Arthur Cole 1:14

Welcome back to the Newt Podcast with me, Arthur Cole. Join us for a walk through the estate with our invited guests to the backdrop of the Somerset landscape and its wildlife residence. This week we meet the garden team as they take us through their gardens ahead of the Great Garden Show. Come with us as we're introduced to head gardener Harry Baldwin. We'll meet Espalier Apple Grower Henry, colour garden specialist Joe, Water Garden specialist Deanne, as well as our very own Andy Apples. Let's kick off with Harry in the Mul Pit. So I'm joined by Head Gardener of the Newt, Harry Baldwin. And we're standing here just ahead of the inaugural Great Garden Show, which is coming up on the 9th of May, and it runs through to the 17th of May. And it's gonna be everything including talks, tours, celebration of flowers, of growing, of propagation. It's gonna be demonstrations, there's gonna be workshops, there's gonna be all sorts of horticultural extravaganza going on. So let's get started. Harry, give us the recipe for a great garden.

SPEAKER_05 2:50

Plant combinations. That is for me is incredibly important. Bringing the wildlife into the garden, and lastly, not trying to make a garden it's not. Play on the soil, the environment, not forcing something into a box that isn't that shape. Use what you have. That's all I would say.

Arthur Cole 3:10

So, Harry, please describe for our members, but also people who haven't been here yet. What can they expect the gardens to look like in May?

SPEAKER_05 3:22

The gardens are going to be lush, and what I love is when you park your car at the car park, you come along our boardwalk where you're walking through, must be 150 metres worth of boardwalk through a true native woodland of Britain, and it's really sets the tone for the gardens. We're really the gardens are a big celebration of Somerset, but when you start to get into the detail of the gardens, the blueprint of the historic parts of the garden, like the parabola, um, or even into the Victorian bathing pond where our Victorian display is. Really, there's some beautiful hints of colour. But we have so much going on. We're gonna have Symphony of Colour, which I can talk to you a bit about a bit later. But we've got our four seasons, the Laburnum Arch, the longest Leburnum Arch in Europe. We'll have our rose garden maybe beginning to bud up, maybe it'll be in flower this year as we've got a bit of an early spring. We'll have the apple blossom, no doubt, still spilling over into the into that part of May. The gardens will be abundant with colour, absolutely abundant, from our native woodlands all the way to the four seasons garden to the Roman villa and beyond.

Arthur Cole 4:32

So, Harry, the great garden show. This is the first time we've done this, isn't it?

SPEAKER_05 4:39

How exciting is that!

Arthur Cole 4:40

And why is this different to anything else that we've done here at the Newt in the last seven years?

SPEAKER_05 4:47

I'm glad you asked that question. I mean, what a feat. Nine days of horticulture, nine days of gardening, where you're going to be able to immerse yourself in activities, talks, meeting people in the industry, excitingly, I think, actually seeing our own gardeners out there, showing their skills and what they get up to. But for this, we've now done four years of Chelsea in the limelight, in London, showcasing what we can do, and now, like I said in my clip, we're bringing it back to Somerset. How exciting is that?

Arthur Cole 5:20

Harry, could you give us a potted career history? What's been your journey to get here to this point of being the head gardener of the Newton Somerset?

SPEAKER_05 5:30

I guess my background is more botanical, I would say. I've had the you know wonderful chance to work at Kew for six years, most of that time as a dendrologist, you know, the science and study of trees, looking after their collection of trees, which is incredibly exciting, having a chance to travel and see many of these trees in their wild, understand their habitat and everything that goes into these forests and these important species. I also worked at recently as head guard at the Board Hill Garden, a beautiful family estate that's been in the family for well over 130 years, a mecca for plant collections where they sponsored a number of the Victorian plant hunters: Ernest Wilson, George Forrest, Frank Kingdom Ward, and many others. So they've got amazing original introductions of magnolias, camellias, um, various exciting tree species, you know, and there is a wonderful museum of living trees. So, really, you know, I I, as you can probably tell, I love trees. That's been a lot of my background. Uh, so coming to the Newt, it's it's although, yes, we have wonderful woodlands, but we also have an array of various other gardens. We have edibles, we have our kitchen gardens, we have our nursery for propagation, all things that I love, but it's so nice having a team of really skilled professionals within our own departments. I can lean on them when I need to. Hey Paul, how are we going to make this croquet lawn absolutely superb this year? We did Burberry Czech last year, I can rely on him to showcase incredible lawn mowing skills. So, yeah, uh very diverse gardens here, and I can't say I know it all, but that's why we have a great team.

Arthur Cole 7:03

Well, horticulture is I guess a profession, a study of science, where you never quite get to the end of it, do you? There's always something more to learn. So, Harry, tell us. We've all had experience in trees and with amazing tree collections. Tell us, what's your favourite tree worldwide?

SPEAKER_05 7:27

That's always a hard one. Um, but I can tell you quite confidently it's oaks. Um so I say that because when I started off as a student at the South Lear Gardens in Hampshire, they're essentially, although gardens, they're they're an arborita, they have a big collection of trees, and I quite quickly caught on to the fact that they had a wonderful collection of oak trees, a national collection, and jumping on to various societies, doing trips to see, at some point soon, oaks in the wild. And oaks are incredible. There's over 500 different species of oaks, mostly all the northern hemisphere, and most of that diversity of oaks is found in Mexico. And when you start to compare all these different oak species, you would never think that was an oak. The way you tell us an oak is when you see the cupule or you see the nut. Um, but yeah, oaks, yeah, incredible. And you know how much there are keystone species in so many ecosystems, and how so many birds, invertebrates, fungi all rely on the oak. It's more than just a tree, it's it's uh it's a whole natural world.

Arthur Cole 8:30

Harry, what's the importance of horticulture to this enterprise, the newt?

