We Made a Garden Read online

  We Made a Garden

  by the same author

  COTTAGE GARDEN FLOWERS

  A FLOWER FOR EVERY DAY

  GARDENING IN THE SHADE

  GROUND COVER PLANTS

  We Made

  A Garden

  Margery Fish

  With a Foreword by

  Henry Boyd-Carpenter

  ISBN 9781849940504

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Foreword by Henry Boyd-Carpenter

  Introduction

  1 The House

  2 The Garden

  3 The Lawn

  4 Making Paths

  5 Clothing the Walls

  6 Hedges

  7 The Terraced Garden

  8 Planting

  9 Staking

  10 Gardening with a Knife

  11 Watering

  12 Dahlias

  13 Some Failures

  14 Composting

  15 The Value of Evergreens

  16 We Made Mistakes

  17 The Water Garden

  18 Rock Gardening

  19 The Paved Garden

  20 The Herb Garden

  21 Early and Late

  22 Mixed Borders

  23 What Shall I Plant?

  24 Living and Learning

  Foreword to the 1970 Edition

  Strange as it may seem, Margery Fish took no interest whatsoever in gardening until she was in her late forties, but, at the time of her death at the age of seventy-six in March 1969, she occupied a unique position in the gardening world—not only on account of her incredible knowledge, but I think to an even greater degree for her personality and vitality. It was difficult for her family during the weeks following her death, when tributes flowed in from all over the world, to connect the ‘Margery’ we had teased unmercifully over ‘nepeta-as-it-should-be-grown’ and her sacred rose plantains with the grande-dame of horticulture of whom we read. However I suppose this was at it should have been, and certainly she would have hated us to have taken her too seriously.

  It is little, if any, exaggeration to say that, during her last twenty years when most people of her age would have been content to settle back into the routine of Somerset village life she was working an eighteen-hour day. Probably not even those closest to her realised just how much she managed to pack in, for apart from planning and tending her garden more or less unaided, she wrote and lectured prolifically, and, despite (or perhaps because of) the volume of her correspondence, she would never go to bed until her desk was cleared, even if this meant sitting up far into the night.

  We Made a Garden was the first of her eight books, and has always been my own favourite: partly because, more than any of its successors, it gives the reader some idea of the author’s extraordinary energy during those first years when the garden at East Lambrook Manor was taking shape; and partly for its cheerful recognition that any gardener, novice or veteran, will make mistakes, and for her readiness to laugh at herself and her tribulations—while at the same time offering sound advice on countless aspects of gardening from basic layout to staking and composting. The book started life as Gardening with Walter, but the first publisher to whom it was shown took one look and declared gruffly: ‘Too little gardening, and too much Walter!’ So the balance had to be redressed, while retaining the portrait of Walter Fish as the Jekyll-and-Hyde presence in the garden, at one moment the guardian of principles of sound design, at the next gloating at the demise of some small treasure carefully secreted in a crevice in the stone path.

  For the book remains not only a gardening classic, but also a most entertaining study of the interaction of two great but very different characters, both of whom had made their name on Fleet Street, the one as News Editor and then Editor of the Daily Mail during the period of its greatest impact, and the other the much softer personality who had proved an indispensable assistant to both Northcliffe himself and Thomas Marlow during and in the years immediately after the First World War, before moving to what was called in journalistic circles ‘The Aquarium’.

  East Lambrook Manor and its garden is a cheerful, welcoming place, even in the bleakest weather, and how the surveyor who looked at the house for the Fishes could have felt that it lacked character I shall never know. Character it must surely always have possessed, though perhaps not its present benign one; the house was described to me by one person who had known it earlier this century as ‘Very spooky, you had to creep in under the cobwebs.’ If it has any ghosts now they are placid and well-fed ones.

  The house and garden were opened to the public for the first time during the 1950s, and since then the interest in the composite whole—the mellow, rambling old house surrounded by and merging almost imperceptibly into the informal cottage garden which looks as though it has been established there for centuries rather than for somewhat less than three decades—has increased steadily. More people have come to appreciate the importance of having a garden which is reasonably easy to maintain and at the same time provides colour and interest even in the depths of winter.

  Margery Fish would have wanted no other memorial than that fellow enthusiasts should continue to visit and learn from her creation.

  Henry Boyd-Carpenter 1970

  Introduction

  When, in 1937, my husband decided there was a likelihood of war, and we made up our minds to buy a house in the country, all our friends thought we’d choose a respectable house in good repair complete with garden, all nicely laid out and ready to walk into.

