Design and construction

Ponds and lakes

What makes a pond a lake? I think it has to do with boats. If you can put a boat on the water then it has to be a lake, doesn’t it?

I always wanted to design a pond with a summer house, a pontoon and a punt like one at Oxford, with cushions to lie back on. Last year, we started to dig out one like this up near Horsham. At first, it was to be constructed with a butyl liner. This was going to come in one piece from Sweden. It would have weighed a ton and cost thousands of pounds. After we dug out the pond, it rained. And rained. And rained.

The pond filled up with water, the water held and it’s still there now – a year later. Nature is wonderful. We have now made the decision that the pond will hold water and have started to plant it up. I had a meeting with the aquatic company this week and I enjoyed seeing the guys in dry suits wade into the middle of the pond to check all the depths. We will need thousands of plants to fill up all the marginal edge and bog area, and then water lilies for the pond itself so it’s a very exciting project. I expect we’ll all be getting very wet at some stage! At least we don’t need to worry about watering them all in.

There are so many plants to choose from, but I love Gunnera manicata (the giant spiky rhubarb plant, with leaves like massive umbrellas), and this will grow in the damp edges. There will be wild yellow iris and marsh marigolds – plus Rheum palmatum and Rodgersia – both large leaved plants with plumes of flowers in cream or pink.

The fish will come next and we will choose golden rudd as they will breed easily and they’re not so prone to attack by herons. If the pond is to be fished, you can add chubb and tench – but tench live at the bottom, where they feed, so they’re no good if you want to see them. Golden orfe are also lovely fish, but they’re brightly coloured so more prone to herons. Also, they’re slower to breed than the rudd. Carp are great for fishing, but they cloud all the water and don’t let it settle down – especially with a clay pond.

Finally, I need to find the right boat. Can you imagine, just lying back in a boat on cushions, a book in your hand and looking up at the clear blue sky above your head as you gently float around your own lake…


Plants

Plants names

This is a Crinodendron hookerianum. It’s a great shrub for acid soils and grows best in a sheltered part of the world – like Cornwall, or near the sea in Sussex. The red flowers hang down all over the plant and a large mature specimen is a splendid sight. It’s evergreen too, so is useful in the garden. Plants are often named after the person that ‘found’ them or bred them. Back in the Victorian era, there were lots of plant expeditions, sponsored by some of the big seed companies of the time, like Veitch and Bees Seeds. Intrepid plant hunters went off to China, Tibet and the Himalayas, among other places, and collected the plants they found growing in the wild there.

They brought the plants back by ship, often in terrariums – like little glass conservatories – and propagated them back home. The Crinodendron was found by Joseph Hooker – hence the name hookerianum. You will find plants with other names: wilsonii, henryii, davidii, clarkii, campbellii – all these names show that years and years ago, someone was brave enough to climb down the Yangtze Gorges in China and dig up a primula and bring it back for us to grow, a hundred years later, in our bit of garden. That ordinary clematis that you grow in your garden, and take completely for granted, was one day a plant that came across the seas in 1892 with just a number tied around it’s stem. Amazingly, the original plant is still growing today in Worthing – and I know where it is!


Things to do

Go on – buy yourself a plant

There are plant fairs, plant sales and pots outside post offices, people’s houses and at car boot sales all over England at this time of year. Every time we go to Devon or Cornwall, we come back with the car full of treasures. When I plant clients’ gardens I am great at putting in blocks of plants in tens, twenties, even thirty at a time, but at home I am a collector. If it says ‘rare, difficult to grow, takes twenty years to flower’ then that’s the plant for me. This is a great time for the impulse buy. I have plants that I know do really well in the conditions that I can give them. Plants for shade, sun, dryness, damp – they all need to be suited to their place or they’ll die. But as well as the big clumps of everyday plants, I leave a space for the treasures too. Sometimes an everyday plant has to come out, to make space for a treasure! The great joy of gardening, is finding a plant that you really love and coming home, looking it up in a book and finding the perfect place for it. It’s the same as collecting vinyl, first editions, toy cars or radios – generally quite sad to the rest of the world, but great when you find something special. Time for my medication. Have a good week, and buy yourself a plant.