Garden Variety of English Culture

The National Theatre, the British Museum, the West End and all the rest of English culture may be valid enough reasons to go to London. But, truth be told, all that culture is just a convenient cover. For me, English horticulture is the real crown jewel of a trip to the British Isles.

I may brag to friends that in 10 days I can find a way to squeeze in 12 plays and half a dozen museums, but what I really care about is the English garden--and if you play it right, you can cram in at least half a dozen glorious gardens, both in and out of the city, along with the culture. Plus, with the right timing, that glory of all glories, the annual Royal Chelsea Flower Show, held this year May 21-24.

Britons take their gardening very seriously, from small cottage gardens to the grand manors whose influence goes far beyond their borders. Even before setting foot in England, there was hardly a garden I didn’t know--and few I didn’t try to cannibalize from a plethora of garden books. We visited England again last year in May, and were reminded that there are plenty of gardens to choose from, even if you never leave London. You can barely get to the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace without falling into Kensington Gardens, where many Londoners daily rent a lawn seat just to breathe in the sights and sounds of the garden while London traffic lunges along their backside. Even though I favor the relative abandon of the cottage-style garden, proper Kensington is a joy.

And I’ve never missed a chance to stroll along the Thames’ Victoria Embankment between pub or theater dates. It’s especially inviting in spring, when the array of blossoms just beginning to unfurl practically compels you to park yourself on any number of benches. But when I really want to taste the true flavors of English gardens, I find a way to get to the countryside--and there is no better time to do it than the spring. A few forays always give the anti-garden members of my party enough of a taste of the English garden to almost match my enthusiasm. To their cascading questions: “What’s this plant? What’s that plant?” I always point to the guidebook available at most gardens and all the markers by each little leaf and blossom. Much more educational that way.

If you’ve never been there, your first garden day trip should be to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. There are lots of ways to get there--car, Underground, rail--but I prefer a leisurely trip up the Thames by launch, which will deposit you at the back door to the gardens after a little more than an hour on the river.

Plan on spending the day--wear comfortable walking shoes, and take along an umbrella. Kew’s printed guides will be of help as you wander through the expansive grounds, with birds and the occasional Concorde flying overhead. The only thing ordinary at Kew can be found in the cafeteria, but if you stick to the tea, crumpets, fruit and cheese you should emerge with enough extra energy to carry your through the grounds.

The Victorian greenhouses, especially the Orangery, built in 1761, are among the primary attractions--immense casings of glass and iron filled with flora from all corners of the world, even exotic California.

As imposing as the greenhouses are, they were not the magnet for me that the herbaceous island beds are. There, all manner of perennials insisted that I stop to smell the flowers, and take detailed notes on every one of them. Some among my party were not quite so drawn, but happy enough to store themselves on a convenient bench till closing time.

If, like me, you can never see enough roses, you’ll find plenty to draw your eye--and nose. It’s a bit frustrating finding wonderful varieties you’d like to pack up and take home with you, knowing full well they’ll never be available at Southern California nurseries. But I did take enough pictures, and scribble enough descriptions to find reasonable facsimiles for my far less imposing back yard.

At Kew, I like to leave enough time to browse through the museum shop, which has one of the best collections of gardening books anywhere. It’s hard when faced with that array, not to gather up dozens. If gardening books tend to collect around you, remember that much of the info tucked around those glorious photos--and a good many of the plants themselves--will not make it in Southern California. But, I’ve found that many are filled with enough ideas to be worth the poundage.

By the time we’d trekked through Kew’s 300 acres, including Queens Garden, Palm House, Pagoda, Grass Garden, Cambridge Cottage Garden, Water Lily House, Alpine House and Princess of Wales Conservatory, we were too beat for the boat.

We found the Underground was the fastest way back to the city. And we had been smart enough to make late dinner reservations at an elegant California cuisine clone called Menage a Trois in the Kensington district that easily erased all memories of the Kew cafeteria.

Glorious as it is, Kew is an institutional garden. Two other day trips by rental car--to Sussex and Kent counties--offered bountiful samplings of more personalized English estate gardening.

Roughly a two-hour drive southeast of London are two astounding country gardens, one--Sissinghurst Castle Garden--a legendary mecca for horticulturalists, the other--Borde Hill Garden--a fairly well-kept secret. If you can make arrangements to spend the night in the Sussex or Kent countryside, you should be able to fill two days with all manner of botanical pleasures, though you can also handle the two as one long outing.

We stopped first at Borde Hill in West Sussex, and since you can’t travel more than an hour in England without developing an appetite, we found the small restaurant on the grounds a pleasant end to the automobile journey--and a nice beginning for an exhaustive trek through the grounds.

We spotted Britons bringing their own picnic lunches to Borde Hill and thought we might try that next time. Borde Hill offers a glimpse of estate gardening in a relaxed setting. Its manor house is still being refurbished and not yet open to visitors.

