East Lambrook

With its comfortable, homely feel and relaxed, generous planting, this RHS Partner Garden in Somerset created by plantswoman Margery Fish is an enchanting and

inspiring place to visit, especially for those seeking a relatively modest yet charismatic outlook on garden making

Author: Phil Clayton, Features Editor, The Garden. Photography: Neil Hepworth

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east laMbrook

Exuberance of the Silver GardenEast Lambrook is undoubtedly a great garden; its

homespun, rather modest feel using simple materials and understated design provides its distinctive charm

and appeal. However, the apparent simplicity is deceptive as the profusion of this informal planting

shows. Restrained use of colour and attention to form using plants such as Cynara, Sisyrinchium, Euphorbia

and Erysimum prevents planting looking fussy, while an alpine-filled pot makes a typically low-key focal point.

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June 2014 | The Garden 4140 The Garden | June 2014

East Lambrook

✤ 14th/16th century: house built.✤ 1937: Walter and Margery Fish arrive.✤ 1950s: garden open to public.✤ 1956: We Made a Garden published.✤ 1969: Margery Fish dies, leaving house and garden to her nephew.✤ 1985: manor sold, and again in 1999.✤ 1992: garden awarded Grade i status by English Heritage.✤ 2000: ‘pudding trees’ replanted.✤ 2008: current owners arrive.✤ 2013: garden celebrates 75 years since the Fishes started gardening.

History of the gardens

Path to the summerhouseThe summerhouse (or privy) is shaded by an aged Cornus controversa; originally old stone roof slabs were used to create the crooked paths.

Pudding trees in the Terrace GardenPlanted in 2000, the Chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Fletcheri’ avenue adds valuable structure to the planting. Sadly, it is a myth that the trees were raised from cuttings of those planted by Margery Fish.

The Ditch and new Wooded Helleborus GardenRunning through the northwestern end of the garden, the Ditch borders a new woodland garden. The banks of the Ditch house a fine collection of snowdrops, but in summer, magenta Gladiolus communis subsp. byzantinus and Aquilegia hold sway.

Back of the Malthouse and the LidoBehind the Malthouse is a sunken area known as the Lido; it is part of the Ditch, a much-admired feature in these gardens, and an area where various moisture-loving plants thrive.

anyone who has read Margery Fish’s classic We Made a Garden (1956) will know the attraction of a visit to her 8,000sq m (2 acre) garden at East Lambrook Manor in Somerset. The book outlines both the creation of the

garden, and her progress as a gardener, her friendly tone encouraging readers in their endeavours.

The old hamstone (local limestone) house was a wreck when Margery and husband Walter moved in during the late 1930s. They set about making a garden as ‘modest and unpretentious as the house, with crooked paths and unexpected corners’, an achievable way of gardening that remains relevant today. The rectangular site is gently sloping; the house sits at one end, flanked by a large lawn, with the Malthouse and adjoining Cowhouse in the centre.

Margery Fish was best known as a champion of a style she described as cottage gardening, using informal planting with self-seeding plants that were encouraged to colonise paved areas and walls. But she also favoured planting for year-round interest and collected old-fashioned garden plants. Her views often clashed with those of her husband (who died in 1947), but they agreed on certain principles, such as that a garden should have ‘good bone structure’.

Since Margery’s death in 1969, East Lambrook Manor passed through various hands, but the garden’s appeal endures. Current owners Mike and Gail Werkmeister

appreciate the legacy of the garden, and have injected considerable reserves of enthusiasm in working to keep the garden flourishing with a valued and well-established team of skilled gardeners, many of them volunteers.

A living legacyI visited East Lambrook Manor Gardens at that magical time between spring and summer as wisterias reached their peak, but before most roses open; that all too brief

moment when the garden catches its breath before high summer’s full-on exuberance.

