< Back to main page High, Wide and Handsome The English Garden 01 September 2008 By: David Wheeler Hampton Court in Herefordshire has a wondrous walled garden that combines productivity with colour An invitation to help revitalise a famous old garden is a privilege seldom encountered. Two years after its acquisition in 1994 by the Michigan-based Van Kampen family, my partner Simon Dorrell and I were asked to rework a long-abandoned flower garden at Hampton Court in Herefordshire. The new American owners liked our creation of double blue and yellow borders and a commission to oversee the restoration of some 20 neglected acres immediately surrounding the castle soon followed. Set beneath a wooded hill alongside the River Lugg, the history of Hampton Court goes back to the 15th century. Paintings and engravings survive, showing such past glories as the intricate and ambitious gardens made for Lord Coningsby by George London in the 1690s - obliterated by Humphry Repton on behalf of Viscount Maiden in 1795, when a taste for the Picturesque became the fashion. From 1810 to 1912, when Hampton Court was home to the Arkwright family, many trees - newly discovered in the Far East and the Americas - were planted, and the remains of a mature parkland landscape with a number of fine specimens can still be seen. At the heart of the 1,000-acre estate in 1994 lay two walled gardens and several derelict glasshouses - priorities in the plan of restoration. Much-needed new money was assigned to the project and a small team of gardeners was hired m 1996 although, dying m 1999, Robert Van Kampen never saw the work complete. However, new owners share his family's dedication and enthusiasm and the gardens thrive now under the direction of head gardener Hannah wilks who has worked there for the past seven years. Joseph Paxton's 19th-century conservatory bas been converted into a cafe and restaurant for the visiting public and the Victorian sunken garden has been restored, reached today by gently descending leafy paths or by a tunnel leading from the basement of a new tower that stands as the centerpiece of a recently planted yew maze. A long canal flanked by box-edged beds figures in the new Dutch Garden where once stood the family tennis court, and a new stone ha-ha across the north front of the castle allows for sheep to graze the wide expanse of greensward each side of the main drive. The southern walled garden is purely ornamental, animated by water 'borrowed' from the River Lugg flowing steadily along Simon Dorrell's rills towards a magnificent pair of moated pavilions. Shrubs and herbaceous perennials - predominantly pink on one side, blue on the other - occupy wide borders, while roses and swathes of lavender add perfume throughout the summer months. Also delightfully decorative, with a network of small borders and a series of oak-sided raised beds, the neighbouring northern walled garden is utilitarian, given over to vegetables, fruit and herbs. A variety of organic fertilisers and mulches are used to lighten the heavy clay soil and to help correct the soil's pH to suit the individual crops. Almost everything is grown from seed in a con-based compost and cultivated organically, with a regime that begins in the glasshouses in November, when sweetpeas and broad beans are sown. In late winter and early spring, there is a heightened flurry of activity, as countless trays are sown with a huge assortment of salad crops, herbs and other vegetables. Hannah prefers heritage varieties, sourcing seed from such firms as the Organic Gardening Catalogue, Tamar Organic, Thomas Etty Esq and Heritage Seed Library. She finds older varieties crop over a longer period and the flavour is usually better, too, she says. Regrettably, some older kinds are susceptible to viruses, but Hannah's good husbandry has reduced the risk considerably. Companion planting helps ward off common diseases, so onions grow between rows of carrots, for example, in beds edged with chives. A screen of fennel forms a barrier against low-flying carrot fly. Leaf veg, like kale and Swiss chard interplanted with crimson clover to help fix much-needed nitrogen in the soil. Bio-degradable collars are placed around young brassicas to prevent cabbage root fly invasion, and catmint (nepeta) is planted among salad vegetables to deter flea beetles. As the season progresses, tender salads and herbs are sown in situ, the soil first turned to a fine tilth and regularly weeded. Companion planting is also used for a pleasing visual effect. Those November-sown sweetpeas, supported by thin birch twigs, form screens between the many beds and borders. Climbing beans are similarly employed, although these are not planted out until the end of May, when all risk of frost has finally passed. Edible plants are picked with care to help maintain the look of the beds. On Monday mornings Hannah gives the restaurant a list of what they can have during the week, although only she and two of her team of five gardeners will do the harvesting, preserving for as long as possible the feast for eye and mouth. Back to main page >