Stoneleigh
The future of the country house garden?
21 February 2024
By: James Lennox
I almost missed Stoneleigh on my whirlwind tour of East Coast gardens. I'd been all set to visit Longwood, but an escaped convict had decided to hole up there for the duration. I couldn't help but admire his choice of hideout - a thousand or so acres of fountains, conservatories, herbaceous borders, woodlands and meadows, all to himself pending re-capture. Longwood's temporary closure left me with time on my hands. Much like a felon serving life.
And so I stumbled across Stoneleigh, the more modest 42-acre estate outside Philadelphia gifted by the Haas family in 2016 to the conservation charity Natural Lands. A retreat from city life, the grounds were originally laid out along traditional lines: a blend of native and exotic trees (including now towering ginkgos and katsuras), sweeping lawns and more intensively gardened areas, with input during the first half of the 20th century from the Olmsted Brothers' design practice, the most prestigious in the country at the time.
So far, so predictable. Where the garden's story takes a turn is with the shift in focus to ecological conservation and towards managing the space with the aim of increasing biodiversity. I can't be the only gardener slightly apprehensive when I hear about such developments. Far too often it seems to be an excuse for cash-strapped organisations to ease up on the maintenance.
Or even worse, it can tip over into a misguided attempt at re-wilding, where a survival of the fittest-style contest between re-introduced carnivores, omnivores and herbivores leaves a few straggly clumps of gorse, a three-legged wolf and a couple of mangy beavers chomping through the remains of a Victorian pinetum.
Have no fear - Stoneleigh is not one of those experiments. It is, in fact, very much an example of best practice - preserve the finest elements of the past, blur the edges and monitor the results very closely. A metaphorical loosening of the corset laces, if you will.
At the risk of coming over all post-modern, there's more than a hint of deconstruction going on here. Take the setting of the house itself. Rather than standing at the end of a sweep of manicured grass, the Great Lawn has been let off its lead. It's now a no-mow area, with only a six foot strip alongside paths kept short to highlight the deliberate decision-making at play. Moreover, right in front of the house there's a dead London plane, monitored for safety but otherwise allowed to stand for the benefit of whatever critters take a fancy to nesting, perching or munching on it. A bold move in such a prominent spot.
But the no-mow policy has, mercifully, not been applied throughout. This is no zero tolerance, Cultural Revolution-style overthrow of the past. There's still a fine lawn in the sunken Circle Garden, the centrepiece of the formal Beaux Arts-style garden areas, where the value of traditional elements has been acknowledged.
It's a quiet green space, surrounded by evergreens including a marvellously contorted Thuja occidentalis, the limbs of which have been cleared to provide a sculptural moment.
Elsewhere, a redundant tennis court has been converted into a raised pond, the crystal clear water a point of pride for the young gardener charged with finding the exact balanced mix of aquatic plants to remove the need for chemicals.
The change in purpose of the garden from providing outdoor recreation for a young family to becoming a naturalistic space for human and animal visitors alike necessarily leads to a re-imagining of the use of certain areas without discarding the best of the past (here, a state champion Catalpa bignonioides, 82ft tall with a spread of 63 ft). It also happens to be the third such re-thinking of a tennis court I've noted recently (see Dumbarton Oaks and Kiftsgate Court). I sense a trend afoot.
Likewise, the space once occupied by an artificial swimming pool, hard to justify in an ecological garden, has been re-purposed to display pitcher plants, both alone and combined with other more conventional perennials, natives all.
It's a perfect example of the subtlety of Stoneleigh. A policy of only using native plants in new plantings doesn't have to mean settling for the standard species if there are more garden-worthy alternatives of equal benefit to wildlife and perhaps of more interest to the gardener.
Striking choices have been used to demonstrate the almost limitless possibilities open to local gardeners. And so we find the eye-catching Rudbeckia subtomentosa ‘Henry Ellers', Cladastris kentukea ‘White Rain' (a drooping sport) and, in amongst a fine collection of redbuds, the weeping Cercis canadensis 'Ruby Falls’ and my personal favourite in name and form C. canadensis 'Alley Cat'.
Another innovation is in hedging material. Instead of a single species line-up, Stoneleigh takes the Hidcote-style tapestry hedge to the next level, combining Ilex opaca 'Portia Orton', Viburnum dentatum, Leucathoe fontanesiana, Liquidambar styraciflua ‘Oconee', Euonymus atropurpureus, Fagus grandifolia, Illicium anisatum 'Pink Frost' and Magnolia grandiflora. (Thank heavens for botanical Latin. The local names have undoubted charm, but left me none the wiser - doghobble, Eastern wahoo?) And why not plant the lot along a prominent path in a traditionally designed section of the garden?
So many gardens have a tendency to play it safe, to stick with the tried and tested. Perhaps it's time we all embraced a spot of experimentation to liven up our green creations. We still get to enjoy all the historic features of a substantial country house garden but with a couple of significant twists. Ecological considerations are championed but there is no compromise in design, plant choice or maintenance.
A case in point is the historic pergola, now covered in an inventive mix of native climbers (Passiflora lutea, Aristolochia macrophylla, Wisteria frutescens) and furnished with a stylish modern bench. I can vouch for it as the perfect coffee spot, somewhere to acknowledge that the baby has definitely not been thrown out with the bath water.
There are several firm hands at work, controlling overly exuberant growth and unafraid to show off horticultural skills with espaliers, topiary, raised canopies and fantastically pruned limbs everywhere.
There are valuable lessons here for owners of large historic gardens. A new approach can be rewarding both visually and ecologically. It is possible to combine elements from the past with a more biodiverse present. A plantaholic's paradise can co-exist with nature. You don't have to confine yourself to plain, unadulterated species - do owls really give a hoot if a tree is variegated, weeping or upright?
Plant as densely as you can afford - it saves on maintenance (the native plants formerly known as weeds won't stand a chance) and it creates a variety of habitats to support wildlife year round. And remember that you're under no obligation to invite the more destructive elements into your garden. After all, it is still a garden, not a smorgasbord for deer.
Stoneleigh is very much a garden at the forefront of modern horticulture, in tune with the biodiversity Zeitgeist but without forgetting the human factor. It’s a perfect synthesis of traditional country house garden design with a modern and adventurous sensibility. To paraphrase Thomas Church, gardens are still for people, it's just that with a little bit of imagination they can encompass so much more life than we once thought possible.
And don’t worry, thanks to law-enforcement eventually coming good, I finally made it to Longwood for yet more inspiration for my own garden back at La Corolla.
More information here: https://stoneleighgarden.org/garden/home/