Arguably the best-known area is the Terrace Garden on the rising ground beside the house, an area where Margery Fish first started gardening. Small, stone paths cross the site forming island beds, some raised with hamstone edging. Self-seeding plants create a delightfully rich and haphazard feel; swarms of Meconopsis cambrica in shades of orange and yellow and multi-hued Aquilegia

nod their heads amid the golden haze of grass Milium effusum ‘Aureum’, while here and there purple bells of Nectaroscordum siculum peal atop lofty stems. Bolder colour comes from the first Oriental poppies and showy bearded iris which revel in the sunny, well-drained conditions. A sense of solidity is provided by evergreen clumps of Libertia grandiflora, their wands of white flowers waving above spear-shaped foliage; elsewhere Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii, a signature plant, forms soft domes topped by chartreuse-green flowers.

Running like a spine through the centre of the Terrace Garden is a broad, stepped path lined with Margery Fish’s ‘pudding trees’: clipped, pointed domes of Chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Fletcheri’, planted to add effective yet typically modest structure to this largely ephemeral mix of plants. Spilling out like pink custard between the puddings is Phuopsis stylosa, its stems of whorled leaves flowing onto the path, topped by vivid pink pincushions of flowers. Elsewhere, the glorious lipstick-red flowers of Tulipa sprengeri mark the passing of spring, being invariably the last of their kind to bloom.

A garden of silver The Silver Garden fills a discrete corner at the end of the terraces, with a meandering path, a few small well- placed pots and a stone bench. The range of plants

Margery Fish with her ‘pudding trees’ on the Terrace Garden (above). A view of the house across the Silver Garden (above right).

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June 2014 | The Garden 4342 The Garden | June 2014

East Lambrook

20m (66ft)

MalthouseCow-

houseWooded

Helleborus Garden

Silver Garden

Terrace Garden

the lawn

summerhouse

Green Garden

orchard

the Ditchthe Lido

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Visiting detailsAddress: East Lambrook Manor Gardens, East Lambrook, South Petherton, Somerset TA13 5HH. Tel: 01460 240328Website: www.eastlambrook.co.ukOpen: Tues–Sat (and BHol Mons) Feb–Oct, plus Sun in Feb and May–July, 10am–5pm.Facilities: nursery, café and gallery. See website for accessibility info.

here is more refined; this is the hottest, best-drained area and suits plants from Mediterranean climates, many having silver foliage. Flower colour is limited to blue, pink, yellow and purple, with attention paid to plant form; the effect is intricate yet never fussy. In one area Cynara cardunculus (cardoon) lifts a lofty tracery of deeply incised silvered leaves, while mounds of Phlomis, Artemisia, Dianthus and Nepeta contrast with iris-like foliage of Sisyrinchium striatum, its starry spires of yellow flowers adding warmth to proceedings.

Variegated plants are used to fine effect, including blue-flowered Iris pallida ‘Argentea Variegata’ and Euphorbia characias subsp. characias ‘Burrow Silver’. I enjoyed perennial wallflower Erysimum ‘Wenlock Beauty’, its flowery wands ageing from yellow to purple and making a fine, bushy plant. Also effective is a planting of Asphodeline lutea, its golden spires all the more radiant for a sultry foil of purple Sambucus nigra f. porphyrophylla ‘Eva’.

The Malthouse, a stone building which serves as the garden’s entrance and contains a café and gallery, divides the site. Unusual, wall-trained Viburnum x bodnantense and V. utile (a rarity) mingle with Holboellia up the front, while a wisteria scrambles on the Terrace Garden side. Nearby, an old twisted Cercis siliquastrum (Judas tree) is bedecked with purple flowers; in its shade, burgundy Astrantia grows with Lathyrus aureus, a non-climbing pea with upright stems to 80cm (32in) bearing heads of yolky flowers. Sadly, honey fungus blighted shrub plantings here: in 2000, the Terrace Garden was renovated and replanted, keeping the feel of the garden

contrasting with upright Nectaroscordum.The Wooded Helleborus Garden is a triumph, designed

in 2005 by Head Gardener Mark Stainer, who has worked here for 39 years. A bark path leads through a sea of Astrantia, Geranium, blue-leaved Hosta, charming Lamium orvala and many hellebores, not to mention ferns such as Matteuccia struthiopteris. Choice Paeonia ‘Late Windflower’ opens its single white blooms while a maturing canopy is contributed by Sorbus cashmiriana (later to be hung with white fruits), Cercidiphyllum japonicum and multistemmed, white-barked Betula.

