West Penwith

West Cornwall has an incredible landscape, rich in natural beauty, ancient monuments and industrial heritage. Here are some photos I took on a recent trip.

Luminescent moss in Cairn Euny.

Found (Land)Art

Sometimes nature provides its own art work!


Leaving dead wood in the forest not only provides an important habitat for countless beasties, but it can quite beautiful in its own right.

It is now considered bad woodland management to remove too much decaying matter with up to a third of forest species depending on old or dead trees. See http://assets.panda.org/downloads/deadwoodwithnotes.pdf. Europe has suffered a huge decline in deadwood with over management, but things are beginning to change as we understand more about its importance in bringing life to the forests. We can all help these species on a small scale by leaving a pile of logs in a corner of the garden and letting it all go a bit wild. Low maintenance gardening at its best!

Planting New Ways

I've been keeping an interested eye over the past year on a unique (for the moment) planting scheme behind the new glass house at the RHS Garden at Wisley. Different, because there is no planting plan to speak of, interested because 'What? No planting plan? I'm going to go out of business!' There is actually no plan in terms of 'this plant here, that plant there'. Instead the planning is the choice of seed mix. (Yes, seeds, remember them?) James Hitchmough of Sheffield University has been busy for many years developing reliable mixes of perennial plants that can be grown as an annual meadow. The results are nothing less than spectacular. All the plants were apparently transported to the site in Prof. Hitchmough's pocket. With some basic ground preparation and little to no maintenance, a remarkable planting scheme has taken shape. By creating layers of plants, i.e. mostly ground cover, with some medium high 'pretties' and a few taller species with bare stems, a fully structured scheme, without the taller varieties shading the lower ones, is created. From spring into late summer a constantly changing array of beautiful and natural looking (but mostly N American prairie) plants come into flower, so that the area is constantly changing, evolving through the seasons. Even in Autumn you have the structure of the dying stems. Possibly the closest thing to 'all year round interest', an over used (and nearly always impossible) phrase I run into over and over again. I predict, and hope, that this sort of scheme will begin to infiltrate our public spaces and push out the hideous, high maintenance, expensive displays of routine bedding plants that blight roundabouts and parks country wide (this might be a personal view, but luckily for me, I'm right). If we could bring back perennials to these places, local authorities would not only save money but much larger areas could be planted, rather that a few square meters of neon primroses. Sorry to swear, but primroses... Why?
(To be fair to annuals, Prof. Hitchmough's colleague at Sheffield, Dr. Nigel Dunnett, has been doing similar research into annual seed mixes which look just as spectacular).

No. 1 - The Birch... ....The Birch

What is it about Birches? Why do I keep specifying them in my designs and photographing them in 'the wild' at parks and gardens? Whether it's the sheer brilliant white of the Himalayan Birch, (Betula utilis, especially variant Jaquemontii) outside the Tate Modern or a forest of native Betula pendula in the Surrey downs, they look stunning and yet completely natural in so many different settings. The Maclaren racing headquarters outside Woking has the most amazing forest of Jaquemontiis set out in a rigid grid pattern by their main entrance. It is so eye catching I have nearly crashed my car on a number of occasions while passing, bewitched by the strobing white lines of the trunks.I am often drawn, when in a melancholy mood, to Chobham Common to walk in this slightly 'other worldly' landscape of rare Surrey lowland heath. Here native Birches can be seen at their pioneering best (or worst depending on your outlook). The heathland is under constant threat from gorse, pine and Betula pendula. This fast growing, pioneering nature of the Birch means they are relatively short-lived as a species and so are not what I would describe as 'legacy trees'. In fact, you could easily plant a birch and watch it mature and die in your own lifetime. When specifing trees I like to think that once planted they are going to be there for some time, long after the owners and myself are no longer around to appreciate them. Obviously I have no power over what people or the environment may decide for a particular specimen in years to come, but with short lived trees we have no choice in the matter. Still, I like birches too much to let this become an issue. Besides, a 40 year life span for a feature in a garden should be considered most generous. It seems not many people are interested in thinking ten years down the line, let alone 50 or a 100. This is perhaps understandable in a mobile society where we don't generally hand properties down through the generations like a 'Capabilty Brown' estate. In public spaces however, we should most definitely be thinking long term and planting majestic trees for future generations. Unfortunately many local authorities are too scared of roots disrupting pavements and foundations so all too often they choose to plant shorter lived, relatively small trees. Where will the majestic London plane and chestnut trees in our towns and cities be in the future? Private gardens mostly. We should plant great trees for the future in our gardens as much as we plant beautiful groves of birches, remembering that these are but fleeting ghosts that take advantage of open space till the giants take over.
I still haven't fathomed what it is about birches. Probably something to do with the whiteness, but I don't want to go all Herman Melville on the subject so I'll leave it there, for now...

