ROOTS AND BRANCHES
I studied garden design, garden history and horticulture at Plumpton College twenty years ago, and have been designing gardens ever since. In September 2020 I gained Distinction in a Masters in Garden and Landscape History at the Institute of Historical Research, part of University College London. Having given up history at the age of 14, put off by the green ‘Date Book’ with page after page of dates and events we had to learn by heart, today the significance of history in the green space we live in and the context it gives to our lives, seems ever more relevant.
Garden Design took a back step in favour of study during my Masters but I am back designing gardens again, in the UK and Channel Islands. I don’t have as much time as I would like to research and read up on Garden History, so the posts are intermittent, but the design work is very broad and stimulating. Design and management of gardens and landscape reflects our lives both past and present. I view it as a living story, that existed before us and will continue after us and I take great comfort from that.
Over the years I have been writing about design and horticulture. I joined the Sussex Gardens Trust (see the tab) about seven years ago, and the Garden Trust too. More recently I have become involved in the Chailey Heritage Foundation, having done a preliminary course at Thrive https://www.thrive.org.uk/. I help with designs for the gardens and organising the volunteers – do see the separate tab .
I live in Lewes, in East Sussex where the chalky, stony, nutrient-poor free-draining soil is markedly different from the clay at our previous home, baked hard in summer and a quagmire in winter. Our Georgian town house has a south-facing garden that I re-designed which wraps around two sides. Part-walled and part-hedged, it has a shaded white garden, trained fruit, a mature free-standing fig tree which acts as our sun-shade in summer, a herb garden with seating alcove surrounded by fan-trained plums, and a crab apple arch through which is viewed the 18C water tank and spout at the far end of the lawn. Climbing roses, above a row of Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Red Buttons’, purple Alliums towering above them in May, line the path to a second small lawn. Seasonal white climbing roses climb a rendered wall painted black to contrast the white-stemmed birches central to the bed. Next to a terrace cordoned pears and apples screen a utility area and shed.
We have three grown-up children, none of whom are interested in gardens … yet!
Caroline Scaramanga