  And when, instead, we chose a poor battered old house that had to be gutted to be livable, and a wilderness instead of a garden, they were really sorry for us. They were particularly sympathetic about the garden. Redoing a house could be fun, but how would two Londoners go about the job of creating a garden from a farmyard and a rubbish heap?

  I have never regretted our foolhardiness. Of course, we made mistakes, endless mistakes, but at least they were our own, just as the garden was our own. However imperfect the result there is a certain satisfaction in making a garden that is like no one else’s, and in knowing that you yourself are responsible for every stone and every flower in the place. It is pleasant to know each one of your plants intimately because you have chosen and planted every one of them. In course of time they become real friends, conjuring up pleasant associations of the people who gave them and the gardens they came from.

  Walter and I had several things particularly in mind when we made the garden.

  The first was that it must be as modest and unpretentious as the house, a cottage garden in fact, with crooked paths and unexpected corners.

  Next it must be easy to run. When we bought the house we were living in London, and for the first two years we divided our time between London and Somerset, so our garden had to take care of itself for much of the time. We designed it with the idea that we’d have to look after it ourselves, and though there have been times when we had regular help they were brief and uncertain, and we knew we’d soon be back where so many people are today, depending on a little casual labour when we can get it.

  Since Walter died I have had to simplify it even more, as the garden can only have the odd hours that are left over in a busy life. He made me realize that the aim of all gardeners should be a garden that is always presentable—not a Ruth Draperish garden that has been, or will be, but never is at its best. We don’t apologize for our homes because we keep them garnished regularly as a matter of course and I have never understood why we don’t feel exactly the same about a garden.

  Another thing he taught me was that you mustn’t rely on your flowers to make your garden attractive. A good bone structure must come first, with an intelligent use of evergreen plants so that the garden is always clothed, no matte
r what time of year. Flowers are an added delight, but a good garden is the garden you enjoy looking at even in the depths of winter. There ought never to be a moment when it is not pleasant and interesting. To achieve this means a lot of thought and a lot of work, but it can be done.

  1. The House

  The house was long and low, in the shape of an L, built of honey-coloured Somerset stone. At one time it must have been thatched but, unfortunately, that had been discarded long ago and old red tiles used instead. It stood right in the middle of a little Somerset village, and made the corner where a very minor road turned off from the main street. There was only a narrow strip of garden in front, and not very much behind, but we bought an orchard and outbuildings beyond so that we had about two acres in all. A high stone wall screened us from the village street, and there was a cottage and another orchard on the other side.

  You can’t make a garden in a hurry, particularly one belonging to an old house. House and garden must look as if they had grown up together and the only way to do this is to live in the house, get the feel of it, and then by degrees the idea of the garden will grow.

  We didn’t start work outside for nearly a year, and by that time we felt we belonged to the place and it belonged to us and we had some ideas of what we wanted to do with it.

  It was on a warm September day when we first saw the house but it was such a wreck that Walter refused to go further than the hall, in spite of the great jutting chimney that buttressed the front. Then the long roof was patched with corrugated iron, the little front garden was a jungle of rusty old laurels and inside an overpowering smell of creosote, newly applied, fought with the dank, grave-like smell of an unlived in house. ‘Full of dry rot,’ said Walter, ‘not at any price,’ and turned on his heel.

  For three months we tried to find what we wanted. We looked at cottages and villas, gaunt Victorian houses perched uneasily on hilltops, and snug little homes wedged in forgotten valleys. Some were too big and most too small, some hadn’t enough garden and others too much. Some were too isolated, others so mixed up with other houses that privacy would have been impossible. We lost our way and had bitter arguments, but we did discover what we didn’t want. I couldn’t see Walter in a four-roomed cottage with a kitchen tacked on to one end and a bathroom at the other, and I had no intention of landing myself with a barn of a place that would require several servants to keep it clean.

  We were still hunting in November when our way took us very near the old house so summarily dismissed in September, so we turned down the lane which said ‘East Lambrook one mile’, just to see what had been happening during those three months.

  Quite a lot had happened. The front garden had been cleared of its laurels and the house looked much better. Old tiles had replaced the corrugated iron on the roof, and inside the walls had been washed with cream and the woodwork with glossy paint.

  It is one of those typical Somerset houses with a central passage and a door at each end, so very attractive to look at and so very draughty for living. That day we thought only of the artistic angle. It was late afternoon and the sun was nearly setting. Both doors were open and through them we caught a glimpse of a tree and a green background against the sunlight.

  That day I got Walter further than the flagged passage, and we explored the old bakehouse, with its enormous inglenook and open fireplace, low beamed ceiling and stone floor, and a gay little parlour beyond. On the other side was another large room with stone floor and an even bigger fireplace, and at the far end a lovely room with wonderful panelling. We both knew that our search had ended, we had come home.