Wistman's Wood, Dartmoor

The name 'Wistman' derives from the local word wisht which has supernatural connotations, as in eerie or wraithlike.
It is true that there are few trees on the high moors save for some hardy specimens that have managed to take hold in sheltered spots. However, in three special places there are some of the most beautifully surreal woodlands I have ever seen.The sparsity of woodland on the moor is mostly due to human activity thousands of years ago, clearing the trees for agriculture. By burning the trees these early settlers unwittingly created the acid peat bogs we see today. This in turn made the moor unsuitable for crops and the area was depopulated until mining brought people back to moor centuries later. However in three small areas the trees survive, protected from grazing and wind by clefts in the land. Wistman's Wood is perhaps the most famous of these, which I first came across in Archie Miles' excellent book 'Silva' a few years ago.
I was led to believe the wood was a hidden copse on the river Dart, which few people would scramble over moorland to see, so I was surprised to find it clearly sign-posted from a handy car park a short walk down a well trodden footpath. My disappointment was short lived once I found my way into the wood.
In passing Wistman's Wood you could be forgiven for taking little notice of the unprepossessing nature and stature of the trees. Delving into the copse and you see that the roots of the trees writhe and intertwine over granite boulders ('clitter') while being thickly covered with the rarest of lichens, mosses and liverworts. The stunted, contorted trunks lead to bowers that drip with ferns. Certainly you get a feeling of immense age amongst these small Pendunulate Oaks (Quercus robur) and arborists estimate some specimens to be at least a thousand years old.
I thought perhaps that the very rarity of Wistman's Wood was in itself what made it special and a magnet for visitors, a shelter amongst the bleakness, but I realised that this is just one aspect of the wood. It is as if the spirit of vast tracts of woodland over Dartmoor have been distilled into a tiny, singular place; the very essence of what moorland is not, a contrast, though very much a part of the whole landscape. Through this device a designer can find inspiration, crystallising an idea into its very antithesis and yet make it fit seamlessly into the completed design.

Dartmoor Landscape

Topogreen, as in topography and green ('like the colour'). So what better way to start this blog than with Dartmoor, which has some serious topography and plenty of green (but few trees - more on this later).
On announcing my intentions to take a weekend break in Dartmoor recently I expected the usual, "Dartmoor, how lovely", comments that usually accompany any mention of any trip to anywhere no matter the relative loveliness, or not, of said destination. Not so this time, "Dartmoor! in February? Good luck!". "No, no", I say, "we always have good weather for holidays. It will be fine". Maybe they had a point I thought, trees don't grow on Dartmoor for a reason (more on this later). But it was not these weather related and possibly sound fears that shook my confidence in a late winter trip to the highest moor in southern England. No, it was a quiet comment along the lines of, "Dartmoor! I've never really seen the attraction of it. People say it's beautiful, but I just don't see it." Well this took me aback and got me thinking about bigger questions on what it is that people 'see' in a landscape. As a landscape designer I often fear that too many people do not not really 'see' their surroundings at all, especially in urban areas. In Dartmoor you cannot help, but 'see' the landscape. Grand new vistas leap up at you around each bend and over every hill, each one as arresting as the last. Great granite tors tearing through the earth atop their smooth boggy hills. Ancient settlements and stone circles litter the area while the man made leats still carry clear water across the moor, often appearing to defy gravity.
Personally I can not help but fall for this spectral place, despite the lack of trees (more on this later). I have heard that in times past Ladies would close their carriage's curtains to hide the craggy hideousness of mountains and hills when travel forced them through such places. Such ideas seem completely foreign to us now since romantic poets and travellers have given us a new way to see the natural world. But do such ideas still exist in ways we shall not understand for generations? Will our poorest cityscape's or nuclear power plants seem more beautiful to our great grandchildren than they do to us? Beauty is in the EOTB of course, but the finding of beauty (or not?) in a landscape reveals much more of the beholder, than might be imagined. Dartmoor is not a safe or comfortable landscape to look at. It can be cold and bleak, and looks it too. This could be unsettling for some people, just as forests, and therefore trees, may signify darkness and beasts to others. Understanding the emotional reaction that people have to their surrounding is key to designing the right space for them. Asking a client where they feel most comfortable may be a better question than 'what colour flowers do you like' or 'what's your favourite tree?' Get the psychology right and the garden will follow.
More on trees (or lack of) next week.