SPEAKER_05 8:38

I remember the first thing you told me when I started here was we're not a hotel with gardens, we're a garden with a hotel. And I use that quite often because we're we're a brand with many different businesses, you know, all very competitive internally, aren't we? But it's really nice to say that the gardens do come first, and I love to remind people of that. Um so yeah, gardening is at the core of what we do here. If we were not a gardens, people wouldn't come. You know, we're not just an exhibit, we're not just a restaurant, um, we're not just a hotel, we have an abundance of gardens as far as the eye can see, and there's something here for everybody's tastes.

Arthur Cole 9:13

Harry, is horticulture relevant in today's society and today's industry, or is it just a luxury?

SPEAKER_05 9:23

Interestingly, I think certainly throughout my career, so when I started getting interested in horticulture, which was when I was at college, when I would have been 16 years old, I knew I wanted to go into horticulture and people couldn't understand it. They said, Why horse culture? I was like, no, I'm not going into equine therapy, I'm going into horticulture. Um, people hadn't understood what that term, you know, even was then. And even when I was studying horticulture with a degree at Rita College in Essex, even my friends at home didn't understand why I was doing it. But interestingly, now, now they see me in the newt, now they see how important horticulture is to the world, whether it's feeding mental health, which is obviously a new part of horticulture strand that's come in, but they're all getting interested in gardening. And actually, if you go ask anybody, they do love gardening. They do. It's a part of our souls, and I I find I'm so happy to have got into the industry, similar time to you did, and and see that now. It's incredible change in society.

Arthur Cole 10:23

During the Great Garden Show, we have a day dedicated to young, aspiring horticulturists, but also people that have been involved in horticulture who are perhaps assessing that career. Do they continue? Do they sidestep in it? Harry, Monday at the Great Garden Show is going to be about a focus on horticulture as a career. Why was that important to you to bring that to the Great Garden show?

SPEAKER_05 10:57

So for me that's incredibly important because I like to say that I'm still, I like to say I'm still in touch with the new audiences that come in. And I was there once, and so were you, and there were so many mentors that you know supported me throughout my throughout my uh career. And I importantly, I want to show, as I was shown, how extensive and how exciting and how many opportunities are available in this industry? What other industry can you go to Chile on a travel bursary to go see plants, right? What other industry is there that you can go and do garden design? What other industry can you attend all these horticultural conferences? Importantly, what other industry has a closer community that stretches beyond the border of our country and all the way around the world? You can pick up the phone without even knowing somebody, but if they're in horticulture or they studied in the same place that you did, they will treat you as a friend or as a cousin or as a member of the family. And that connection is incredibly amazing and everyone will always support each other. So for me, the new hort day is going to be really important for those reasons, but importantly, I really want to show that although we're still young in the industry, we are on a trajectory to be an educational institution for horticulture in the future, and that's what I want to make sure that we put on the map.

Arthur Cole 13:23

Lofty aspirations there, Harry. Do you believe that these dreams of becoming an institution of excellence within horticulture will come to pass and last beyond your tenure as head gardener?

SPEAKER_05 13:39

Absolutely. I'm a firm believer that we can be one of the best in the country for horticulture or known for a form of horticulture. Whether it's fruit that we're already well known for, whether it's our borough culture, whether it's actually just gardening, you know, these things will pull through. But the apprenticeship we offer is incredible, and we've seen you know so many apprentices through our trainee scheme already, and we're just seeing that apprenticeship get better and better and better. And I think just things like the Great Garden Show that we're doing, it's only going to improve what we offer here, and it will just only get bigger. So I'll certainly do my best over my tenure to make sure that we we do get onto that uh platform.

Arthur Cole 14:19

For anyone considering a career in horticulture and coming in at entry level, what's the pay like?

SPEAKER_05 14:28

This is something the industry's been fighting for for a long time. And sadly, you know, we know that not all areas of horticulture pay well. But I do believe things are on the up. I mean, I'm glad to say that here at the Newt I feel that we do offer a good package, a good competitive pay for gardeners, especially when you start to build through the ranks. But there are so many things that horticulture can offer, which isn't just all about monetary. Like I said, the travel opportunities, going out to far-flung places, meeting plants, but also meeting gardens and meeting gardeners, understanding that community feel, and even simply just that small art of propagation, that thrill that you can get, you can never describe that in words. You have to do it to see the fruit of your passions come through.

Arthur Cole 15:17

The Great Garden Show, would you say that one of its purposes is to bring people and plants together?

SPEAKER_05 15:25

Definitely, and that can be, if you like, any type of person. I think what we can probably definitely agree on is the fact that the whole program is built for everybody. You don't need to be a professional, you don't need to know everything about a certain subject. It's open to everybody. Uh, and that's what how we design the program uh for people that are coming into horticulture, to those that already know a great deal about trees, but also those people who really want to understand more about how to design their their vegetable gardens at home. I think there's something in the programme for everybody. As long as you love horticulture, and importantly that you love plants, there'll be something for you here.

Arthur Cole 16:02

Harry, I know that you're gonna be looking forward to every aspect of every day, but come on. What are you particularly looking forward to? What's gonna what's gonna be your highlight by looking at the programme for that great garden show?

SPEAKER_05 16:18

Have a guess. What do you think it will be?

Arthur Cole 16:21

Is it gonna be Harry Baldwin talking on trees for your garden?

SPEAKER_05 16:26

My extensive my extensive 15-minute talk on my favourite trees. No, I don't think it will be. Although I will have a great pleasure in talking to you about oaks. But no, it's gotta be the whole program for me is is is building up to a big crescendo, and that is the plant fair. Everybody loves a plant fair. And you know what? I was gonna throw my toys out the pram if we didn't get a plant fair for the great garden show. So, um, yeah, for me, I want to see us build the biggest plant fair in the country here at some point, and you know, getting those rare and unusual plants here, rare and unusual people as well, but even plants that we're all familiar with, and that buzz that you have of seeing those plant stools and you know trying to get a bargain or seeing those unusual plants that you've been able to get for a long, long time, it that thrill is incredible. So, yeah, that I'm so excited for. Not to mention, actually, if I can just add this on, the plant fair amongst doing the great garden question time, which is gonna be really fun with Alan Titchmarsh, with Matthew Pottage, Tony Kirkham, and other people. It's gonna be my first actually hosting something like that, but it's gonna be really good fun. So, yeah, that day is gonna be amazing.