The joyous, carefree nature of East Lambrook Manor Gardens is infectious. Ideas that might easily translate to your own garden fill the mind. As I ambled the narrow, but inviting paths the feeling was one of contentment – the garden is never overpowering or humbling. All is on a human scale and the unpretentious nature of the place is truly appealing, be it the paths of recycled stone roof tiles or wildflowers that fill the Somerset hedgerows and have mixed with other self-seeders, which in turn mingle with border plants.

As I left, I noticed a rather stout visitor who, I fancied, looked rather like Margery Fish. ‘This is just the sort of garden I love,’ she told her friend. Me too, I thought.

and using genera Margery Fish is known to have planted, but with new cultivars – this garden is no museum, and some other areas await similar treatment.

At the back of the Malthouse, the open, sunny feel gives way to dappled shade cast by a fine Ginkgo biloba. Old wooden barrels installed as water butts still catch run-off from downpipes. The renowned Ditch runs from behind the Malthouse to the edge of the garden, along the Wooded Helleborus Garden. The Ditch allowed Margery to grow many plants that like moisture, but after she widened the watercourse the flowing water disappeared. Today it forms a sunken garden, home to Rodgersia, Darmera peltata, Lysichiton and candelabra primulas.

Planting old and newAlong the back of the Malthouse, past old pollarded willows, the Ditch widens; broad, richly planted beds spill out on either side. These are home to impressive displays of snowdrops and hellebores, some of Margery Fish’s favour-ite plants. In the Ditch in summer, ferns luxuriate with Tellima grandiflora, Geranium phaeum and, some thing I love and have not seen as a garden plant, Ranunculus acris (meadow buttercup), its yellow cups atop tall stems blinking in the shade. Higher up the banks, Aquilegia and vivid Gladiolus communis subsp. byzantinus run riot. On one side was an impressive clump of Polygonatum x hybridum (Solomon’s seal), its horizontal growth

The Wooded Helleborus Garden (above) was designed and planted in 2005 and has matured well; it features a dense understorey of flowering planting.

Delights in the detail1 Among the original features placed by

Margery Fish are old barrels at the back of the Malthouse used to collect water – these make a rather more appealing alternative to today’s plastic water butts.2 The dazzling flowers of choice Tulipa

sprengeri, a dainty late–flowering tulip which can be seen in the Terrace Garden.3 In the Green Garden a noble Trachycarpus

fortunei lends an exotic air, while unusual white Cercis siliquastrum f. albida in front draws eyes upwards.4 Super plant combinations abound; here Helianthemum ‘Wisley Primrose’ mixes with Alchemilla alpina and a low, blue Veronica. 34

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Adding structure to informality in the Terrace GardenAs charming as informal planting can be, the best effects are often achieved when it is contrasted with more formal features. Clipped Chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Fletcheri’ 1 provide a great counterpoint to blue bearded Iris 2 , pink Papaver orientale 3 (an unknown selection from the days of Margery Fish), white wands of Libertia grandiflora 4 and Silene dioica (red campion). A wisteria 5 scrambles up the

Malthouse to form a perfect backdrop to the whole scene.

Head Gardener Mark Stainer looks at some plants associated with East Lambrook Manor Gardens:

‘Margery Fish was keen on Geranium so we have a large collection in the gardens. Another favourite was Astrantia; she grew many, including pink A. maxima and wonderful white and green A. major subsp. involucrata ‘Shaggy’. She enjoyed hellebores and grew masses of Helleborus x hybridus, as well as green-flowered H. argutifolius, and of course snowdrops that thrive in the Ditch.

‘Various plants are named after the gardens, including silver-leaved Artemisia absinthium ‘Lambrook Silver’, lovely Polemonium ‘Lambrook Mauve’, Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii ‘Lambrook Gold’, and snowdrop Galanthus nivalis ‘Margery Fish’.’

Recreating the feel

✤ An RHS Partner Garden open free to members on Weds, February to October; see RHS Members’ Handbook 2014, p83. www.rhs.org.uk/partnergardens

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For a list of more than 150 RHS Partner Gardens around the uK and overseas, including details of their opening times, facilities and points of interest, visit: www.rhs.org.uk/partnergardens

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