How the other half gardensBy Hilary Apicella
As a self-confessed plantaholic and general garden geek, I’ve read and heard more tips and insights from ‘garden designers’ than I’ve had holes in my hostas. But the lecture that Julie Toll treated us to at The Lee Old Church on Friday May 14th was truly in another league.
Of course you’d expect that anyone who could manage to bag a Best in Show, seven Golds, a Silver-Gilt and a couple of Silver medals from Chelsea would know her Alliums, but it was the amount of creativity, attention to detail and sheer planting passion that she puts into each of her projects that really impressed.
Starting with a quick pictoral fly-through of her Flower Show achievements (she was the first designer to be awarded a Gold for a naturalistic garden at Chelsea – still her signature style of planting today), Julie talked us through her design process, from the initial drawings right up to the highly polished and finished article.
The amount of thought and planning that had gone into some of the gardens was unbelievable. How many people would consider building a special pump that dispenses bromine into a pond to keep the water crystal clear? Or think of installing artificial grass into a small town garden to negate the problems of low light levels? Or persuading the neighbours to let you crane mature trees from their gardens into your plot? Let alone going all the way to Norway to pick the perfect pieces of stone for an ‘Alice in Wonderland’-inspired spiral rabbit hole?
Obviously, few people have a spare £40,000 to sink into a small town garden (goodness knows how much the large ones cost to construct and plant), but Julie’s presentation contained plenty of planting gems that everyone could plunder. I never realised how impressive swathes of Persicaria could look, or that the best blue hardy Geranium to have is ‘Jolly Bee’. I now know that if I’m ever fortunate enough to have an area of land to transform into a wild flower meadow I need to introduce Yellow Rattle to weaken the grass and then incorporate a stepped edge on my mown paths for a touch of class (instead of sticking to the ubiquitous ‘only one cutter height on my mower’ variety). And anyone who visits my garden regularly will not be surprised to see Miscanthus sinensis ‘Morning Light’ and Brunnera ‘Jack Frost’ taking pride of place by next year.
Judging by the amount of awed whispers that I overheard while Julie was talking, I wasn’t the only person to thoroughly enjoy the evening. A big thank you to The Old Church Committee for putting on such a great event – if this one is anything to go by, I can’t wait for Maggie McNie’s Wine Masterclass in October!