A stroll round the garden, while you're all being so kind as to indulge my nostalgia. To start with, Broad View Road is a cul de sac. As you came down the road, our boundary started just past Romany Staithe, at the corner of the kitchen garden where there was a large holm oak at the start of a shrubbery. This oak blew down in a storm one night which was a great pity as it was a beautiful tree. After the kitchen garden there was one of the gates to the drive, which ran all along the house and garage and then curved back towards the other gate. Another shrubbery was between the drive and the road and there was five foot tall chain-link fencing. Just past the drive and before the hedge between us and the next-door house, there was the stable and the adjoining shed where feed etc was kept. I suppose these were just outbuildings originally until we had Tommy, the milkman's horse - oh good, there's another story to tell you.
As you look at the picture at the top of the page, you can see the conservatory at the side of the house on the left. Next to that is a passageway which went past a small courtyard - this wasn't used for anything much, and the outside toilet (I don't know if our gardener used it but none of us ever did) was in there. Then came the back porch and back door and then you came out on to the drive, with the gate in front of you and the garage on the left.
Past the garage and there was a large, lean-to greenhouse, the lower half made of brick. Beyond that was another building, I think it was a sort of Nissen hut, and possibly used for storing logs but it was removed eventually, and then the hedge. When you went down the path by the greenhouse you came to another brick-built greenhouse, this one being freestanding, so you took a left and a right turn (in the corner was the fig tree) and came past the small lean-to greenhouse behind the garage - in the picture it's almost hidden behind the tall plant in the left of the herbaceous border.
We had a lot of greenhouses. In the garden there was one more greenhouse - the kitchen garden was very much our gardener's domain so my father created another plot for himself so he could grow things and not get in the way. His greenhouse was aluminium and he liked to grow more unusual plants - one year he grew loofahs, for instance. I grow loofahs every few year, they're quite easy but take ages to dry out and mustn't be damaged at that time or else they rot. He also grew things like aubergines, okra, chilli peppers and so on, which you couldn't buy locally.
The conservatory had a flower bed on one side and a plumbago and a nectarine were planted in it. We were the only people I knew who ate nectarines as a consequence - peaches were easily obtained in the summer but, quite oddly, you couldn't buy nectarines in our neck of the woods in the early 1960s. There was staging on the other side with lots of pot plants on it.
In the kitchen garden were the hothouses, two long greenhouses with a boiler house adjoining. At the end was a tank for water, so that it would be room temperature and not chill the plants. The kitchen garden had a number of long beds with paths between - I expect each of them was about 10 feet wide, probably 40 feet or more long. There were 6 - 8 of these beds. There was a big greenhouse, the width of the bed on one of them and it was on a sort of track - the idea was that it could be moved each year onto fresh ground. Tomatoes were grown here and I think chrysanthemums were too.
Pots and so on were stored under the wooden staging in the brick greenhouses and plants in their pots were put on top. Cucumbers were grown into a pile of manure. I don't suppose that was put direct on the staging but I don't remember*. My parents and our gardener, Mr Weavers, were keen competitors at the local horticultural shows. They specialised in vegetables of course, and also in delphiniums and begonias. Mummy and Daddy went to Members' Day at the Chelsea Flower Show every May - in those days you needed to be elected, not just *anyone* could join and you definitely dressed up for it. The last time she and I went, she was quite upset at the sight of a man with a large stomach, dressed in shorts and sandals and nothing else. Anyway, they headed straight for the Blackmore and Langdon display to see and order the latest delphiniums and begonias. I remember one huge bloom that was grown in our greenhouse - my mother fetched a 10" dinner plate and held it in front of the flower. It showed all round. The trick to get a delphinium stalk to open on the right day all along its length is to spend the night with two buckets of water, one hot and one cold. Dip the stalk in one, then the other and it brings on the topmost flowers before the lower ones droop.
Showing vegetables and flowers is not only a matter of having perfect specimens, they all must match too. You might have to dig up a whole row of potatoes to find six that are the right size, a nice shape and are all virtually identical. When the Norfolk or Suffolk or even the local show were coming up, the best produce was kept for that and we got the also-rans into the kitchen. My sister and I were allowed to help ourselves to as many undersized tomatoes as we wanted though, and they always taste best straight from the vine. Once, Mr Weavers came and spoke to my mother - "is Zoë helping herself to raspberries?" Mummy assured him that I was not. She didn't even ask me first, she knew I wouldn't do that without permission. A watch was kept and it turned out to be Huckleberry, jumping over the fence into the kitchen garden and delicately helping himself, taking each raspberry between his lips and pulling it off the cane.
We used several sorts of manure, pig, cow, sheep and horse. I can't now remember which was best for which purpose, but Mr Weavers knew his muck. I do know about the sheep droppings - sheep being kept outdoors, their droppings had to be collected individually. They were put into water and the resultant dark brown liquid was diluted and used as liquid feed.
*Yes I do, the manure was put on a square of wire netting - I'm still not sure about the staging though.
As you look at the picture at the top of the page, you can see the conservatory at the side of the house on the left. Next to that is a passageway which went past a small courtyard - this wasn't used for anything much, and the outside toilet (I don't know if our gardener used it but none of us ever did) was in there. Then came the back porch and back door and then you came out on to the drive, with the gate in front of you and the garage on the left.