Arthur Cole 17:34

Oh, it's great stuff, and uh yeah, sorry for only giving you 15 minutes, Harry, but I thought that that's all the public could handle. So we're joined by Henry, the master of the parabola. Henry Thurgood, we are standing in your Apple maze.

SPEAKER_06 18:00

Yeah, welcome. Welcome, yeah. You're right at home.

Arthur Cole 18:03

And you're gonna take us on a journey, I think, through the British Isles, is that correct?

SPEAKER_06 18:08

Yes, yeah, through the the select counties, counties that made the cut. Uh so yeah, uh Norfolk at the moment, uh, we've got Northamptonshire just over here. We'll head on to the W's, shall we?

Arthur Cole 18:19

Wow, okay, so for anybody who's unfamiliar with your garden here, Henry, they'll be thinking that we um are giants striding across the map of the British Isles. Where are we and why are we talking about counties as though they are stepping stones through this garden?

SPEAKER_06 18:43

Well, I suppose it's a way of ordering the collection, you know, arranging them by county makes geographical sense.

Arthur Cole 18:51

So this is an apple maze. Henry, how many apple cultivars have you got in this garden?

SPEAKER_06 18:58

So the the number that that Andy has always told me is 330.

Arthur Cole 19:02

Otherwise known as Andy Apples.

SPEAKER_06 19:04

Andy Apples, yeah, he's the font of all knowledge as I know him. He would describe Gilles, probably who I'm sure he'll mention later, as his font of knowledge. Uh sort of I get the trickle down.

Arthur Cole 19:14

So Gilles Guillaume, who is arguably one of the greatest minds on apple pruning and training, um, a Frenchman who has taught our own Andy apples many years ago, before we opened up, how to prune and to train the apples in this garden. And you've inherited this collection from them, haven't you?

SPEAKER_06 19:37

Yeah, I've I've sort of had Andy's Andy's hand-me-downs from Giles. Um, I've had the pleasure of meeting him a couple of times.

Arthur Cole 19:44

How many cultivars of apples have you got in this collection?

SPEAKER_06 19:47

So 330 cultivars, um, and the collection comprises of 689 trees, I believe, is the figure that's uh out there published.

Arthur Cole 19:57

So let's take a walk down into Kent. Henry, these trees are pruned in a remark and trained in a remarkably different way to Warwickshire, where we've just come from. How often do you prune these trees and and how do you train a tree into these shapes?

SPEAKER_06 20:19

So there are multiple ways you can train them. You know, there's the more conventional, traditional styles uh that we see here. You know, where we were in the W's plateau where we just were the diagonal cordon, and probably one of the most popular. It's a very easy uh shape to manage because you've only got that one linear from the roots, sort of straight from A to Z. Whereas things like a Belgian fence where you have two arms, very often just naturally you'll have a stronger and a weaker the trees will do what they will do at the end of the day. Things like a formula spalier shape, you've got three arms, the upright and the two horizontals. So to get it perfectly balanced, you want the tree to be working well for you, and sometimes they just don't. So the diagonal cordon is just straightforward one single channel. Uh, so it's very easy to work with a tree that's predictable in its form. This shape here is kind of a very geometric archeau de page, uh, which translates to turn the page, I believe, from French. Traditionally, it would be a little bit more flowing and it would kind of look like a book that's billowing spilled open and it would be kind of almost fan-shaped. I'm gesturing with my hands, but of course that'll mean nothing to the folks listening. Uh, whereas this one is a lot more angular up, 90 degrees to the left, and then shortly further on up and then 90 degrees to the right in this kind of alternating uh 90 degree herringbone sort of fashion. So we're pruning them four times a year, um thrice through the growing season to maintain the formality. Uh, in removing all of the excess new growth, we're also opening the fruits up to a lot more sunlight and fresh air for healthier growing and ripening conditions. But of course, the first prune we do come June, the stuff that we're pruning off it is upwards of two foot long. So you can imagine this very nice formal ornamental shape is very quickly lost. Um, people often gasp when we say four prunes a year because they feel like they're neglecting their trees at home. But yes, the fruit will benefit from having a bit more light and air to it, but it's it's only fine microscopic differences, really. So uh yeah, twice a year is is ample for the health and and the training of the tree. Uh, but we've got to keep things looking ship shape here.

Arthur Cole 22:36

Tell us down what's happening under the soil. So there's quite a um a knuckle, you could describe it, where the tree emerges from the soil and turns into the tree. Tell us why there's such a knuckle there and um what's that all about?

SPEAKER_06 22:53

Where you're seeing that knuckle is it's hard to see on trees of this sort of age. These are kind of nine-year-old trees now. But if we went back in time eight years, the graft, the graft scar where the scion wood is grafted onto the rootstock would be very visible. Fast forward all these years, you can't really see it, but where the swelling is would be sort of in that vicinity. So, what you can see on lots of them uh adventitious roots, uh, you see, of the rootstock portion that is still visible above ground, you will see that it will occasionally put out these searching roots uh you'll see from the base of the stem. And where the graft is as well, you know, that's where you've got your your cambium contact. It's that cambium from your scion to your rootstock that fuses uh and grafts itself. And the cambium is where you have your active cell division and and generation. So the swelling that you see there is just where you have a very active area of that cell division and regeneration.

Arthur Cole 23:50

So all of the trees in the collection are grafted onto a rootstock.

SPEAKER_06 23:55

Yes.

Arthur Cole 23:55

Do you use different root stalks?

