American Museum & Gardens
A transatlantic treat
23 February 2024
By: James Lennox
George II arguably has two claims to fame: he was the last British monarch to lead his troops into battle; and he was the amateur meteorologist who defined an English summer as “three fine days and a thunderstorm”.
He would have been taken aback by the Summer of 2022. By the time I paid a visit to the gardens of the American Museum just outside Bath, the country had endured almost three months of record-breaking temperatures, no rainfall at all and desiccating Saharan-style winds. I was afeared for any plant that hadn't already given up the ghost.
I needn't have worried. Not only was I welcomed with the reward of a free cookie for having somewhat foolishly walked up the long, steep hill from my boat temporarily moored on the canal below; I was also greeted by swathes of brightly coloured planting positively rejoicing in the heat.
Of course, it was the second George's grandson, George III, who has more of a connection to North America. He was the one who somewhat carelessly allowed the Thirteen Colonies to go their own way. But that's all water under the bridge now. Relations between the two countries have improved to such an extent that, in 1961, an Anglo-American couple decided to set up the American Museum at Claverton Manor to house their collection of decorative arts in the Regency pile at the centre of the 125-acre estate.
And it seems entirely appropriate that one of those art forms showcased here is the art of gardening. Well, that's my interpretation of the decision in 2018 to engage the US firm of Oehme, van Sweden (OvS) to revamp the main lawn into the New American Garden, which, together with the recreation of the garden at Mount Vernon created by yet another George (Washington) form the open air highlights at the American Museum.
The site of the New American Garden is almost as challenging as my own garden at La Corolla: here it's alkaline instead of acid soil, but otherwise similarly exposed, dry and sun-kissed. It's almost as if OvS could sense that a heatwave was just around the corner as they wisely chose to rely heavily on their favourite cast-iron plants, those “good doers” that resolutely refuse to give in when the going gets tough.
The firm's signature style bears more than a passing resemblance to the New Perennial plantings that we're familiar with from Piet Oudolf's work at Scampston and Tom Stuart's Smith design for Broughton Grange. Where the European approach is to include varied planting in a complex matrix pattern, OvS tend to simplify the design, restricting the plant palette and working in larger swathes and bolder blocks. The aesthetic could be summed up as “robust American prairie”.
It leads to a dramatic display of plants that they know can withstand the extremes of temperature common in the US and which gardens increasingly suffer in Britain as well. And so we have broad brushstrokes of Allium ‘Summer Drummer', Rudbeckia maxima, Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus', Acanthus hungaricus, Verbena bonariensis and Veronicastrum virginicum f. roseum, all laughing in the face of climatic adversity.
Elsewhere, paths are lined with Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker's Low' and Oenothera lindheimeri, interspersed with ornamental grasses such as Molinia caerulea subsp. caerulea ‘Dauerstrahl', Panicum virgatum ‘Warrior' and our old friend Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster'.
The flow along the serpentine paths, vaguely reminiscent of the winding walk at Jefferson's Monticello, is superb, the blocks of colour bold even under the harshest sun and the choice of plants beyond reproach.
The same assured plantsmanship continues in the Mount Vernon Garden. It's instantly recognisable as a Revolutionary-era garden - white picket fence, the ogee-roofed seed hut (seen to equally good effect at Dumbarton Oaks), the informal mix of ornamental and productive plants.
In fact, it's not a million miles away from the archetype of the traditional English cottage garden - straight and narrow paths, a profusion of herbaceous plantings and always something for the pot. It's only the fleur-de-lis box parterre, designed by Washington as a tribute to his friend the Marquis de Lafayette, that strikes a distinctly un-English note.
The juxtaposition of the two gardens highlights just how far American garden design has come in the last two centuries, from humble domestic (albeit presidential) origins to grand-scale public schemes. While there are elements that are only just starting to pull their weight (the young tulip trees barely break the horizontal plane of the herbaceous planting), it's astonishing how mature the New American Garden already looks.
Even at the end of a heatwave, with no royal thunderstorm in sight, the muscular, confident, authentically American planting was more than holding its own. As a result, I'm mightily tempted to introduce a flavour of the New World into my own parched hillside and see how it copes under a Spanish sun.
More information here: https://americanmuseum.org/