In May, you’re almost certain to be rewarded with a bountiful display of rhododendrons. The glories of dozens of six-foot-plus bushes ablaze with fiery shades of orange, white, yellow, red and marvelous combinations thereof come as a wonderful shock to those who think of rhododendrons as little more than gift-ribboned azaleas for hospital rooms.

I lost myself in those stands. In fact, I regretted not having allowed a full day for Borde Hill. You can meander beyond the garden ringing the manor and encounter woodlands with a rare collection of 28 different species of fir, 78 species of maple, 27 of birch, 42 of magnolia, 39 of spruce, 51 of pine and 64 of oak.

And you won’t find lots of other tourists underfoot. A modest kiosk offers a few post cards and sodas and a guide to other gardens in Sussex.

We certainly didn’t find that kind of quietude at the deservedly famous Sissinghurst Castle Garden built by Harold Nicolson and his wife Vita Sackville-West in Kent.

Their son, Nigel Nicolson, explains the garden’s intrigue in a pamphlet available at the bookstore: “He preferred straight regular lines, a perfect circle or half-circle. She liked crooked shapes, because, she explained, nature was crooked. He provided the firm enclosures. She planted them with abandon. Although it may suffer slightly from its popularity, the innocent traffic of countless feet, Sissinghurst survives gloriously as the creation of two people who had the courage to make a little paradise out of a ruin.”

Sissinghurst offers such a profusion of bloom when its rhododendrons and wisteria go nonstop in May that you will certainly bump into other feet. While I found the crowds a terrible detraction, I found Nigel’s assessment of his parents’ dual achievement held true.

The garden is now part of the National Trust and has evolved somewhat from Nicolson’s and Sackville-West’s original plantings. A decent restaurant makes a nice rest stop, but the rather woeful gift shop doesn’t sell many of Sackville-West’s influential writings on gardening. Best to read up on all that before your get there, anyhow.

In the widely acclaimed White Garden, which does not come into its prime until early summer, flowers are all--surprise--white or gray, with complementary plantings in silver and gray. Successions of white flowers bloom all summer, framed by climbing white roses. The effect at dusk is legendary, and white gardens have now become de rigueur around the world, something like California cuisine.

Sissinghurst’s Herb Garden is a delight, boxed in by yew hedges, with a variety of unusual herbs climbing out of their square stone insets. Before seeing Sissinghurst in person I adapted many of its ideas into my herb garden; now, I’m refining a few more.

If you are able to spend the night in the Kent or Sussex countryside, your stops next day should be “Kew in the Country,” as Wakehurst Place is popularly called, followed by Gravetye Manor.

Wakehurst, which is situated in the town of Ardingly, offers a strong contrast to the smaller Royal Gardens in Kew; its 500 acres stretch endlessly across the horizon.

The plantings are arranged by geographic region. Striking Japanese maple specimens among the Rock Terraces caught my eye immediately, challenging me to try one in Southern California, where I know it won’t even approach its English glory. The newly planted Trans-Asian Heath Garden grows out of an area damaged by the severe storm of 1987, which destroyed trees and plantings throughout Britain.

Beyond Winter Garden, designed in pastel shades of silvers, pinks and lilacs, is the Southern Hemisphere Garden; Water Garden; Himalayan Glade; Horsebridge Wood, which offers North American plantings, and the Bethlehem Wood, which boasts the largest collection of birches in cultivation.

After plowing through “Kew in the Country,” I was still not prepared for the incomparable glories of Gravetye, a brief drive from Wakehurst. The 16th-Century Elizabethan manor house near East Grinstead was taken over in 1884, along with the 1,000 acres on which it stood, by William Robinson, considered the “father of the English natural garden.” In 1957, the property was bought by Peter Herbert, who maintains the present 20 acres of gardens according to Robinson’s principles, which were basically that gardens should follow the lines of nature.

Now part of the Relais Chateau consortium, the estate requires advance booking for its 14 suites with high ceilings, Elizabethan carvings, four-poster beds, wood-paneled fireplaces and views of the grounds. We were fortunate enough to book reservations for dinner and the night, which gave us plenty of time to wander the gardens and be treated like royalty at dinner in the elegant dining room. (In fact, Gravetye is frequented by many titled Britons.) We dined on succulent lamb (there is also fresh trout from the Gravetye pond), and took our coffee with after-dinner drinks in the drawing room by the fire.

Gravetye’s private gardens are open only to manor guests and those with luncheon reservations (no shorts, please). At Gravetye, you’ll sample some of the best food that England has to offer. All the vegetables served are organically grown on the premises; beautiful floral arrangements come primarily from flowers grown on the grounds. If weather permits, lunch or before-dinner drinks outdoors enable you to fully appreciate Robinson’s plantings the way they were meant to be savored, quietly and individually.

Without reservations, anyone may take the “Perimeter Walk” along the edge of the grounds and along Gravetye’s country pond, Tuesdays and Fridays only.

Robinson, who was partly crippled when he died in his 90s in 1935, also helped develop means for the handicapped to enjoy gardening. The ramps he designed to accommodate his wheelchair, from which he would scatter bulbs and seeds, are reminders that one can be active in a garden, even when your activities are restricted.

