The heatwave of last summer had baked the plants’ rhizomes, so that May and June of this year saw a dazzling display of iris flowers.
Irises have always had a strong presence at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show (they start to flower naturally in May, so growers don’t have to artificially force or hold back their plants). This year, they drew particular attention in the garden designed by Sarah Price, which was many people’s favourite show garden. The beautifully composed space was inspired by the artist and plant breeder Cedric Morris and displayed the irises he raised at his Suffolk home, Benton End, mostly in muted colours and often with speckled petals. Morris selected irises that had, in his words, ‘elegance and delicacy’.
For decades, the Benton irises, with their short season, single flowering, muted colours and lack of scent were considered inferior to modern hybrids. Now, however, fashion and their fortunes have changed, and they are this year’s must-have plants. Yet, in my garden, it is still the boisterous forms that will continue to find a home. Much as I admire both Morris’s irises, and his beautiful paintings of them, I prefer my irises to be as voluptuous as those painted by Georgia O’Keeffe and as generous as those of van Gogh.
Esta historia es de la edición August 30, 2023 de Country Life UK.
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Esta historia es de la edición August 30, 2023 de Country Life UK.
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A tapestry of pinks
THE garden is now entering its season of vigour and exuberance.
Bringing the past to life
An event hosted by COUNTRY LIFE at WOW!house is one of the highlights of a programme that features some of the biggest names in interior design
This isle is full of wonder
GEOLOGY? A bit like economics, the famously boring science? I confess I suffered the prejudice—agriculture and history being my thing, both of them vital in every sense— but Robert Muir-Wood’s voyage through the past 66 million years of the making of the British landscape has biblical-level drama on almost every other page. Flood, fire, ice… or, perhaps, the formation in rock, sand, mud and lava of these isles is best conceived of as fierce poetry.
Empire protest
Without meaning to issue a clarion call for independence, E. M. Forster perfectly captured the rising tensions of the British Raj. One hundred years later, Matthew Dennison revisits the masterpiece A Passage to India
Hops and dreams
A relative of marijuana, hops were a Teutonic introduction to British brewing culture and gave rise to the original working holiday
Life and sol
The sanctuary of the Balearic Islands has enchanted a multitude of creative minds, from Robert Graves to David Bowie
'Nature is nowhere as great as in its smallest creatures'
Giving himself neck ache from constantly looking upwards, John Lewis-Stempel makes the most of a sunny May day harvesting ‘tree hay’ and marvelling at the myriad wildlife including flies and earwigs–that reside on bark
'Plans are worthless, but planning is everything'
Country houses great and small were indispensable to D-Day preparations, with electricity and sanitation, well-stocked wine cellars, countesses to run the canteens and antique furniture to feed the stoves
The darling buds of May
May Morris shared her father’s passion for flowers, embroidery and Iceland, but was much more than William’s daughter. Influential both as a designer and as a teacher, she championed the rights of workers, particularly women, as Huon Mallalieu reveals
Achilles healed
Once used to comfort the lovelorn or soothe the wounds of Greek heroes, yarrow may now have a new starring role in sustainable agriculture
