Rafflesia arnoldii
(c) ccgfh, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
I hope you didn’t hear Radio 4 last Monday morning at 9. If you did you can stop reading now…or maybe you were as absorbed as I was and want to find out even more about Rafflesia. “Start The Week”| is not a programme I usually listen to but this week it was all about plants, and had the inspirational botanist Chris Thorogood from Oxford Botanic Garden talking about his latest trip to south east Asia to help conserve this extraordinary plant which has the largest flowers in the world.
As soon as the programme had finished I started this post and if you read on you’ll see why, even though its unlikely you’ll ever be able to grow one at home, or even see one in one of our great botanic gardens any time soon.
Benington Lordship wears its long history with a welcoming smile. Lived in by the same family for well over a hundred years it has actually been inhabited since Saxon times. It still boasts the remains of a mediaeval castle as well large chunks of a mock one, a Queen Anne house with Edwardian extensions, extensive rural views, beautiful wildlife friendly gardens and what it’s particularly famous for, vast carpets of snowdrops.
I’ve discovered I’m a snob. Not so much about people but about plants. I suppose I’d always known that I had that tendency but my trip last week to the Orchid Festival at Kew bought it home in no uncertain terms.
The Gardens Trust is working towards publishing a book on Unforgettable Gardens and together with a few colleagues I’ve recently spent ages trying to decide which ones to include and why. Our debates reminded me of a similar dilemma which must have been faced by Vita Sackville-West when she was writing English Country Houses in the middle of the Second World War. Published in 1941 it had the aim of boosting national pride and morale and reads a little like a love letter to the stately, and even more, the not-so-stately homes of England.
The Garden History Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.