The Gravetye gardens, managed until recently by Helen Greenwood, required tremendous reworking after the devastating ’87 storm: roughly 75% of Gravetye’s trees, many more than 100 years old, were lost.

“In some places, we had to clear everything and start from scratch,” she told us. Greenwood and assistant gardener Lindsay Davison, who is now head gardener, returned to Robinson’s original writings before replanting the damaged acreage.

“Robinson planted everything in groups of three, five or seven, which he felt makes for a natural-looking group,” said Greenwood, who looked upon the storm as an opportunity to invigorate the garden according to Robinson’s precepts. “Shrubs and trees should be grown in grass as in nature, not in beds and rows. We try to use plants the way he would have done.” So, Gravetye remains a continually emerging seedbed, not a museum.

While you’d certainly never call the Royal Chelsea Flower Show a museum--it’s far too lively and crowded for that--it is the closest thing to a contemporary plant bazaar one is likely to come across, and unlike anything you’ll ever see in the United States. It’s the perfect cap, or introduction, to a few days of English garden touring.

Chelsea will give you a chance to indulge almost any gardening passion you have--and some you may not have discovered yet. But you will not enjoy solitary moments for reflection. Thousands of Britons and tourists from all over the world pilgrimage there to glean ideas, and buy seeds. Once you do, you may make the annual pilgrimage yourself. And discover any number of other gardens to visit as well.

GUIDEBOOK: Blooming England

ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS AT KEW (in Outer London, roughly between Hammersmith and Hounslow):

Getting there: A 75-minute trip by riverboat up the Thames from Westminster Pier; boats leave every 30 minutes from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Or by North London rail line from Waterloo Station (to Kew Bridge), or via tube to Kew Station on the District Line, or by car.

Hours: Open daily, April through September, Monday-Saturday, 9:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m.; Sunday, 9:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Telephone: Call locally 081-940-1171.

Advance reading: “Kew: Gardens for Science & Pleasure,” edited by F. Nigel Hepper (Stemmer House).

SISSINGHURST CASTLE GARDEN (in Cranbrook, Kent):

Getting there: By car, 50 miles from London on M20, then take A20 to Maidstone and A229 to Staplehurst; 5 miles from Staplehurst, with signs posted. Or by train to Staplehurst from Charing Cross or Waterloo, then taxi to Sissinghurst. Bus: MD5 from Maidstone.

Hours: April 1-Oct. 15, Tuesday-Friday, 1 p.m.-6:30 p.m.; weekends, 10 a.m.-6:30 p.m.; call locally 0-580-712-850.

Advance reading: “Sissinghurst: Portrait of a Garden” by Jane Brown (Abrams); “Sissinghurst: The Making of a Garden” by Anne Scott-James (Michael Joseph); “The Illustrated Garden Book” by V. Sackville-West with a new anthology by Robin Lane Fox (Atheneum).

WAKEHURST PLACE (in Ardingly, Sussex):

Getting there: From London, M23 to Junction 10, A264 toward Turners Hill, through village on B2028; 5 miles north of Haywards Heath on B2028.

Hours: Open daily, April-September, 10 a.m.-7 p.m., call locally 081-940-1171.

GRAVETYE MANOR (near East Grinstead, West Sussex):

Getting there: 30 miles from London, M23 to Junction 10, A264 toward Turners Hill, through village on B2028; 5 miles north of Haywards Heath on B2028, take left fork to West Hoathly, turn left at Vowels Lane.

Staying there: Reservations two months in advance in spring and summer, rooms with private bath $220-$370; no credit cards, personal checks accepted or accounts can be forwarded to guests; from the United States, call 011-44-342-810-567, or write Gravetye Manor, West Sussex, RH 19 4LJ, England; fax from the United States, 011-44-342-810-080.

Hours: Lunch by reservation only, 12:30 p.m.-2 p.m.; dinner by reservation with preference to guests. Perimeter Walk along edge of grounds and along Gravetye country pond open to public Tuesdays and Fridays only.

Advance reading: “William Robinson, 1838-1935: Father of the English Flower Garden” by Mea Allan (Faber and Faber); “The English Flower Garden” by William Robinson (Amaryllis Press).

BORDE HILL GARDEN (in West Sussex):

Getting there: By car, 40 miles from London, 10 miles from Gatwick Airport. From London, M23 to Junction 10, A264 toward Turners Hill, through village on B2028; 1 1/2 miles north of Haywards Heath on B2028,

Hours: Open daily, March 31-Oct. 28, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

ROYAL CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW

Getting there: Chelsea Showground at Royal Hospital Chelsea, Chelsea Embankment at Chelsea Bridge Road, near Victoria Station.

Hours: Members-only days sold out: Tuesday, Wednesday, May 21-22; open to the public, Thursday, May 23, 8 a.m.-8 p.m., and Friday, May 24, 8 a.m-5 p.m.

Admission: About $26-$32, depending on date. For telephone credit card orders from the United States, call 011-44-71-735-6199; from London, call 071-735-6199.