We usually think that gardens are designed by professionals, landscape designers, gardeners or early architects and artists. Therefore, when you see the garden in Sidcott, you will be surprised to find that the ground-breaking garden is the work of an ordinary amateur, not even a real Englishman.
Lawrence Johnston was born in Paris 187 1 In Mrs. Winslow's garden with Frank Adams Lawrence waterbury Johnston. He is the son of a wealthy Boston stockbroker, so he is strictly American, but after graduating from Trinity College, Cambridge University, he was born in 1900.
Shortly after his military service, he lived with his remarried mother, Mrs Gertrude winthrop, in the house she bought on 1907 at Sidcott Manor. This is a 300-acre property located in Cotswolds near the village of Hidcoe Barram, near the overseas community of American artists in Broadway, Worcestershire. John Singer Sargent is one of the most outstanding artists. British composers and artists such as edward elgar, Vaughan Williams and J.M. Barry also joined them. The most important thing in Lawrence Johnston's life is that william morris, a great arts and crafts designer, is shy to the point of seclusion. During the Boer War, he came into contact with the unique flora of South Africa and became interested in plants, so he began to design and build gardens around Sidcott Manor in the17th century. When they occupied the manor, there was no real garden in the manor, only a big kitchen garden, lawn and bushes.
Johnston created a unique garden in Sidcott. Although this property is very large, the real garden only occupies 10 mu. Because there was no garden before, Johnston took a piece of land and started from scratch, which is an experience that many amateur gardeners can agree with. He didn't see many old hedges and landscapes in old English gardens. In fact, the openness and windy nature of his field may be his inspiration. It is not a grand manor, but a series of interconnected rooms. Many rooms have their own themes, and some rooms are as small as the smallest city garden today.
We probably never know how this will affect his design, because he is busy with gardening and doesn't want to write too much or brag about his achievements. We can only understand his thoughts through his works. He was probably inspired by gardening books at that time, and one of them was probably Gardening Arts and Crafts by Thomas H.Mawson, a landscape architect at that time. However, Johnston did not employ Mei Sen or his more famous professional partner Edwin Luther, but was influenced by Luther and the equally famous Gertrude jekyll. In particular, jekyll's Color in the Garden, published in 1908, seems to have a strong influence on the innovation and development of his monochromatic gardens.
Although he started his garden creation shortly after moving into the manor, his garden creation was interrupted by World War I because he was still in the army. He fought in Flanders and returned to his garden after the war. Never made a complete plan, Johnston may work directly in the field. Heather Muir's garden in Kieft Gate Courtyard is very close. They became friends and exchanged views on gardening. Edith Wharton also lives nearby and is a lover of Italian gardens. He may also have influenced the garden. He hired Frank Adams, the gardener's director, and they formed an excellent team. They visited the Chelsea Flower Show together, which was the style at that time. The shopkeeper and the gardener discussed how to integrate into the flower show and which plants to buy. In the 1920s, he employed 65,438+02 full-time gardeners, which was not as many as it seemed at first, because a large number of families and gardeners were typical features of many British families in this period.
He is particularly interested in rare plants and often goes to the Royal Botanical Garden in Kew Garden, Surrey. He collected the popular alpine plants at that time and planted hundreds of them in flowerpots and rock gardens. He also visited Yunnan, China with Gee Forres, a famous plant collector, and sponsored other collectors' visits.
One of the plants he collected in China, Mahonia siamensis, still grows in the second garden of Notre Dame Johnston on the hill behind Mantong. In southern France, it is normal for rich people to spend the winter, and Menton is a popular destination for the British. Johnston owned this garden from 1924 until his death from 1958. As time went on, his time in West Cote became less and less. The garden has also been restored and can be visited.
1930 published two articles about gardens in Country Life magazine. A few years later, the famous designer Russell Page made a radio program on it. This improved its reputation, and the garden began to open to the public in a limited way, or at least to invited tourists. 1948, Johnston gave Sidcott to the National Trust, which was the first garden owned by the Trust. Before that, Sidcott was only interested in houses. For several years, this garden has been managed by Graham Thomas, a landscape consultant of the National Trust Fund. He is also a famous gardener and writer. In recent years, the plantation has restored Johnston's original intention as much as possible, and Johnston's original intention is even more gorgeous. Edward also admitted that as more and more tropical plants and annuals are used for summer exhibitions,
The garden art and handicraft movement worshipped the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance. In the garden, this means simple shapes, rectangles, squares and circles. Part of Hidcoe's genius lies in its "formal" layout and simple geometric structure, but the space is full of cottage plants. A similar method can be found in many works of Gertrude jekyll. According to the tradition of arts and crafts, all the materials used in the garden are natural-all kinds of stones, such as paving stones and low walls, gravel, building wood and wrought iron for gates.
Hedges are used to build fences, not fences and walls. Johnston developed tapestry hedges and used all kinds of hedges, not one but one. Others are traditional English hedgerows, yew.
The basic layout is a cross, and the shorter axis extends from the back of the manor. It is mainly composed of a large open lawn area, the theater lawn, which is 400 feet long and surrounded by a 7-foot yew hedge. On one side of the horizontal axis is a 600-foot-long narrow lawn called a promenade, and on both sides of the lawn are deciduous horny hedges. The opposite axis is not prominent, just a narrow alley with trimmed beech trees on both sides. This is also the boundary of the area adjacent to the house containing the work area and kitchen garden and rose garden. On both sides of the promenade is a network of small gardens, each with a different theme and surrounded by different hedges.
Some hedges have been trimmed into boxwood, the most prominent of which is a pair of peacocks in the purple garden, which is a square garden, and boxwood has been trimmed into intricate knot patterns. Other themes include white gardens, stilt gardens, hedges on clean tree trunks and famous red borders. Johnston created what may be the first monochromatic garden here, which is an artistic breakthrough comparable to gainsborough's Blue Boy. Other less formal gardens follow natural streams that run through the manor, including woodlands around the garden core. This masterpiece has more than 20 different parts in terms of spatial expression and color organization.
Hidcoe had a great influence on later gardens. Perhaps the most directly related is Sissinghurs, founded by Via Sackville Wes in 1930s. The general concept of order created by lines and hedges, coupled with informal planting, became the main theme of the British, and had little influence on landscape design in North America for most of the 20th century. John brooks's Outhouse is one of the most influential garden books in the last decades of the 20th century. It was inspired by a small version of Johnston's method and popularized.
Johnston also had an influence on plants and one of his products. A selected lavender named "HidCoe" is a short British lavender, which is still widely planted.
Further Interpretation of Hideko Garden by Fred Whitsey and Tony Lord (20 1 1)
Hidcoe: Gardens and Lawrence Johnston, Graham Pearson (2009)
The construction of a garden, e Clark (2009)
A. Pafford Hidcoe Manor Garden (1993)
Hidco Manor Garden: Hidcoe Barrim, V.Sackville Wes( 1952)
There is a TV documentary "Hidcoe: Four Seasons Garden" (20 1 1). In order to further understand the privacy of Major Johnston and his garden, it mainly introduces the present gardener Glyn Jones.
The address of Practical Information Manor is Hidcoe Barrim near Ceping Campden, Gloucestershire. The garden is near Stratford-on-Avon. You can visit it.
This garden is open every day from May to the end of September. 1 1 Until the end of February, it is only open on Saturdays and Sundays. March, April and June 5438+00, open on some working days and weekends. You should consult the National Trust Fund to find out the exact number of days in these periods and the actual opening hours of each day. These times change with the seasons. Naionarus .. /hid Coe/ open imes/