I have a soft spot for those who restore old gardens–clearing overgrowth, rediscovering features and researching original plantings and layouts. It is tough work, requiring a combination of intellect, enthusiasm and physical strength, and it can go on for years. Funding can be a special challenge. The world has so many pressing needs that it is sometimes hard to convince people that restoring a piece of horticultural art is one of them.
\nStill, determined individuals persist, creating or recreating great landscapes. One of those people was an Englishwoman, Lavinia, Marchioness of Cholmondeley, who died recently at the advanced age of 94. Beginning sixty-six years ago, at age twenty-eight, Lady Lavinia spent the rest of her life renovating and improving the landscape at her husband\u2019s family\u2019s property, Cholmondeley\u2014pronounced chum-lee\u2014Castle, a crenellated pile in the northwest English region of Cheshire.
\nThe original garden at Cholmondeley goes back to the 1600\u2019s, when it was created by a well-known nurseryman and landscape designer, George London. It was revitalized in the next century by another landscape designer, William Eames, who transformed parts of the property into a park-like state in the style of his better-known contemporary, Lancelot \u201cCapability\u201d Brown. The estate\u2019s grounds were to wait almost two hundred years before Lavinia Cholmondeley arrived to further transform them.
\nThat arrival happened in 1949, at the conclusion of World War II. The castle had been unoccupied by the Cholmondeley family for twelve years. In the intervening time, it had been requisitioned for military use\u2014like many of England\u2019s great houses–and had served as a military hospital.
\nThe soil at Cholmondeley is acid and especially suitable for rhododendrons, azaleas and laurels. When the young Lady Lavinia arrived, parts of the neglected grounds had been overrun by untamed laurel, rambunctious bamboo and especially by one particularly beautiful, but pernicious rhododendron, Rhododendron ponticum. This purple-flowered, broad leaf evergreen is native from Spain and Portugal all the way west to western Asia. Its first recorded appearance in England was in 1763. Rhododendron ponticum\u2019s beauty and hardiness made it a favorite for estate plantings in the Victorian era, which is probably how it landed at Cholmondeley. Sadly, it spreads quickly, self-seeding and rooting wherever branches touch the ground, rapidly developing into thickets. By shading out less hardy native vegetation and competing successfully for available nutrients, it wins the botanical battle much of the time. These days estate and park managers all over the British Isles make herculean efforts to eradicate Rhododendron ponticum.
\nThe same was true of Lady Lavinia. Since manpower, equipment and resources were scarce just after the war, she used all available hands\u2014including her own–to clear the property. Her obituary in the Telegraph newspaper quotes her description of her early days on the estate. \u201cWhen friends came to stay for the weekend,\u201d she said,\u201d we gave them an axe and a saw, and told them to set to,\u201d
\nWith clearance underway, Lady Lavinia started the nineteen fifties with a quintessentially English endeavor\u2014a rose garden, with hardscaping of locally quarried limestone. Though the enclosing hedging had to be replaced several years ago, the rose garden survives today. The rose garden led to many other specialty garden areas, including a \u201cSilver Garden\u201d, created in 1977 in honor of Elizabeth II\u2019s Silver Jubilee and planted with silver-leafed specimens, and abundant herbaceous borders, which were refreshed and renovated in 2008. As the garden expanded, Lady Lavinia began working with a team of gardeners. Since 2013, this team has been led by Head Gardener, Barry Grain. Mr. Grain seems to have undertaken a whole host of garden projects, including \u201ctweaking\u201d of some of the major garden areas. In the spring of 2016, Cholmondeley\u2019s \u201cTower Garden\u201d will be recreated as an exhibit at the Royal Horticultural Society\u2019s prestigious Chelsea Flower Show. Exposure at Chelsea is sure to raise the profile of this very unique landscape and, I am sure, increase the number of visitors who contribute the revenue stream that makes the gardens\u2019 continued existence possible.
\nLady Lavinia continued to work in, plan and enjoy her garden into old age. The Telegraph\u2019s obituary writer notes the following: \u201c\u2026 in her final days she enjoyed being taken in her buggy along paths and over swards to examine new growth.\u201d
\nIt sounds as if Lady Lavinia capped her garden restoration career by making plans to ensure the Cholmondeley gardens\u2019 future. Now it is up to her descendants to carry on that work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have a soft spot for those who restore old gardens–clearing overgrowth, rediscovering features and researching original plantings and layouts. It is tough work, requiring a combination of intellect, enthusiasm and physical strength, and it can go on for years. Funding can be a special challenge. The world has so many pressing needs that it … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,5],"tags":[1300,505,564,103,234,1301,1302],"class_list":["post-1771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-cholmondeley-castle","tag-english-gardens","tag-estate-gardens","tag-garden-restoration","tag-historic-gardens","tag-lavinia-cholmondeley","tag-rhododendron-ponticum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1772,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771\/revisions\/1772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}