York Gate
The suburban standard-setter
4 August 2023
By: James Lennox
Gardens come in all shapes and sizes - from the grandest country estate to a challenging roof terrace or even a humble window box. Most lie somewhere in between. At the latest count, there were roughly 23 million gardens in the UK, with 87% of all households having some outdoor space, with the average garden size being 188 square metres.
If only they were all as well thought through and as imaginatively planted as York Gate. Spread over one action-packed acre (we’ll leave the newly acquired meadow to one side for the moment), it might well be around 20 times the size of that average garden. Yet parts of it could easily serve as a template for every bland suburban plot in the land.
And that’s all thanks to our old design friend, the garden room. It should come as no surprise that one of the models for York Gate was that original garden trendsetter, Hidcote. That Cotswold jewel-box only really began to exert its influence on English garden design from the mid-twentieth century onwards, at just the time the Spencer family was creating York Gate. For some forty years their garden absorbed the best of post-war design and planting, before being given to Perennial, a charity dedicated to the welfare of people working in horticulture.
But don’t assume that York Gate is merely a pale imitation of Hidcote, on an even smaller scale. For starters, it would be more accurate to talk of garden zones rather than rooms. Tall hedges are only really used to divide the gardens at the back of the house: the herb garden, kitchen garden and white garden, plus the surprise allée leading off the herb garden loggia. In the rest of the space, there are views between the different areas, any sense of division being created by paths, water features, banks of shrubs, changes in level or different plant palettes. The only real sense of separation is between the garden as a whole and the outside world, rarely visible from within.
From the Dixteresque display of potted plants at the ticket office to the collection of succulents and cacti in the Paved Garden, the range of planting on show is staggering. While the Spencers were responsible for some innovative high-level planting (the espaliered cedar and pyracantha, the signature Sequoiadendron giganteum ‘Pendulum’ in front of the house, the topiary spirals and line of yew peaks) and low-level gems (definitely ahead of the Instagram curve with the arisaemas in the fern border), some of the most exciting planting happening now is at the more tender end of the spectrum.
The recent arrival of a number of mature tree ferns led to the area known as Sybil’s Garden being recast as an exotic collection of gingers, bananas, scheffleras, salvias and lilies all revolving around a fine Broussonetia papyrifera. Lush, colourful, packed to the gills - just the way I like my planting, even if most of it will need lifting and protecting over winter.
There’s barely a square inch of exposed soil anywhere. The gardeners must earn gold stars for every extra plant they can squeeze in. The White Garden is a case in point. Just when you think all the available space has been taken up with Astelia chatamica, white foxgloves, persicarias and astrantias, even dear old Hydrangea ‘Annabelle’, someone has still managed to pop in a few annual daisies (Erigeron annuus) to flesh things out.
At times it can be overwhelming, if not downright exhausting. Mostly the exuberance of the planting is counterbalanced by the simplicity of the hard-landscaping - either gravel or flagstones, occasionally enlivened with millstones or granite setts.
The one area where things might have gone a little too far is the Carpet Path, designed in 1981. An oft-photographed feature, the diamond pattern formed by the setts inlaid in a gravel path lined with Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’ backed with phlox, sanguisorbas, eryngiums, verbenas and lychnis with a rustic folly at the end is, for me, one innovation too far. It might be much-loved, but I haven’t yet seen it replicated.
Just when it all gets a little too much, the Dell beckons with its soothing green tones, trickle of water, shady winding paths and relative restraint. Even more pared back is the Pinetum, where the collection of all things coniferous rise out of a sea of smooth rounded stones with no underplanting in sight. A flashback to the ‘70s for some, a restful interlude for me.
Yes, there’s an element of historic preservation at work here, but the garden as a whole is far from static. In the spirit of the original owners, the young gardening team is clearly full of inventiveness, with a sense of fun (gunnera in a bucket, pitcher plants and Spanish moss hanging from tree ferns) and an eagerness to experiment.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the new sunken and Mediterranean gardens, where tough sunlovers such as echinaceas, agaves, yuccas and stipas have been planted in pure sand and left to fend for themselves. These areas, as well as the new entrance via the Pillar Garden, are all just 3 years old and already well-established, a credit to the horticultural knowledge on show throughout.
I’ve been known to be critical of the inclusion of wildflower meadows within gardens. At York Gate there has been no attempt to incorporate the new meadow into the existing garden - it has been kept at arm’s length by a ditch and an impressive assortment of polytunnels and compost heaps. Quite right. Now if only the car park could be more successfully screened from the White Garden.
While some of the finer details of the planting might pass in a blur (and there’s an awful lot to digest), the significance of this garden is hard to miss. In less capable hands, it might have been nothing more than a series of show gardens, a demonstration of what’s possible in the smallest suburban spaces. Instead, through a combination of imaginative planting, playful gestures and consummate skill, it stands as an inspiration to all garden-makers, no matter the size of the plot.
More information here: https://perennial.org.uk/garden/york-gate-garden/
