Take a close look at these images. What are they? How, when and why were they drawn? Who thought of drawing them in the first place?
Read on to find out the answers to all those questions and, of course, find out why are they important enough to feature on the blog?
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.
Sadly this year the rain had battered most of them before I got there, but even so it was well worth visiting to see the other spring flowers and the changes that have taken place since my last visit pre-pandemic.
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.
This was the 28th annual festival and this year it drew its inspiration from the unique flora and fauna of Madagascar, the world’s fourth largest island and home to Kew’s third research site. It was, their website promised, “an extravaganza of themed floral displays and living installations, created by Kew’s team of horticulturists to transform the Princess of Wales Conservatory into a colourful celebration which never fails to brighten up the winter months.”
That’s one way of putting it. Read on to find out why I was glad to get outside again, even though it was raining.
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.
Read on to see which houses and gardens she eventually included – or omitted – and why.
Newstead Abbey, by Varley, 1825
The Garden History Blog 
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