraint. Designing your own comes from recognizing the opportunities each area presents. That’s what the owner, an admitted Anglophile, has done here. Only sometimes the process is reversed: consider a favorite plant, structure or statue, imagine where it would work best, and build from there.

When designing your English garden, think beyond the area around your home, develop outlying areas of your property and use geography to your advantage. Hills and valleys, shade and sun, wet areas and dry all create opportunities to establish interesting scenes and plantings. Think about which areas you want to be able to look through (plan for low-lying plants there) and which you want to obscure or make private (consider a dense, tall border).

Creating Places to Linger

Stylized architecture and seating are recognizable elements of English gardens. These offer focal points around which you can design additional garden areas. English gardens are famous for their ruins, or follies, whether authentic or created. Charmingly crumbling walls work, as does anything Gothic, as long as they look like they’ve been there for ages.

To achieve this effect, landscape artisan Chuck Witman builds structures at Millbourne from natural materials, preferably old ones. “The secret to making them look aged,” he says, “is really just time. It takes a couple of years to look weathered, to get the growth on the stone—moss, lichen—and it starts looking nice.” Witman shares another way to encourage the plant growth that makes stones look older: pouring sour milk on them. When they wanted to blend a new stone wall with an old foundation by the property’s King Edward’s Garden, this method did the trick.

The belvedere in the Woodland Garden represents a different type of structure. Belvederes, like gazebos, provide places to sit and frame pleasing views of the gardens. This one, which was also built by Witman and his crew, has at its top a delightful faux dovecote and looks as if it’s been there for decades (it hasn’t). Bridges create other places that invite lingering and offer fresh vantage points, as do chairs and benches tucked here and there.

Integrating Period Ornamentation

Some embellishments that give an English garden “the look” include statuary, decorative structures and ornamental containers. Again, the older-looking, the better. Take Flora’s Garden (see page 38). This classical statue, with her wavy hair and draped garb, invites you into her parterre, with its oval fountain and circular patterns of manicured greenery. Likewise, another period statue draws your eye to the perennial path, which in spring is abundant with flowering bulbs and Virginia bluebells. Lattices, arbors and trellises, as well as artfully placed containers, also define this garden as English. Lanterns imported from England as well as baptismal fonts and chimney pots also evoke that feel. Use anything that makes you think of this style, and be as creative—and quirky—as you like.

Adding Sound and Movement

The addition of water to any garden is a great draw. One famous English garden was reputed to have a fountain that blew water 30 yards into the air. But any pond, mini-waterfall, or creek will do. There’s nothing as inviting as a bench placed near a burbling brook or a small table and chairs nestled by a water feature. The only problem might be making yourself leave for work or getting guests to go home after a garden party: small prices to pay.

Establishing a Backdrop

One of the aspects people often overlook when creating a garden is the background. Flowers alone won’t give you the look of an English garden. Not only will statuary, buildings, seating and water features help, but the layers of trees and shrubs behind any blooming areas add depth and make them truly stand out. They also add year-round interest.

Chris Paules, head gardener at Millbourne, explains, “Trees create the framework and permanence, whereas with perennials you have a couple of weeks of color and they’re done. If you focus more on texture and form, you have a more long-term interest.”

Another hallmark feature is the espalier form, in which plants, often fruit-bearing, are trained against a wall in symmetrical patterns. Attractive tree silhouettes, such as Japanese maples, redwoods, Alaskan weeping cedar and hardy kiwi, along with a stunning goldenrain tree, add vertical interest and beauty all year long. Grassy lawns create a beautiful backdrop for spring-flowering trees and shrubs here, such as weeping cherries, redbud, magnolias, flowering quince and Kerria japonica (Japanese rose). Then there is a treasured collection of maples, chosen specifically for their fall color. Extending the garden’s splendor are ornamental shrubs: Korean Spice viburnum, hardy camellias that bloom from November through February and the less common evergreen shrub, Mahonia, with its welcome winter blooms.

Paules says, “We’ve gotten to the point now where we have 365 days of bloom.”

Introducing Blooms

While it’s not all about flowers, the English garden does offer a profusion of blooms. Cottage gardens, mixed borders, and formal specimen rooms all have their place in this style of horticulture. For spring, Millbourne’s creekbed offers the ideal setting for bulbs that create a carpet of color. Any naturalized area or lawn can showcase as many spring bulbs as you can plant. Tens of thousands have been planted at Millbourne over the years. Every fall, they plant another few hundred—or thousand—more, and await the delights of spring.

To make the most of bulbs, Paules recommends diversifying: “Most people concentrate on a particular daffodil that would bloom for 2-3 weeks. There are 12 or 13 divisions of daffodils, and if you purchase varieties that bloom at different times, you get that extra bloom length.” Daffodil poeticus, or the Pheasant’s Eye (see center image on page 38), is the last daffodil to bloom and extends the season until groundcovers and other flowers are ready to take its place.

Primroses, snowdrops and leucojum, with their trademark green spots, appear among the beautifully shaped red leaves of hardy geranium, carrying forward the flowering begun by Lenten Rose hellebores, which bloom even in the snow. Lupines and a collection of rhododendrons add sweeps of color, and Virginia bluebells blaze against the variegated leaves of Lamium White Nancy.

There are some unusual plants here, such as euphorbia, jack in the pulpit, the late-winter/early-spring blooming Fragrant Wintersweet and the tricky-to-grow Himalayan lilies (Cardiocrinum), but for the most part they are not rare, and they are not particularly English—except for the roses.

Millbourne’s roses include the famous Graham Thomas (crowned “The World’s Favourite Rose”) and Leonardo da Vinci (double roses of up to 75 petals) varieties. Two rose gardens, one within the walls of the formal Cutting Garden, thrive here as well, adding heady scents. Others, climber roses like Heritage and City Girl, flower in profusion by the carriage house and in the Sundial Garden.

Overall, the garden style at Millbourne exemplifies that typical of England. But you don’t have to cross the Atlantic to learn the tricks—add a few statues, a gazebo or ruin, a fountain or two, and some roses and ornamental shrubs, and you can enjoy your very own English garden. The butler is optional.

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