SPEAKER_06 23:57

Uh the There are different rootstocks. Almost universally they're on MM106 rootstocks, which is a semi-dwarfing rootstock with uh certain built-in pest and disease resistances. There's a whole manner of rootstocks in SWAR cider orchards that are all grafted onto M25 rootstocks, which are a lot more vigorous, uh, will allow the tree to become a lot more large and dominant on the landscape. Whereas we want to keep these more compact and manageable.

Arthur Cole 24:26

Perfect. Right, let's keep walking around your collection, Henry. And it looks like you're about to have an explosion of poppies here.

SPEAKER_06 24:34

Yes. Yes, yeah. This is uh these are weeds that we have uh that we're, you know, we've we've taken them from the category of weeds and and we're allowing them space, which stops them being weeds.

Arthur Cole 24:46

Welcome weeds.

SPEAKER_06 24:48

Exactly. Yes, although I will have to manage them, I'm sure, otherwise they'll be everywhere.

Arthur Cole 24:53

Well, I'm looking forward to seeing those pop up. I believe they come from original seed collected in Afghanistan well before the Afghanistan war by Penelope Hobhouse. On her travels to Afghanistan, she collected opium poppies, seed, brought them back to Hadspon, and many of the poppies that pop up as weeds in different parts of the garden actually come from those original collected seeds.

SPEAKER_06 25:22

Fabulous. I didn't know that.

Arthur Cole 25:25

So, Henry, we've got the great garden show coming up. How is your garden going to feature in that? And what are you going to be doing for that?

SPEAKER_06 25:33

So we have been included in that. I I assumed it would just be my ornamental friends busied with that, and I'd be left on the outskirts, but they uh they they included me, so they've allowed me the tulip display that we have here. We've got some potted tulips uh on the entrance down. So uh so I know that we've got uh on I believe the Tuesday and Thursday, correct me if I'm wrong, that we're hosting the tours for the the tree-themed day and the productive themed day, so there will be a greater tour schedule that we'll be uh we'll be facilitating. But yeah, it's just a a slight nod, really. I've not had to do as much work as some of my other colleagues in the more ornamental areas.

Arthur Cole 26:14

Very good. Well, Henry, your collection of trees is looking spectacular. The blossom looks great this year. I'm so pleased that you haven't lost a lot to a late frost, although touch wood that doesn't come through later. And um good luck, and here's to a great harvest later on.

SPEAKER_06 26:33

Voil!

Arthur Cole 26:34

Voilà! Here we are, we're in the colour gardens and we're joined by Joe. Hello, hi Jo, your colour gardens are looking amazing. This is April now and there's so much promise in these beds. We're looking at this euphoria which is absolutely fascinating. It's got these black eyes almost to it, these black irises going on. What's tell us what's going on with this part of the garden that we're standing in?

SPEAKER_02 27:10

So at the moment we've got a real highlight with these euphorbias. They look gorgeous even on a rainy day like today. Um, if you look closely, all the raindrops kind of group on the foliage, it looks so beautiful. Um, and we're surrounded by lots of fresh green tulips. This one's tulip spring green, and it's a Viridiflora variety. It's got a lovely green stripe on the back, which photosynthesises, so they actually they're quite sustainable tulips because they build that energy and they repeat every year. And then moving through, they're the main flowers at the moment, but because green's quite a tricky colour, I have to rely on lots of foliage and form in here. Um, so we've got the beautiful dark glaucus eucalyptus parvula and some lovely tropical fatsias at the back. So as you walk through, there's a lot of different foliage, and the grass is rustle, and it's kind of beautiful, really.

Arthur Cole 28:12

Great Joe, can you take us for a walk through your colour gardens? So we're standing as we're standing on these beautiful Hadspon stone paving stones, which are um quite higgelty-piggoty, um, put in by Tom Trouton, and you can see the fossilised remains of the sea creatures because where we're standing, of course, at Hadspon, this used to be a seabed about 160 million years ago, and they help to frame your beds of green in this garden.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

Yes, that's a really special feature of this garden. It's a cobbly ancient stone path, and they kind of meander through the border so you can get in amongst the plants and kind of meander through the different colours and really feel that as you go through.

Arthur Cole 28:57

Lead on, Joe.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

So it's a lovely time of year. We've got fresh foliage from the panican grass popping through, and I've mulched it recently, so we've got this beautiful black crumbly mulch that Pete makes at the compost pad, and it's just perfect because the greens really sing through that. To be honest, when I first came here and I heard there was a green garden, I thought, oh no, green, but actually, you know, the human eye can see so many different shades of green, and you come in here and it's just so calming. It's part of my challenge is to find all those different green flowers and just explore that whole range. Let's walk through to the red garden. So each garden is surrounded by a beautiful willow woven fence. Um, we had a company come in and make it for us, they're called Wonderwood Willow, and it's absolutely beautiful, it's very natural and it highlights the plants as a nice backdrop. And in between each archway, we've also got windows and they almost look like mirrors. It's very Instagram. You can pop your phone and take a nice picture through the window.

Arthur Cole 30:07

And the willow fencing here was put in in the winter, wasn't it, from last year's cut willow, and that growth, the energy in these is sprouting. Your fence is sprouting, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 30:21

It is, yeah. So they're really um thick pieces of willow and they've got a lot of life in them. So they should last about 10 years, but um because they're so full of life, they are shooting at the moment, so we have to go around and rub off the growth, which is kind of funny.

Arthur Cole 30:38

Okay, so what have we got here? There's a really bright array of these tulips that are in this garden.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

Yeah, so we're currently in the red garden. This is my favourite garden, so it's red, gold, and green in here. It's not just one colour, although it should be. So currently we've got a lovely swathe of red um tulips. That's tulip red impression, which is a Darwin hybrid, and they're so vibrant, it's like a classic rounded tulip flower. Quite tall, and they just they're the perfect height, they pop through all the new herbaceous growth and really sing at this time of year. That combination of vibrant red and glaucous foliage with the golden grasses is just so beautiful. This garden works really well because it's got lots of structure in it. So we've got very tall, almost wild rosa Moiesiae geranium, and they just sit there like shrubs, ornamental shrubs, um, giving a bit of height to the garden. And then on the lower level we've got um steeper gigantia, and they are perfect because soon they'll be flowering with great golden, kind of oak-like flowers that catch the light in the summer. So it's it's an exciting time.

