Explore More UK - Spring 2021

GARDENING
This page: A lush
courtyard area
caught in bright
spring sunshine;
award-winning
designer Paul
Hervey-Brookes
SPRING celebration
Award-winning garden designer, Paul Hervey-Brookes, marks
the new season with historical musings and gardening tips
At this time
of year, each
day seems
to lengthen,
and noticeably so, until
by the end of April,
it seems that spring
has finally sprung, in
all its decadence and
blossom-laden wonder.
The first day of
April, known to many
as ‘April Fools’ Day’,
is the day when the morning can
be spent playing tricks on friends
and family – all light-hearted fun.
Ask almost anyone and they will
find its origins quite obscure, but
they are in fact French. In the
16th century, New Year’s Day was
marked on April 1st and celebrated
with parties, dances and garlands
of blossom and spring flowers.
However, in 1582, Pope Gregory
introduced a revised Christian
calendar which moved New Year’s
Day to January 1st. Of course in
a world without telephones and
computers, news was slow to travel
and New Year’s Day continued
to be celebrated for some time in
April. People who accepted the
new date gradually began playing
tricks on those they called April
fools which was the foundation of
a new tradition that travelled with
European settlers around the world.
The saddest part of this story
for a gardener is the lack of flowers
available for January’s celebrations.
But we can still celebrate the end
of April with another ancient
celebration, Walpurgis Night,
marking the eve of the Christian
feast day of Saint Walpurga.
Thought to be of Scandinavian
origin, Walpurga was born in
Britian in the early 8th century, and
later in life travelled to Germany
where she founded the Catholic
Convent at Heidenheim. She died
in 779 and was made a saint on 1st
May later the same year. By Papal
chance, her saint’s day falls on the
same date as ancient Viking fertility
celebrations and allowed the pagan
ritual and the Catholic celebration
to intertwine, hence the night-time
parades to ward off evil that follow
a day of bell tolling and prayers.
Again flowers were an
integral part of this festival,
used in headdress garlands and
as adornments throughout
the dwellings. April has an
abundance of blooms – from
bluebells, blossom and even wild
orchids – ensuring that these
festivals, complete with incense
and reverence, must have been
a sight to behold. Our own
celebrations in the garden start
PHOTOS: © ISTOCK; ALAMY
with the joy of bulbs we planted
last autumn appearing alongside
spring flowering perennials such
as Pulmonarias, Brunnera and
emerging Aquilegia.
April is the first month of the
year where the ground is warm
to the touch, and seeds sown
directly will germinate within days.
No wonder our ancestors of old
saw this as a fertile month and
celebrated it.
I like to direct sow Nigella
seed in April or, if I forget and
am slightly late, in early May. It is
perhaps one of the most dazzling
of the easy annuals you could
choose. I love the soft blues of the
ordinary Nigella damascena, known
commonly to many as ‘Love in the
Mist’, but the ‘Bridal Veil’ variety
has large faded white petals and
highly pronounced black anthers,
so it really does look like a bridal
gown of old.
Nigella damascena comes from
Syria, and was brought to Europe
in the 1500s, most likely by the
Crusaders. Its seeds can be collected
and are often used in cookery and
its soft, fragile-looking flowers dry
well and can be kept for up to five
years before fading completely.
The other must-have easy annual
I grow is the humble marigold,
Calendula officinalis. Again this
can be sown directly in-between
perennials in the open border, in
containers and in cutting beds
during April, May and June.
Calendula, often known as ‘English
Marigold’ comes in many colours,
from brilliant yellow and burnt
orange to the softer pastel shades
and the beautifully bi-coloured
‘Neon’, whose petals are darker on
the reverse, giving a subtle colour
even though the name suggests
something much brighter. Calendula
is an ancient potherb, meaning its
flowers have been used to garnish
salads and other dishes since ancient
Greek times.
In India and the Middle East,
where the flowers were used as a
substitute for saffron, a chance
discovery was made. The poor,
hard-working woman whose hands
should have been calloused and
worn from work instead had soft,
gentle hands, the envy of their
rich masters. The reason seemed
to be cultivating and harvesting
the flowers and stems of Calendula
for food and as a dye plant. This
discovery lead to an explosion in
demand for Calendula which began
in the Middle Ages, when plants
that had been exported to Europe
were closely guarded by the monks
in their monastery gardens. Today,
the plant is just as popular and used
in many skincare products.
One of the other great delights of
the season is rhubarb, forced sweet
pink stems are utterly delicious and
unique. Their sister stems later in the
year need heavy baking and sugars
to render them edible. Rhubarb also
THE ESSENTIALS
With so much to celebrate in the garden, it is
easy to overlook the more humble of gardening
happenings. Keep on top of the weeds now and
spend time rooting out annual weed seedlings
as they germinate to reduce work later on. If
you grow fruits such as currants and raspberries,
reduce your weeding and watering work by
adding a thick mulch now. Wood chips and even
lawn cuttings will work well and you will be
thankful for one less job as the weather starts to
get hotter.
As soon as the frosts have passed in your area
you can plant out dahlias into the borders. These
queens of the later summer garden are loved by
slugs, so mulch thickly and set the odd bear trap
to ensure you enjoy the plants and flowers and
the slugs do not.
had an interesting history, for this
strange, prehistoric looking plant
once cost, gram for gram, more
than gold.
Rhubarb had been an important
and valuable medicinal plant since
2700BC in China, but during the
later years of the Sung Dynasty, one
Emperor believed that a daily dose
kept his Empress thin, beautiful
and youthful of complexion. The
Empress was indeed beautiful
and as the secrets of her beauty
escaped the palace so the demand
for rhubarb rose, along the Silk
Route the news travelled, and in
Russia the craze was so intense that
at one stage it was punishable by
death to take rhubarb out of Russia.
Smuggling the wonder food was
profitable business, ensuring that
in Europe it cost more than gold
for a time.
The bubble eventually burst and
rhubarb was relegated for some
time to depressed English steamed
puddings and school dinners, but
its health properties have been
proven of recent times and with its
superfood status restored, demand
is again increasing. The sweetest
variety to grow is of course a secret
but I’ll let you in on it, the species
form Rheum tanguticum produces
both delicious slim sweet stems, has
attractive cut foliage and its flowers
which come in mid to late summer
are followed by ruby red seed
capsules – worth looking out for.
Above: A Nigella
damascena
‘Persian Jewels’
seedhead
Below: The
superfood rhubarb
once cost more
gram for gram
than gold
30 VIKING.COM | SPRING 2021
SPRING 2021 | VIKING.COM 31