Garden Bling
Or how to excite a non-horticultural eye
26 October 2024
By: James Lennox
Much like a headstrong mistress, a garden can be a wilful and demanding beauty. I've neglected mine (garden, that is) for the past few warm, wet summer months. It has sulked, pouted and ever so slightly gone to seed, while I've been travelling, garden visiting and messing about on boats. As every self-respecting international playboy should from time to time.
Now I'm giving the garden at La Corolla my undivided attention. I'm old-fashioned enough to prefer not to look out on a brown, scruffy wasteland for months on end so a certain degree of slashing and burning is called for. Nothing too energetic, you understand, more a general wash and brush up, trimming a hedge here, removing an unsightly sprawl there.
The garden is still a long way from being ready for its close-up, which is where the odd bit of garden ornamentation comes into its own. I normally rely on the planting to bring the bling - carefully curated compositions, a stand-out specimen, the occasional rarity. But combine benign neglect with the inevitable winding down of the floral fireworks at this time of year, and garden structures really come into their own, worth their weight in gold.
Which is oddly appropriate as I have only one style of creating garden incidents - a rendered white pillar surmounted with a golden vase, urn or bauble of some sort. I hesitate to call it sculpture for obvious reasons. I'm definitely more artisan than artist, preferring rustic realness to polished professionalism.
A limited decorative range, you might think - cohesive design, I say. And there's nothing wrong with consistency - if gold and turquoise is good enough for Clough Williams-Ellis at Plas Brondanw in north Wales, gold and white will do me nicely in northern Spain.
While hacking my way around the garden this past week, trying to de-wild a hillside all too keen to re-wild itself, I've been constantly reminded that I'm in good company in the way I've been using garden ornamentation. I like to think I've invented the wheel all by myself, but chances are I've been unconsciously influenced by far greater gardeners and landscapers who have gone before and am merely following in their footsteps.
Because there are only so many ways you can add non-plant interest to a garden. I've stumbled across a few and incorporated them at La Corolla and they're coming into their own right now, when the garden's been left to its own devices for too long and the soft landscaping looks decidedly ratty.
Here are some of my tried and tested favourite techniques for bringing the bling.
Create a vista and force the eye to follow. An oldie but a goodie - whether the view is stopped by a structure as at Nemours or allowed to travel onwards to infinity as at Hidcote, this never fails to create a spot of drama in the garden. I've done a variation on this theme with pillars at the end of the sweetgum avenue. Modest but, dare I say, effective.
Provide a spark of interest in the bleak midwinter. Dumbarton Oaks adorns its walls and gate pillars to tide it over the harsh US winters. I needed something to mark the centre of the deciduous American Woodland - a calm, still space for three months of the year with little but bark and fallen leaves to keep a golden bowl company.
Throw in a shiny bauble. Particularly useful when you want to trick the eye into looking away from necessary evils, such as leaf mould bins. A white fire hydrant in the gloom at York Gate does the job nicely - as do shiny white gate pillars between the guest cottage and the compost heaps at La Corolla.
Fill a gap while plants get established. The walnut sculpture in the midst of a national collection of Juglans provides a focal point while the trees get going at Upton Wold. Cedric, aka ‘le coq d'or’, does much the same in the new grove at La Corolla - he'll be doing a fair bit of heavy lifting on the interest front for a while yet.
Interrupt a long walk with a chance encounter. Halfway up the avenue here an exhausted visitor unaccustomed to steep climbs can catch his breath with the excuse of admiring yet more of my handiwork. At Duncombe Park, eighteenth century gentlemen could promenade between a pair of temples hidden from each other on the sweeping terrace above the river.
Commemorate a loved one with a mausoleum. Notable examples abound as at Castle Howard, Bodnant and, less successfully, Althorp. Or have a diminutive urn on standby to receive the ashes of a distant, impecunious relative when the time comes.
Dress to impress. If you've got it (money, ambition, exalted sense of self-worth), flaunt it. Temples, bridges and rotundas make an emphatic statement at Stowe - Capability Brown creating the Grecian Valley with shovels and wheelbarrows, and a few extra pairs of hands, takes some beating. Throw in a Palladian bridge, a Temple of British Worthies and another of Ancient Virtue and you've got a none too subtle political statement.
Tell a story. How about the allegorical tale of a young man setting out on life's long journey, gaining experience and wisdom en route before returning to his point of departure older and wiser? No, not a wander around La Corolla, but a gentle stroll through the unchanging landscape at Rousham where every statue, structure and pool marks a staging post on the road to enlightenment.
Suggest a different place. Stuck in Yorkshire but would rather be in the Himalayas? Plant a few rhododendrons in a dramatic valley and add a Buddhist stupa to complete the picture, as at Harewood. Nostalgic for your misspent youth in India?
Then how about some Brahmin bulls on a bridge or at your front door, as at Sezincote in the Cotswolds.
Or fancy a hint of Italy outside Bath? Then follow Harold Peto's lead at Iford and fill your terraces with Roman antiquities and colonnades. It certainly beats taking a no-frills flight to jostle with unwashed backpackers to get close to the original inspiration. Cross-cultural homage or plain cultural appropriation - just think of the debate your garden could ignite.
And most importantly, have some fun. There's always room for a spot of whimsy, especially in wet Wales where it's most needed. Portmeirion reigns supreme in this regard - rejoicing in architectural detail at every turn.
Or how do you entertain less horticulturally minded friends who might not be bowled over by your never-ending borders of bedding plants changed seasonally or your immaculately curated collection of trees? Longwood opts for a green Italian-style water theatre for staging live performances, failing which a jaw-dropping fountain display, colour-coordinated and timed to coincide with Miss Diana Ross hitting the high notes should just about do the job.
I'm still wondering how best to do a Longwood, a Stowe or an Iford at La Corolla. Thinking big seems to be key - perhaps I just need to scale up my efforts and hope my hypothetical distant elderly relative isn't as impoverished as I thought. I can but dream. In the meantime, dear old Cedric will continue to entertain and put a smile on my face on a blustery autumn day.