  I cannot remember just what happened after that but I shall never forget the day when the surveyor came to make his report. It was one of those awful days in early winter of cold, penetrating rain. The house was dark and very cold, and the grave-like dankness was back, in spite of all the new paint and distemper. The surveyor, poor man, had just lost his wife, and was as depressed—naturally— as the weather. Nor shall I ever forget Walter’s indignation with the report when it did come in. The house, while sound in wind and limb, was described as being of ‘no character’. We didn’t think then that it had anything but character, rather sinister perhaps, but definitely character. Since then I have discovered that the house has a kindly disposition; I never come home without feeling I am welcome.

  Having got our house we then had to give it up again so that it could be made habitable. For many months it was in the hands of the builders and all we could do was to pay hurried visits to see how things were going, and turn our eyes from the derelict waste that was to be the garden. Sometimes I escaped from the consultations for brief moments and frenziedly pulled up groundsel for as long as I was allowed. Walter never wanted to stay a moment longer than business required and it worried me to go off and leave tracts of outsize groundsel going to seed with prodigal abandon. My few snatched efforts made very little impression on the wilderness, but they made me feel better.

  It was late in the summer before we could get into the house, and some time after that before we were able to get down to the garden in earnest. All the time we were clearing and cleaning in odd moments, working our way through the tangle of brambles and laurels and elders, and thinking all the time what we would do with our little plot. We both knew that it had to be tackled as a whole with a definite design for the complete garden, and we were lucky in having plenty to do while our ideas smouldered and simmered.

  2. The Garden

  The garden that went with the house was divided at the back into two tiny gardens, with walls and small plots of grass. We supposed that these went back to the time when the house had been two cottages.

  In addition to the walls dividing the two little gardens at the back another wall divided us from the barton, and beneath all these walls someone had amused himself by making banks and sticking in stones vertically, like almonds on a trifle. We imagined the idea was a nice ready-made rock garden for us to play with. The first thing we did, when we really set our minds to the garden, was to remove all the walls and stones and pile them up for future use. They were quite a problem, those piles of stones, as they were moved from place to place as we dealt with the ground where they were piled. I could not see how we should ever use them all.

  The high wall that screened us from the road was finished in typical Somerset style with stones set upright, one tall and then one short. I have never discovered the reason for these jagged walls and I don’t think they are at all attractive. I asked my local builder and all he could suggest was that it made a nice finish. I can think of more attractive ways of solving the problem without such a lavish use of big stones.

  There was great scope for planting between the stones and Walter suggested I could get busy on the top of the wall while we decided what to do with the rest of the garden. So I bought a few easy rock plants and sowed seed of valerian and alyssum, aubrieta and arabis to clothe those jagged rocks. The great heaps of stones were at that time right up against the wall and I had to clamber up them each time I planted anything, and later when I wanted to water my little family. The watering was usually done after dinner, and those were the days when one donned a long dress and satin slippers for this social occasion—which one didn’t have to cook. I can’t think how I avoided turning an ankle as I had to clutch my skirt with one hand and use the other for the watering can while the stones rocked and tipped under my weight.

  By degrees, of course, we got rid of all the stones. We gave away cartloads to anyone who would fetch them, mostly farmers who tipped them near farm gates to defeat the Somersetshire mud. We used up the best of them ourselves in time. We little realized in those days that as our schemes progressed we should buy far more than we ever had in the beginning.

  Since those days I have had all the upright stones removed from the tops of our walls, and flat stones laid horizontally instead. I always thought the uneven finish very ugly and in times of stress when I have been casting round for more stones to finish some
enterprise I have grudged so many large and even stones doing no good at all. Gone are all the little treasures from the top of the wall; instead clematises clamber about and climbing roses are trained over the top of the wall so that the world outside can enjoy the blooms as well. The rock plants, or descendants of them, are now growing in the wall itself. By tucking them into every available crack and crevice I can bring the wall to life long before the plants get going in the border below. Great cascades of white and lavender, yellow and pink prevent the wall from looking cold and bare in the early spring.

  Having torn down all our little walls and obstructions so that we could visualize what the place looked like without them, our next job was to clear the barton—the yard in front of the outbuildings and between us and the orchard.

  That job would have frightened most people, but not Walter. Anyone who knows anything about farming can imagine the piles of iron and rubbish that had accumulated during the years. We had bought the outbuildings, barton and orchard from a chicken farmer, so in addition to the farming legacies we had all the relics of the chicken era as well. And to add interest there were old beds, rusty oil stoves, ancient corsets, pots, pans, tins and china, bottles and glass jars, and some big lumps of stone which may at one time have been used for crushing grain.