Arthur Cole 32:02

I love the use of the grasses in this garden because even with the gentlest of breezes that comes through, it creates movement and that lifts all of that more dense, perhaps more rigid planting of the herbaceous.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

I've added tulipper acuminata this year. It's a really interesting spiky tulip. Look at that.

Arthur Cole 32:30

Like a bird.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

Yeah, it almost looks like a f a candle flame, um, and they're a species tulip and they shall return. So when I plant these tulips, I do try to include more sustainable types that repeat every year, otherwise it's a bit of a waste.

Arthur Cole 32:47

Joe, tell us a little bit about designing these borders because a lot of the people that are going to be coming to our great garden show this year, I hope, are gonna come and get inspiration from our gardens, and they're probably gonna want to pick up a few tips as well. So, what have you got to suggest to our listeners about how one would embark upon designing their own borders at home?

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Um, well, designing a border is a quite a complex thing to think about, to be honest. Um, I'd say the number one thing is to come up with a concept like what is your border about? Um, it could be a cottage garden, it could be a Mexican party garden. You know, that concept will inform all of your choices when you're designing your new border. You could call it a theme if you like. And then once you've done that, you've got to assess your sight, you've got to know your garden. Where does the sunrise, where do the frost pockets sit. Um you've really got to look at what grows well in your garden and use that to let you to inform you of what works well, what grows well, and then from there you can start to think about what plants you want and then start designing, I guess. It's a huge topic, it's hard to summarise.

Arthur Cole 34:11

It is a huge topic. I guess the theme in here was colour and also looking uh back at the the history of Hadsman, one of your predecessors, a man called Russell Wrigler, was responsible for much of the planting, in many of the gardens here. And uh no less in here, the the colour gardens, his task was to interpret the work of Nori and Sandra Pope, the great glamorous Canadian plants couple who were here from the 1980s through to the 2000s, and um they wrote a book called Colour by Design, and Russell was tasked with tell their story through the planting, and as a result, the three colour gardens were created, and some years later a fourth one, green, was added on.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

I love that book by the way.

Arthur Cole 35:10

Colour by Design.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

Yeah, it's a beautiful book. It's uh an excellent coffee table book, but also it gives a lot of inspiration and it has uh an index at the back which lets you see the plants by colour and in each individual season, so it's really useful too. Fantastic!

Arthur Cole 35:30

Excellent reference book. So we're now looking at something that looks so so exotic. What garden are we standing in nowadays?

SPEAKER_02 35:40

So we're currently in the blue garden, and I've got to admit I've got a little bit of an obsession with tree echiums. So these tree echiums you see them a lot in Cornwall, and they originate from the Canary Islands, and they're huge, thick spikes with very exotic kind of lanceolate leaves, and right through the stem, there are hundreds of these tiny blue borridge-like flowers. Um, it's just a real sight to behold, and because this is a blue garden, I really wanted them here, but they are a little tender. So the first year I planted them, they all got frosted off. But last year I thought I'm really gonna try hard and protect these ecums over winter, so I created like a marquee around them with lots of poles and a like a plastic top to protect them from rain, and then wrapped them in fleece. And they've got through the winter, I'm so happy. So, this should be a real show in about a month's time. And I do like to plant things in here that the bees love too, and they'll be straight onto this echium. So I'm really excited about that.

Arthur Cole 36:53

So we've got almost light purple, almost mauvey, um, very pale tulips in here, and two of the more structural architectural forms in this garden, the Cyanothus.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

So this is Cyanothus concha. It's it's about to bloom, isn't it?

Arthur Cole 37:13

I think it really is.

SPEAKER_02 37:15

Um it's such a deep vivid blue, and I've lifted the canopy on this so I can plant lots of jewels underneath. And you mentioned the tulip, it's a tulip silver cloud, and it's got those real violet-y, kind of pale tones, and the stem is very kind of almost purpley blue. Because obviously, you can't get a blue tulip unless you use food dye. So I've underplanted them with lots of blue forget-me knots, so that combination really brings out the blue, and they flow underneath into the canopy of the Cyanothus. It was really pretty.

Arthur Cole 37:51

What's in a colour then? Because we're here, we are, we're in the blue garden, we're on alkaline soil, there's no chance of you putting in any of the big good blues like Mechanopsis, the giant Himalayan poppies, and even if you were to try and put in your hydrangeas that would usually reliably be blue down in Cornwall and other acid soils, here they would come out as a purpley pink. And so, how do you interpret that? You've already told us how you're doing it with these excellent tulips and setting that colour off. You don't have to be so literal, I guess. It's more interpretive.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

Yes. So I was lucky enough to meet Sandra Pope. She came here last February and um we talked about colour, and she did mention that in the blue garden she would use like a complementary colour, like a touch of white, to really let the blue sing. So I've let that give me some license to add some other colours. Um, and it has been really effective so far. So I do think you know, with the blues, I'll add a touch of like a light blue, a powdery blue, and I'll also rely on foliage. Um, it's a rainy day here today, it's very grey. But looking around, it is kind of a bluey foliage, you know what I mean?

Arthur Cole 39:11

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

Um so I rely on that, and then believe it or not, there are a lot of true blues that I can plant without acidic soil. So I rely on a lot of the true blues of the salvias and the Chinese, forget me not, and the borridges and the cornflowers. So there are some really interesting blues out there.

Arthur Cole 39:29

So, Joe, we've made it all the way through the series of colour gardens, and we're up to the final one just before we would walk through into the hotel. Where are we now?

