Scampston Walled Garden
A stylish synthesis
21 July 2023
By: James Lennox
The Romans had their atria; the Persians had their paradise gardens; the Andalusians still have their patios. All are enclosed spaces, dedicated to relaxation, pleasure, display and the odd decorative plant.
The British, rather more prosaically, have the walled garden. Its primary purpose was initially utilitarian - to produce fruit, vegetables and the occasional floral arrangement in a protected environment. Rather than providing refuge from the sun, the walled garden was built to capture every available ray, retain heat for as long as possible and stop the wind in its tracks. All useful attributes in a typical English summer, let alone the depths of a Scottish winter.
But what to do with a walled garden when the owners of the adjacent house can pop to the supermarket, pick up a tin of pineapple and save themselves the cost of employing 5 men full-time to keep the old pineapple pit constantly topped up with steaming manure? The answer used to be to turn it into a car park, a Christmas tree plantation, or, faute de mieux, let it all go to wrack and ruin, glasshouses included.
Thankfully, the walled garden as a horticultural haven enjoyed something of a revival from the 1970s onwards. And in 1999, the owners of Scampston Hall came up with a novel solution for theirs: invite a designer to re-imagine the space as a modern pleasure ground.
Piet Oudolf was an inspired choice. Now something of a cult figure with a devoted following, he is regarded as one of the pre-eminent exponents of the New Perennial movement, the master of the naturalistic approach to garden design. Plants are paramount, hard-landscaping is secondary; perennials are the focus of attention, planted in blocks or, increasingly in his later work, in a matrix, combining perennials and grasses in plant communities intended to evoke a natural landscape.
At Scampston, the earlier Oudolf is to the fore. Where his later work, such as at the Hauser & Wirth gallery in Somerset, retains the feel of the open field it once was, here the designer decided to emphasise the sense of enclosure by mirroring the wall on three sides of the garden in the form of a high yew hedge - a double perimeter forming a corridor with the fourth side dominated by the glasshouse.
There’s something of the design trick of ‘conceal and reveal’ about forcing the visitor around the edge of the garden before allowing him to step into the centre. An old device, but it works every time.
In this instance, stepping through the yew hedge at carefully positioned openings doesn’t reveal the whole internal space at once. No, Oudolf is too sophisticated for that. Instead, he appears to pay homage to the concept of the garden room, that quintessential Arts & Crafts motif. No fewer than 10 rooms have been created. The dividing yew and beech hedges are all present and correct, but the use of the rooms themselves and the planting within them is novel, at times playful.
There are references to the original use of the site in the cut flower and vegetable gardens. There’s a nod to historic garden elements such as the mount from which the whole garden can be viewed and the pleached lime allée along the perimeter. There’s a topiary garden with a twist - abstract waves of yew surrounded by a mixed shrub and herbaceous border, an inversion of the normal order.
Ornamental grasses loom large in the New Perennial movement. Most often, they are used in combination with other herbaceous plantings, as here in Oudolf’s post-modern take on the herbaceous border where the neat edging of box has been replaced by vast squares dominating the narrow borders.
Grasses can also be deployed en masse, of course, here in a garden dedicated to sinuous drifts of Molinia caerulea ‘Poul Petersen’, an arresting sight in late summer. Simple but effective planting, a fitting complement to the Silent Garden next door where 24 columns of clipped yew surround an elegant reflecting pool.
But the highlight for most fans of Oudolf’s work will be the Perennial Meadow. Four quadrants, a pair of chairs in each, a central circular pool, and masses of signature planting - Allium christophii, Deschampsia caespitosa, Phlomis russelliana for their seedheads; Geranium ‘Brookside’, Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’, Dianthus carthusianorum, Echinacea pallida and Salvia ‘Amethyst’ for pops of colour.
All these and more are readily available now, not so much when the garden was first designed. The planting is robust, needs little in the way of maintenance (no staking, no supplementary watering, no deadheading) and is intended to look good throughout the growing season and beyond. What more could you ask for?
Cramming so many separate areas into a mere 4 acres or so was always going to give rise to problems. Yes, there are occasional awkward transitions between gardens; yes, some of the rooms could do with more breathing space (the Perennial Meadow perhaps, or the Katsura Grove where the Cercidiphyllum were too successful and have been coppiced to allow the planting underneath more light); and yes, the playfulness at times verges on the gimmicky.
But the inventiveness of the design, the solutions to the dilemma of re-imagining an enclosed site and the quality of the planting far outweigh any perceived flaws. And the take-home lessons? Strict formality and soft planting work time and again; quirkiness should be encouraged; you don’t need to spend a fortune on paving (gravel or grass will do nicely); and you still need all the shelter you can get in Yorkshire on a cold, blustery July day!
More information here: https://www.scampston.co.uk/at-scampston-north-yorkshire/walled-garden
