MY NEIGHBORS GARDEN – By Kay Faught

Kay and Kim at Kilver Gardens

Many of you assume that “My Neighbors Garden” is about Jacksonville neighbors, and you would generally be correct, but this month I’m stretching overseas to England!  The English are our kindred gardening neighbors whom I had the privilege of visiting for ten days in the Cotswolds this May. My traveling companion was my daughter, Kim, and together we visited 13 of their gardens!

To say the gardens in England are beautiful is understating it.  From the perspective of writing this column for 3 years, it is overwhelming to try to capture the hundreds of gardens that cover the landscape of England.  If you love gardening, it is a must on your “bucket list.”

Everywhere you look, the garden is part of life, and NOT just “planting” within the confines of a yard or fence. Gardens are everywhere and the English see the art in each and every part of the landscape. Tiny flowers climb and tuck from age-old rock walls, curbs, and crevices.  Private gardens are contoured or filled with cottage flowers, but become a reflection of the individual artist.  English gardening is about the love of the garden and there is pride evident in every one you see.

Kilver Gardens

Rambling herbaceous borders or edged yews, every corner has detail.  In our own gardens, we plant… and want to enjoy it now.  English gardening is a patient art that is never done, with an ongoing vision as if the pallet given and its outcome was imagined 200 years before.   They have been crafted through time with every moment and detail of its history as valuable as the big picture…and their history is long.  A waiter made a comment to us one day, “We think 200 miles is a long way, you think 200 years is a long time!”

Many gardens are an extension of historic manors hundreds of years old, where many of these gardens began. Today, grass walkways and giant hedges, where women in long-flowing 18th century dresses once strolled acres of gardens, lead to stone pavilions and seating areas overlooking panoramas. Gardens offer rooms, sitting areas, and secluded walks.  Even kitchen gardens use espaliered fruit trees and vines as “fencing” for animal protection.  Wide grass walkways lay between the kitchen beds, making them equally dynamic parts of the garden experience.

Kiftsgate Garden

Two specific gardens were “favorites” in our memory.  “Kiftsgate Court,” sitting just outside the famous National Trust Garden of Hidcote, would have been missed had it not been for our B&B host in Broadway urging our stop.  Tucked off the drive of Hidcote, our late afternoon visit became a glorious 3 hours in their famous rose gardens.  Although our mid-May visit did not allow us the full floral bloom, the glory of this garden left an impression.  Four courts surround the stone home.  Giant, age-old roses, some 50 feet in height clung to the stone in the sun. A step down terrace to a wide walk along herbaceous borders lead us to a seat overlooking the glorious view of the Malvern hills and a huge valley of  brilliant yellow Rapeseed fields. (A recent crop).

Kiftsgate Garden

As we sat viewing the valley through a bed of tall red tulips, the sun warmed our backs and awakened us to the fact that it was all real.  Pictures do not describe the beauty.  Gardens are remembered by what you take away from them, and whether you stay and linger.  We lingered, strolled the beds, and “took tea” sitting in blue garden chairs in the fountain-centered courtyard. We noticed every piece of the garden around us.  Behind a towering yew hedge with a “hedge carved door,” we found a large open grassy “room.”  There was silence within, where a huge reflecting pond filled the space. Rising above the pool, large copper leaves rose 20 feet on brass stems at one end of the pool.  It was a stark contrast to the rest of the garden and yet it calmed the spirit, and those of us present remained quiet.

A Blue Door!

Our absolute favorite garden was “Kilver Gardens.”  Set against a backdrop of a huge stone aqueduct, rising 200 feet above the garden and pond, the historic aqueduct became a centerpiece of the pallet.  They worked from there…creating paths through brilliant azaleas and rock work of cascading streams edged with beds of perennials, ferns, and red Japanese maples. It is a strolling paradise!   The garden is kept at a low profile, allowing the aqueduct’s grey mossy stone to tower above.  Beneath its stone legs, soothing expanses of trimmed green grass. This garden beckons our return, as do the Cotswolds.

I was convinced to move “Blue Door” when I remembered how truly blessed I was to live in my own “village” in Jacksonville, with a community that loves gardening ALMOST as much as the English do.  (Although there is much to learn!)  Maybe in 300 more years!

 Kay is the owner of Blue Door Garden Store, located at 155 N Third St.  Specializing in paraphernalia for the home gardener; she carries garden gifts, decor, and a wide variety of pots, tools, gloves, and organic products.