After our friends had left and before my sister came to stay again we took the opportunity of a dry day to pay a visit to Borde Hill Garden, which is just north of Haywards Heath. The garden was created in the early 1900s with plants gathered by the great plant collectors from their travels to the Himalayas, China, Burma, Tasmania and the Andes, and in one of the old greenhouses there is a very interesting display of their letters from all over the world.
I'd love to post some of the letters here, but I think the typing will probably be too small to read. However, I'll quote one, written in Tibet in 1933 by Frank Kingdon-Ward, a well- known botanist and collector who collected plants for a period of 50 years in Tibet, North Western China, Burma and Assam.
He encloses a few seeds, apologising that there are so few and explaining that this is because it is not seed-collecting season, and not much is currently in flower. He goes on:
'I am faced with the usual problem of transport and food supply in a not thickly populated country; and being about half way between the last village on this side of the snow range and the first village on the other with a 15,000 ft pass ahead does not make matters easier. At present we are in the clouds and can see nothing. It is wet and cold, and not very comfortable in small Alpine tents. But we keep pretty cheerful in spite of all the drawbacks.
The murder of my mail runner rather jammed things. In future my mail will probably go to Lhasa under the care of the Tibetan Government. But it is 300 miles from Lhasa to Shinden Gompa, so don't expect frequent communications!'
I think this gives a real flavour of what life must have been like in the plant collecting world 80 years ago. I'm not sure whether the viewing of the murder of one of his staff as an inconvenience points to the intrepid nature of his character, or just reflects a horrifyingly uncaring colonial attitude towards indigenous people.
The garden is divided into a series of outdoor 'rooms', each with its own distinctive character and colour. This is the rose garden, though it's unfortunately a bit late in the year to see many roses.
This garden, like the two other gardens we have visited recently, is also full of statues for sale. I don't think the fountain was one of them though.
The statues for sale here differed from one another in style. There were some stylised human figures, a rather different stylised horse, and the most dreadful highly coloured five foot long ceramic grasshopper. I gave that a wide berth!
The flowers below are part of the Mediterranean Border, which has plenty of colour, even in August.
We crossed in front of Borde Hill House, which is privately owned. It is very old, having originally been built in 1598 and extensively altered 300 years later when it was bought by Colonel Stephenson Robert Clarke, whose family still own the property. It was this family who were patrons of some of the great plant collectors of the last century whose letters we read in the old greenhouse.
In front of the house was the strange stylised statue of a horse made from silvery tubes. I haven't posted it here because the photo isn't very good.
A tranquil path took us round towards the Long Dell.
From the far end of the garden we could see outside the garden wall and across the South Park to the lake, another beautiful and tranquil landscape.
I'm not sure if that's the normal colour of the tree on the left, or if it's already putting on its autumn colours.
We continued on to the ruins of old potting sheds. This has clearly been a garden that formerly employed a great many gardeners - apparently 27 at one point - who raised a lot of their own plants. When we were looking at the greenhouses earlier on, it was clear that most of them were no longer in use and a couple were completely derelict.
We carried on to the Italian Garden, a most beautiful space.
The garden booklet mentioned that this used to be the family tennis court, and was only converted to an Italian garden in 1982. Apparently it is now one of the most popular areas in the entire garden. Around the pool are several unusual trees and shrubs and the Italian pots are filled with agapanthus which I'm afraid put my own agapanthus to shame. From the terrace there are more wonderful panoramic views stretching across the South Park and lakes.
The strange silvery thing you might just be able to see at the far end of the garden above the steps is another of the statues. This one is of a silvery woman with her arms outstretched and head tilted back, a figure of ecstasy. Clearly, she likes the garden too!
Paul was so taken with this garden he didn't watch where he was putting his feet, and fell into a little rill which feeds the pond. It was several inches deep and he had to take off his sock and shoe to empty out and water and wring out his sock. He walked round the rest of the garden with one wet trouser leg rolled up a bit and a shoe with no sock, which can't have been comfortable and made him look vaguely like somebody participating in some weird Masonic-like ritual.
On leaving the Italian Garden, we passed some wonderful dahlias. I know I just posted a dahlia photo in Chartwell, but this one was so spectacular I couldn't resist it!
We completed our tour round the garden, walking up to the so called Garden of Allah, created in the early 1920s with rhododendrons collected by Frank Kingdon-Ward, the writer of the letter I quoted at the beginning. There are also some very large trees, as well as magnolias and camellias. This is an area which would be at its very best in the spring.
We walked on into Warren Wood, which has many fine trees and continued for some time before we realised we had no idea of the extent of the wood or the length of the walk, so we headed back, passing across the back of the house and round into the Azalea Ring which is apparently a riot of colour in May and early June from a wide range of deciduous azaleas. Clearly, we need to come back!
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