online business

A Model English Garden

HOW often have I wished for a third dimension and perfect color reproduction while browsing the pages of nursery catalogues? Will a particular shrub prove dense enough to hide an unsightly pipe? Will the pinks of clusiana tulips sit well beside the blue of an established ceanothus? And how quickly can I expect a new hedge to protect me from the neighbor's wolfhound? The British, passionate gardeners that they be, have an answer: Wisley Garden. This extraordinary resource is a growing catalogue of much of the dazzling range of plants suited to Britain's temperate climate. Maintained by the dean of gardening fraternities, the Royal Horticultural Society, Wisley is 28 miles southwest of Hyde Park Corner in London and is open to all comers. Visitors seeking a classic English landscape garden that is a coherent outgrowth of its site will be disconcerted, for Wisley is an amalgam of happy horticultural episodes, making up not one garden but many, and focused on individual subjects and techniques rather than overall design.

Visitors enter through handsome gates, twined with wrought-iron poppies in honor of the Rev. William Wilks, Vicar of Shirley, Surrey, who bred the Shirley poppies. Spring visitors usually hasten to Battleston Hill, past the unfolding herbaceous borders lining the Broadwalk, which, for purposes of orientation, runs roughly north to south. More ridge than hill, Battleston in spring flames with rhododendrons. The land was originally annexed to Wisley in the late 30's, and its soil, as well as the fact that several of the society's 20th-century presidents and influential staff members were distinguished rhododendron fanciers, assured the garden's strength in this genus. Originally, rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias benefited from a thick canopy of oaks, chestnuts and pines, but storms in 1987 and 1990 decimated these mature trees. Heroic clearing and replanting have returned order to the swirling paths, where the evergreen azalea "Mother's Day,"with its lipstick-red blossoms, and the white-edged ground-cover Hosta sieboldii (syn. albomarginata) and all their relations catch the eye.

On the south side of the hill lies Portsmouth Field, the society's chief trial ground for comparing cultivars -- the only such trials that have worldwide acceptance and that extend to perennial materials. Delphiniums, dahlias, chrysanthemums, sweet peas and irises are among the subjects on permanent trial; other plants profit from annual trials. Whatever the subject, visiting gardeners gather at Portsmouth Field to choose next year's plantings as well as assimilate new techniques by observing the to-ings and fro-ings of Wisley's 100-strong staff, a third of whom are students. At the north foot of Battleston Hill a series of model gardens suggests ways to adapt good gardening practice to a typical 70- by 35-foot back garden and grants visitors from abroad a chance to peek over the fence at the best of what goes on behind the often monotonous facades of British row houses.

Conceived for newlyweds, a growing family or enthusiastic gardeners, the model gardens blend good hard landscaping with clever planting including some fruits and vegetables -- ideas that can be adapted for the more extreme weather in the Northeastern United States. A comprehensive model herb garden -- both medicinal and culinary -- spreads before the entrance to the greenhouses.