SPEAKER_02 39:44

We've entered the white garden. So white's probably the easiest garden to be honest. I hope you can get almost everything in white. Um, so we can see lots of uh Leucogiums, they look like really tall snow drops, and I've got a line well a ribbon of white tulips going around with white forget me knots, and it's just so fresh in here. There's lots of fresh foliage from the aconitum, the roses, and I've got honesty, and lots of things like emerging, and later on there'll be white alliums, and that's part of my process. I really think about how I can extend that season of interest right from the end of January through to October, November, and a big part of that is just thinking about um successional planting. So as one thing is in its prime and then it fades, I'm thinking about what else is going to come behind it. So these waves of plants to really kind of extend that season of interest. It's quite tricky actually. Yeah. Yeah, it's a real challenge.

Arthur Cole 40:54

I mean, I know from walking through your gardens over the last couple of years how you don't just use the blooms, but you often use seed heads in here as well.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

I do. Yeah, that's something I've really tried to extend in this garden because seed heads are so valuable when there's no other colour in the garden, you can rely on those tones of browns and blacks. And the you know, they're so valuable, they give lots of habitat for insects, they catch the light in the winter and the frost as well. It's just a bit of interest when nothing is around. So when I'm choosing my plants, I do think about that. Like, what are they going to do for me? They've really got to earn their keeping here, right? They've got to have good emergent foliage, they've got to have a long flowering period, they can give me some autumn colour if they like, and then there's the seed heads as well. Um, so that's what I consider basically when I plan this garden. And what I also do is that my favourite job of the year is choosing all the annuals and biennials. So, as well as like a shrubby herbaceous backdrop in here, I actually add about 1200 annual plants that the nursery grows for me very kindly, and there's a huge variety of plants and they really fill the gaps. So, in the summer, in kind of June, July, August, the borders really sing, and that's a big part of my job that I love.

Arthur Cole 42:22

It's nice. Joe, we've got the great garden show coming up. What can our visitors come and expect from you and from your gardens?

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Um well, there's always something to see in the colour gardens. I put a lot of effort and time into making sure that happens. But I will be involved in an annual planting session, it's a practical session. You can come along and register. Bring your Neela, and I'll talk you through all the annuals that I choose and how to place them in the border, thinking about other plants, and then we'll have a little planting session. It should be quite fun.

Arthur Cole 43:03

Oh, great. Okay, well, all of this is going to be on the programme. So anyone who's listening to this who wants to come and learn from Joe and get some inspiration on a seasonal, successional, and sustainable herbaceous flower bed and border for their home, check out that programme. Jo, thank you for taking us through your gardens. Thanks Arthur, it's a pleasure. So we're standing on the Victorian Terrace and we're here with Diane. Hi Diane.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

Hi Arthur.

Arthur Cole 43:42

So Diane, you're in charge of this area. Could you please let our listeners know how you go about, I guess, interpreting a Victorian planting design?

SPEAKER_00 43:57

So I guess the most important thing with Victorian planting design is that it's big and bold and colourful. It's quite challenging to make sure it's not too unsustainable in this day and age. So we've done quite a lot of work to trial using perennial plants that we can then use in other areas of the garden or we can sell on afterwards. We're always looking to do a big theme on our bedding as well. Um, so this year it's all about a symphony of colour and all the different colours of the rainbow. So we are surrounded by different beds themed in different colours. We have yellow, purple, red, and orange. Um, and then as the season goes on, we're going to switch it up with even more colours as more colours become available to us for the summer flowering plants, and it will do a colour theme from up by the winter garden. It will start at mauve, it'll go through all the shades of purple and blue and green, come across through yellow, orange, and red, and then come back round to mauve pink, so into the pinky colours as well. So it should be really spectacular.

Arthur Cole 45:04

So we're recording this in the middle of April, and it seems like you have a sea of tulips going on here. Tell us a little bit about the tulips you've chosen and why you've chosen them.

SPEAKER_00 45:19

Um, so we've gone with a selection of different tulips based around the colours. So we start with the a kind of pale salmon-y pink, really nice tall tulip, just so people can imagine. They're kind of about 55 centimetres tall, and we fade through into the darker peachy colour down to the reds into darker reds, and down to the darkest of all reds at the bottom, that's one called Paul Shera. And yeah, it's just been a real a real colour theme choice this year, and trying to get different shapes of tulip and different heights of tulip in the same bed to give that variety as you as you look at them.

Arthur Cole 45:58

And you've also got some premulars in these beds mixed in with the tulips. What's going on here?

SPEAKER_00 46:08

So premulars are a really good plant for providing some kind of really early spring colour or late winter colour. So that's why we chose them. We have lots of different types, so we have the more traditional lower-growing type. That's one called Premula bellarina. And then we have some cultivars of primula denticulata, which holds up a great big tall spike with a ball of little flowers on the end. We've actually used some of our native cow slips as well, both in yellow and in the orange variety that comes through. So yeah, premulars are just a really versatile plant.

Arthur Cole 46:43

They look great, and I love that use of the native cow slip there because so frequently, especially in Victorian bedding plant displays, we have heavily hybridised plants that are being used. Look at that native in this setting, absolutely glorious. Another really important feature in these gardens is the water. Tell us a little bit about what's going on with the water here.

SPEAKER_00 47:14

So we have we have a great big Victorian lily pond to go with the Victorian bedding, and from that flows cascades down through smaller pools all the way down to our rather playful towed water feature. The smaller pools are a particular challenge when it comes to making sure they have a balance and that they don't get overrun by algae in the summer. So we do quite a lot of work to try and make sure that doesn't happen. One of the key things is to make sure you've got lots and lots of plants in your ponds. The plants are taking out the nutrients, and ideally, if you've got emergent plants, those that stick out of the water, then you can harvest them in the autumn, and that takes some of the nutrients away. Emergent plants are also really good for some of the wildlife, like the dragonflies. So when they hatch in May, they climb up on those plants and they dry out and get ready to fly off. The other things that we do for the algae is we actually use barley straw in the ponds here. There's a special calculation that you can do based on the surface area to work out how much you need. I think a lot of people have tried barley straw before and found that it hasn't worked, but be persistent and you just have to follow a few special techniques. So you need to make sure it doesn't go in in a solid bale. If it goes in a solid bale, it breaks down anaerobically and then it makes your algae worse. So you've got to fluff your barley straw up, put it into something else. So we use biodegradable Christmas tree netting and then float it on the pond and wait for it to sink naturally. But make sure you've got it tethered because you do need to change it a couple of times a year. So we put it in first of all in February before the algae starts, and then we change it around May for a new set to try and keep that at bay and keep the water really crystal clear.

