Wednesday, March 2, 2011

GARDENING SPECIAL

Like they say, it takes one to know one. When the Duchess of Northumberland was looking for someone to design her controversial new garden at Alnwick Castle, she ended up asking a Belgian because she felt Britain's "grand old lady designers" were more interested in creating gardens for the aristocracy than for the general public. Considering the scale, and the pounds 42m projected cost of the Duchess's own extravaganza, it might appear that the lady protests too much, but actually I think she has a point.

Is British gardening too posh? Well, if the majority of gardening programmes on television were anything to go by, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's not posh enough, but I'm not talking about when to plant your brassicas or whether you should paint your decking pink. I'm talking proper, grown- up gardening now: not the flim-flam that's done just for the cameras, or the nuts-and-bolts advice that's about as exciting as poking around beneath the bonnet of your car. Real gardening is an art-form just like architecture or poetry: it takes skill, and space, and time - and money. And in Britain it seems to take a grand lady - or at least someone who aspires to their aesthetic.

Why this is I'm not entirely sure, but with the refreshing exception of Jane Northumberland, just about anyone with the will and the wallet to commission a notable garden in the past 30 years has turned to one of the "Golds", the Grand Old Lady Designers whose haughtycultural style has long dominated large-scale British gardening.

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