'The case for gardening with plants of historic interest, persuasively argued, as in David Stuart's Gardening with Antique Plants, necessarily encompasses a broad history of trends in domestic cultivation. Such historical background establishes the pedigree of plants the author recommends, the stages by which forms or types of garden evolved and the relationship between the two. Gardening with Antique Plants is written in a style that is informedly anecdotal - we learn, for example, that the double yellow wallflower Cheiranthus 'Harpur Crewe', named after the Victorian clergyman who 'discovered' it was probably known as early as 1580 - but the chief point is a serious one: antique plants have 'a character modern varieties cannot equal', and are often hardier than their modern descendants. Extensive plant lists include satisfyingly full individual entries and suppliers' details.'
I ARRIVED in the village
of @@@@, near Berwick-upon-Tweed on the Scottish border, with the
sweet whiff of revenge in my nostrils. Some years ago, David Stuart
wrote a nasty review of one of my books in the Scotsman. Now I heard
he had a book out himself.
I knocked on the door of his
cottage on the village green and waited for its nitpicking occupant
to answer. Disconcertingly, it was flung open by a plump, bearded
man, radiating smiles and bonhomie. "Now, have you eaten? Can I
cook you some lunch?" he asked. We were getting off to a bad
start.
'Gardening with Antique Plants' is the title of
his latest book, so I kicked off by asking: "What on earth is an
antique plant?" "Anything that has been around for more
than 100 years." And what is the point of knowing a plant is
"antique"? So that we can all make "antique"
gardens? "If you want," he said. "But really I am more
interested in simply alerting people to the fact that plants have a
history, that they have a resonance - and, if you are aware of it,
your gardening is all the richer."
He gestured to a 3ft
stand of Japanese anemones 'Honorine Jobert', with pure white saucers
of flower (and which no gardener wanting trouble-free, late-season
interest should overlook), growing in a shady corner of his garden.
"Now, isn't it fun to know that this, or rather its almost
identical wild form, was first collected by the plant-hunter Robert
Fortune - a Berwickshire man - in 1844, from tombs built on the
ramparts of Shanghai, and that he got it back to Britain only after
escaping from pirates on the South China Sea?" asked Stuart.
"And these tiger lilies." Tongues of flame-orange Turk's
cap flowers from Lilium tigrinum were leaping into the air
from a large pot. A stunning end-of-summer feature, I noted, and
particularly good against a grey wall. "Did you know they are an
ancient oriental food? The big yellow bulbs are steamed, as are those
of the white Madonna lily, Lilium candidum." Had he tried
any? Stuart chuckled. "No, I don't care for mucilaginous food,
do you?" He reminded me that, in fact, many of our favourite
bulbs, and other garden plants with fleshy under ground parts, had
originally a been introduced as foodstuffs. When wild tulips first
arrived from Turkey in 1562, the burghers of Antwerp set about eating
them. They found the taste disgusting. It was only after they had
chucked the surplus bulbs out side on a midden, where they
subsequently flowered, that they realised what they had got. The
winter-flowering hardy cyclamen C. coum was first cultivated -
probably in Roman times - as a medicinal food for pigs. Dahlias were
eaten by the Aztecs and first introduced into Europe as a
vegetable.
It was hopeless. I liked Stuart's theme and I liked
the man. He told me his interest in plants went way back. In fact, he
has a doctorate in botany. "For a while I was a world authority
on grape hyacinths (muscari), would you believe?" Does he
have a big collection? " I can't bear to look at them any more."
Understandable.
Until four years ago, he rana nursery in
Belhaven, East Lothian, with James Sutherland. "We made this
marvellous parterre in a 17th-century walled garden and the idea was
to finance everything from plant sales. But we were just too remote.
I was shattered having to sell up and couldn't think of gardening
again for ages. We're only just starting again. "
His
fascination with garden history was fuelled first by the period
atmosphere of his Georgian house in Edinburgh and then of the garden
at Belhaven. The nursery specialised in plants grown in Scotland
before 1700. "I was rather purist then - I'm not any more -
about people sticking to the right historic plants to match their
house and setting." He wrote two books, Georgian Gardens
and The Garden Triumphant: A Victorian Legacy, the second of
which I have often recommended, through clenched teeth, as an
especially entertaining read and well worth hunting down in the
library.
As for Gardening with Antique Plants, well, it
is more or less a distillation of another of his earlier books,
Plants from the Past, and, as is the way with modern gardening books,
the emphasis here turns more on glamorous photos than meaty text.
Nevertheless, enough of Stuart's message shines through to kindle new
chains of thought back home. We all enjoy plants with personal
associations - the rose from Aunt Agatha, the bamboo stolen from
Chester Zoo (since given me my comeuppance by becoming the most
invasive and ineradicable pest in the garden), the geranium smuggled
back in the wash bag. Stuart points out the deeper vein of history
and anecdote. Did you know, for instance that spinach was once used
for fireworks? Paper soaked in its juice acts as touch paper. That
the juices of purple monkshood (aconitum) were used to poison the
tips of arrows? That strawberries used to be worn as decoration on
ladies' bodices? That the Christmas rose (Helleborus niger) was used
as a cure for madness and melancholy, as well as arrow poison? That
Chinese gardeners were selecting good forms of tree peony as far back
as 700 AD? What a mine of little snippets I am going to be.
'Gardening with
Antique Plants' (published by Conran Octopus) by David Stuart is
available from Telegraph Books Direct for £25 plus £3 50
p&p. To order your copy, send a cheque for £28 50 to
Telegraph Books Direct 24 Seward Street, London ECI V 3GB, or call
0541 557222. Please quote reference PA053.
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