Arthur Cole 48:56

And then after May, when's the next time you change that?

SPEAKER_00 49:00

So we aim to take it out in the autumn and then we wait until the February to put a new set in.

Arthur Cole 49:09

What was it, two years ago? These pools that used to gum up very quickly as we came into summer with that dreadful blanket weed seemed to touch wood, be crystal clear through the summer. I think this is a problem, a shared problem for many people with relatively small and shallow ponds. So for people coming for the Great Garden Show, come down, come and speak to Diane and have a look at how she is tackling this issue of water cleanliness very I would say organically. Alright, we're joined by Andy Apples Lewis. Andy Apples, here we are in your garden. Hello Arthur, lovely to see you again. We've got the great garden show coming up, and that's nine days of celebrating this garden. But for you, Andy, you've been here 10 years. What do you celebrate about this garden?

SPEAKER_04 50:15

Everything really, they celebrate, come to work every day. But also hopefully for our visitors and our hotel guests. So in terms of celebrating, it's just celebrating the garden, celebrating the plants, and putting on a show for our many visitors. So with the Great Garden Show, it's another exciting event on our calendar to showcase what we do, but also to bring as many different gardeners and horticulturists here to really just celebrate the garden week and kicking that off with the garden day and the flower crowns, which we've done for I think it's over eight years. We've done it here at the Newt. So started very small scale originally, um, but yet it's sort of snowballed and built up just like the gardens have as well.

Arthur Cole 51:04

So your moniker and the apples, um, is that because you're a tulip specialist?

SPEAKER_04 51:12

Um specialist is a strong word, same as experts. Very strong. So I've spent the last eight, eight, nine years uh working very closely with our trained fruit collection, predominantly apples, and then in our walled garden that mentioned earlier, planted up with our espalier dessert apple trees. So, yeah, that's my I guess specialism espalier and working with trained fruit, but also fruit generally on the whole, as well. Um, and we're just on our way now towards the crab apple orchard, which is actually makes up part of our main visitor attraction car park, but we do have almost 70 different varieties of crab apple out there, and um, we're in the month of April, and they're just in sort of prime blossom period, so it's a good time to go and have a look.

Arthur Cole 52:04

A lot of our members and our hotel guests are very familiar with your work because they know the parabola and that centerpiece of the formal garden with all of those espaliered apple types. Whose idea was it to have espalier apples showed in such a way like that?

SPEAKER_04 52:30

In terms of the original idea, you know, a lot of our great ideas do come from our owners, but also working with the sort of the team at the top. So um at that time, head gardener Tia, estate architect Katie Lewis, but also certainly working alongside our lead garden architect at the time who's Patrice Taravella. He would have come up very much with the design and the concept, how the garden was displayed, and to celebrate the espaliered apple trees in the wall garden. And as part of that package, let's say, I was lucky enough to work alongside a gardener called Gilles Goulet. Your French is better than mine, so maybe you can pronounce that better than me. Um, but Gilles was the the gardener, head gardener that worked alongside Patrice at the garden they first created in the Loire Valley a garden called Puy de Ossanne, which pretty much was the inspiration behind creating both the Newt here and also Babylon Storm, I believe, with Patrice being the lead architect for the gardens.

Arthur Cole 53:37

Yes, well Gilles is certainly a specialist when it comes to what he was doing here. So Gilles focused on the process, the method of espalier. And is it fair to say that he took you under his wing and had you almost as an apprentice? The sorcerer's apprentice.

SPEAKER_04 54:01

I can't tell if you're trying to offend me or not, but um yeah, no, really, really lucky to you know one off one of a lifetime experience to be able to work alongside and under Gilles' tuition. So all of our dessert apple trees in the Parabola were planted in 2017, and for the four maybe five years following that, Gilles would come over at least four times a year during our pivotal pruning times, and both with the the pruning, the training, creation of the structures and the larves we use to train the fruit, he would impart his knowledge. So, yeah, in terms of having an apprenticeship from Gilles, I would say I'd say so. And he you know imparted his trained fruit and Haspalian knowledge, but also his his character and you know his real charisma within a garden and interacting with people and imparting knowledge to our visitors and and having a little bit of fun with it as well.

Arthur Cole 54:59

Horticulture is a broad church. I don't think anyone could really claim to be the best at horticulture, not even the whizleys or the cues of this world. But perhaps it's possible to be known as a leader in a specific discipline of horticulture. Would you say that the Newt's chosen specialism, the one that we really want to excel at and to be recognized for, is our trained fruit, our espalier-formed fruit?

SPEAKER_04 55:31

I think we always want to remain humble and never want to claim to be the best at anything, but to lead on something and to have a serious passion about something and do it the best we can and inspire our visitors and our you know garden members to come and look and learn and then hopefully take it back to their garden. So, yeah, we we'll we continue to strive to be the best we can. It's always nice to be recognized by other horticultural specialists and even just our visitors for the significant display we have and the work we do, which you know doesn't go unnoticed. So, yeah, so something along those lines.

Arthur Cole 56:10

Well, here we are, we're at the the beginning of many people's journey. Uh, if you're a visitor to the newt, and for our guests will be coming for the great garden show. This is really the first bit of the garden they're gonna hit, and it's a car park. And I don't think I've ever stood in a car park with so many flowering trees around us. Andy, what's going on here?

