WOODPECKERS are drumming. A blackbird runs through his repertoire from the highest branches, as the trees unfurl brand-new leaves in translucent, luminous greens. The flowers of hedge bank and woodland edge—alkanet, campion, Queen Anne’s lace—beckon butterflies and bees. Take this as a keynote for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2024: the unfolding freshness and energy of deciduous woods in May, interpreted in numerous interesting ways in the show gardens.
The National Garden Scheme (NGS) Garden, by Tom Stuart-Smith (page 92), sets out its woodland credentials with an impressive grove of large, coppiced hazels, spreading broad canopies of fresh foliage. Slender footpaths create serpentine routes between them, to reach a cleft-oak hut for tea and cake, celebrating the time-honored tradition of the NGS. ‘Lemon drizzle or Victoria sponge?’ This is a calm and relaxed piece of gardened countryside, with pretty herbaceous plantings under the hazels, including deep-blue Siberian irises, green-and-white-flowered astrantia, ferns, primulas, epimediums, euphorbia and geum.
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin May 15, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin May 15, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
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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