Past the garage and there was a large, lean-to greenhouse, the lower half made of brick. Beyond that was another building, I think it was a sort of Nissen hut, and possibly used for storing logs but it was removed eventually, and then the hedge. When you went down the path by the greenhouse you came to another brick-built greenhouse, this one being freestanding, so you took a left and a right turn (in the corner was the fig tree) and came past the small lean-to greenhouse behind the garage - in the picture it's almost hidden behind the tall plant in the left of the herbaceous border.
We had a lot of greenhouses. In the garden there was one more greenhouse - the kitchen garden was very much our gardener's domain so my father created another plot for himself so he could grow things and not get in the way. His greenhouse was aluminium and he liked to grow more unusual plants - one year he grew loofahs, for instance. I grow loofahs every few year, they're quite easy but take ages to dry out and mustn't be damaged at that time or else they rot. He also grew things like aubergines, okra, chilli peppers and so on, which you couldn't buy locally.
The conservatory had a flower bed on one side and a plumbago and a nectarine were planted in it. We were the only people I knew who ate nectarines as a consequence - peaches were easily obtained in the summer but, quite oddly, you couldn't buy nectarines in our neck of the woods in the early 1960s. There was staging on the other side with lots of pot plants on it.
In the kitchen garden were the hothouses, two long greenhouses with a boiler house adjoining. At the end was a tank for water, so that it would be room temperature and not chill the plants. The kitchen garden had a number of long beds with paths between - I expect each of them was about 10 feet wide, probably 40 feet or more long. There were 6 - 8 of these beds. There was a big greenhouse, the width of the bed on one of them and it was on a sort of track - the idea was that it could be moved each year onto fresh ground. Tomatoes were grown here and I think chrysanthemums were too.
Pots and so on were stored under the wooden staging in the brick greenhouses and plants in their pots were put on top. Cucumbers were grown into a pile of manure. I don't suppose that was put direct on the staging but I don't remember*. My parents and our gardener, Mr Weavers, were keen competitors at the local horticultural shows. They specialised in vegetables of course, and also in delphiniums and begonias. Mummy and Daddy went to Members' Day at the Chelsea Flower Show every May - in those days you needed to be elected, not just *anyone* could join and you definitely dressed up for it. The last time she and I went, she was quite upset at the sight of a man with a large stomach, dressed in shorts and sandals and nothing else. Anyway, they headed straight for the Blackmore and Langdon display to see and order the latest delphiniums and begonias. I remember one huge bloom that was grown in our greenhouse - my mother fetched a 10" dinner plate and held it in front of the flower. It showed all round. The trick to get a delphinium stalk to open on the right day all along its length is to spend the night with two buckets of water, one hot and one cold. Dip the stalk in one, then the other and it brings on the topmost flowers before the lower ones droop.
Showing vegetables and flowers is not only a matter of having perfect specimens, they all must match too. You might have to dig up a whole row of potatoes to find six that are the right size, a nice shape and are all virtually identical. When the Norfolk or Suffolk or even the local show were coming up, the best produce was kept for that and we got the also-rans into the kitchen. My sister and I were allowed to help ourselves to as many undersized tomatoes as we wanted though, and they always taste best straight from the vine. Once, Mr Weavers came and spoke to my mother - "is Zoë helping herself to raspberries?" Mummy assured him that I was not. She didn't even ask me first, she knew I wouldn't do that without permission. A watch was kept and it turned out to be Huckleberry, jumping over the fence into the kitchen garden and delicately helping himself, taking each raspberry between his lips and pulling it off the cane.
We used several sorts of manure, pig, cow, sheep and horse. I can't now remember which was best for which purpose, but Mr Weavers knew his muck. I do know about the sheep droppings - sheep being kept outdoors, their droppings had to be collected individually. They were put into water and the resultant dark brown liquid was diluted and used as liquid feed.
*Yes I do, the manure was put on a square of wire netting - I'm still not sure about the staging though.
6 comments:
Wow! So many garden/plant spaces, no wonder a gardener was needed.
Well, it was quite a modest establishment of its type before WW1, but things changed after that, they changed again after WW2 and again in the 1960s. And now - well, frankly, they've ruined a lovely property, but made several very expensive ones instead.
We used to pass a greenhouse on our way to the cottage with the most lovely plumbago. There is something about blue flowers. I managed to keep one alive for a while but the dark blue outdoor one thrives in our garden.
I always associate nectarines with our old Victorian house in Tunbridge Wells.
These days I smell tomatoes, vainly trying to recapture the smell of Mr Tricket's tomatoes who lived next door in Lancashire. He lost a leg in WW1 and his greenhouse was his passion.
I love plumbagos. I grew one from seed once, but it died during a hard winter, although it was in the greenhouse.
I had the most delicious tomatoes a few weeks ago at Weeza's house. They were cherry tomatoes - dismayingly, they came from Tesco's. I usually grow old-fashioned varieties from seed, some of them taste wonderful.
What a wonderful garden. It's a shame that people don't do more with their gardens these day - me included.
I never knew you could grow loofahs!
Yes, loofahs are just like cucumbers to grow and the same family.
It all takes too much time, gardening. I don't have it and I'm too lazy.
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