SPEAKER_04 56:38

So, the particular variety that we're standing in front of now is snow cloud, um, and actually, this is the first part of the car park that was created, and we planted it with just around 80 snow cloud trees. Um, we do have a whole mixture across the rest of the car park, but this first block is just one variety, and it's essentially a peak week, I'd say, with predominantly most of the blossom open, um, and then some of the pink buds still too open. So, yeah, looking pretty significant right now, and we've always known that the car park um is the first or last thing our garden visitors are gonna see, so we we want it to look the best we can. It's an ongoing project, especially with the underplanting, a little bit more labour intensive, but um yeah, it's looking looking okay right now.

Arthur Cole 57:25

It is clearly a conscious effort and decision to turn what is otherwise used as purely utilitarian, turn up, park, and then go into the gardens. However, your garden experience and your appreciation of the plants around begins even before you get out of your car. Okay Andy, tell us about these other varieties of crab apples we've got going on in the car park. There's quite a bit of variation going on here.

SPEAKER_04 58:01

Yeah, a whole heap of variety shape, size, and form. So the the first part of the car park with all the snow clouds planted in 2017, and then as the car park has grown, so has the planting of our crab apple collection. So most of these trees that we're looking at now were planted in 2019, so they are younger trees and it's a broader variety of trees. Whenever I talk to any of our visitors in the garden or wherever we we come across them, I say this is the perfect place if you're shopping for a crab apple to come and select your variety because you can see the whole different range of shape, size, and form. We prune them to maintain them, but we're not really altering their natural growth habit. So if you're looking for a very sort of upright straight tree or a broader or a weeping tree, you can come out here, they're all labelled, and you can basically find the shape and form you want. If you're here this time of year, you're also going to see the variety of blossom colours because you can see we've got some very bright pinks, some sort of almost pure whites. Uh, we've got leaf is coming out now, so you can see where we've got some of the sort of burgundy red foliage as well. So if you're in the market for a crab apple tree, this is a great sort of living uh collection to choose from.

Arthur Cole 59:15

And it is lovely having so many different varieties cheek by child because it's when you have a collection of a single genus like this, where you see the subtle differences, the nuances where previously you might have thought apple blossoms just apple blossoms, just apple blossom, but not when you have them growing so closely together like this. I believe, Andy, that you felt that this collection was worthy of applying for a national collection status.

SPEAKER_04 59:47

Yeah, so it's a number of years ago now that we did apply for national collection status here. First of all, with our wood garden and our dessert apple trees, quite a few years ago now we we got national collection status for that because it is such a significant collection. But out here as well, as I say, it's almost 70 different varieties going on, over 200 individual trees, and actually out here we have the space to expand and grow the collection, which is part of the the remit of a national collection is to to one savour the varieties you have, but also where possible to to continue to build it, and we do have the space out here to continue to add to it, so yeah, it does have national collection status, which is you know it's it's a great thing for us to be able to achieve, and very proud of that. And yeah, it's it's a great sort of unknown place for our visitors to visit.

Arthur Cole 1:00:38

I remember during lockdown uh mulching some of these trees with you and making a film about it. Um can you take us to your favourite one of these crab apples out here?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:50

I can't.

Arthur Cole 1:00:51

Let's go.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:52

I can't remember you ever getting on a spade or shovel. I do remember like however many years ago you used to claim to be a gardener once and and have uh changed since. And I I yeah, I'd you have a shovel, can't quite remember it, but um so we are heading towards hopefully I can remember where it is. There's a variety here called wedding bouquet. It is a slightly damp day today, so it will sort of reduce the blossom sort of scent getting about, but hopefully, if you bury your nose in it, you might get a whiff. So let's check this label. As I said, they're all labeled, so if anyone does visit, you can find your variety. What have we got here? Virginia giraffe. Have a sniff of that one anyway.

Arthur Cole 1:01:37

Oh it's a really beautiful rose scent that's going on, and of course that makes sense because all apples are in the family Rosaceae. And where's this weather when we're gonna be here?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:52

It's here. I did, I knew it was in this location. We're too early. But it does mean it does mean uh that you can come out in a week or two.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:59

It's budded up nicely. Obviously, it shows it's a slightly later blossoming variety, but hopefully, it means in a week or two when we've got a bit better weather and sun, you get a full show and you get the full scent from it. But this particular variety, wedding bouquet, really strong scent to it. You don't, you know, apple blossom is a quite a subtle scent anyway, and and still with this, it's it's subtle but strongest of most, and a good variety, good growth um habit and form as well. Don't have to do too much with it. I mean, being within a car park, we do always have to be wary of where limbs are sort of reaching out and the lower limbs, and we do lift the canopy a little bit, but generally we try to keep trees in their natural growth habit and form um and work with them rather than than against them and just opening up if they're a bit crowded in the centre and all those kind of classic techniques.

Arthur Cole 1:02:53

So, Andy, we've got the first of our great garden shows coming up, 9th to the 17th of May this year. What are you gonna be providing for our guests and our hotel residents?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:10

So, I probably didn't introduce myself properly at the start, so I'm head of ornamental, so I generally describe myself as a gardener that looks after plants and people. So, my team or our team will be putting on a variety of workshops, talks, and events that are going on. Personally, myself, myself and Henry, which I think you might have spoken to earlier. We're gonna be doing walks and talks throughout the Prabola. We'll still have apple blossom on some of the later varieties running through there, and we're gonna do our best within an hour or so talk through the gardens pretty much each day to try and impart as much knowledge and and sort of info about the art of Aspalia, why and what we do with the trees and the various pruning techniques and methods we use, and essentially passing on that knowledge that we've we've taken from Gilles and trying to explain what we're up to and what we're trying to achieve throughout the gardens.

Arthur Cole 1:04:07

Lovely, well, and the apples, the looker after of plants, people and pines.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:15

Thank you, Arthur. It's uh lovely to see you again.

Arthur Cole 1:04:30

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