I was at my desk when I received a message from someone I haven’t heard from in years. We’d dated for a while at secondary school, or as it’s known in the US ‘high school’. It was nice to hear from her; she’s very happy, with a loving husband, two kids and a fabulously successful career.
Short-lived teenage romances seem rather insignificant compared to the relationships, and heartbreak, we experience as adults, but at the time they were so important to us. There’s a temptation to clasp on to the things that bring us joy and comfort; it’s logical to try and get through life holding on to the things and people that make us feel good, including places that keep memories alive.
I hadn’t visited Pine Lodge Gardens, now known as Pinetum Park, in Cornwall for around 15 years. It was one of the first Cornish gardens I got to know well.
Planting near the entrance
Pine Lodge was created and owned by Ray and Shirley Clemo. The Clemos had decided to use their retirement to create a garden filled with botanical delights, all thoughtfully laid out in a beautiful garden. As a young man looking to forge a career in horticulture in this part of Britain, it was very useful for me to see such a wide range of plants growing in one place. There was also a small nursery that propagated things from the garden for sale, so I had the opportunity to take home plants to grow in my own garden.
Old age and new changes
Time marches ever onwards and nobody gets any younger. Keeping up the garden was taking its toll on the Clemos; it was time for them to move on.
Property is quite expensive in this part of the UK. The mild(ish) climate and rugged landscape of Cornwall makes it a desirable place to live. Did you get the BBC series ‘Poldark’ in the US? If you did then you’ll have got a feel for the rugged beauty of the Cornish countryside.
What had been called the ‘Slave Garden’ has changed (and moved with the times)
Ray and Shirley sold the whole site, the house, garden and some fields, to the only person who was interested. The new owner assured them that their garden would live on.
It wasn’t long before that plan changed; permission was sought to build houses on the garden. There was a local backlash and permission was denied for the garden to be demolished. The new owner was forced to keep the garden going.
First trip back
Earlier this year I went back to Pinetum Park (as it’s now called), wondering if I might see the ‘Pine Lodge’ of my memories.
It’s not unfair to say that the garden is now a shell of its former self. They talk about the ‘rose-tinted spectacles’ that colour our memories to make them seem better than they really were; I’ve been consciously trying to clarify how things really were in my memories. This process isn’t helped by the fact that I lost all of my pictures of the garden taken in those early days (due to a computer disaster).
Inevitably there have been changes. The nursery greenhouse still stands, just about, but is now filled with junk where once it housed so many exciting exotic and scarce plants for sale. You can still buy plants during your visit but they’re now a fairly generic range of things bought from a local wholesaler.
Old pots and junk now stored where once rare plants were raised
The garden itself was strange; there were echoes of what I’d known before but it was hard to reconcile what I saw with my memories of the garden as it had been. I’m sure the place is now smaller than it was before.
The bridge in the Japanese garden
A stone ornament in the pond. How these weren’t stolen while the garden was abandoned…
The Japanese-themed garden seemed almost completely as I’d remembered it. How the granite stonework hadn’t been ‘re-homed’ when the site was abandoned and facing demolition I don’t know, but here was the ‘Japanese Garden’ of my memory.
A Japanese-styled ‘tea house’, adapted from a garden shed
There was plenty to annoy me as a ‘plant nerd’: the Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora (known commonly as ‘Montbretia’) growing in the Japanese garden is something I don’t seem to recall from times gone by, and the new planting of Acer negundo, a large American maple species, in wholly the wrong location for a tree of its size and origin caused me mild physical discomfort.
Were irritating details like this always there or has my knowledge increased to the point where I notice these things now?
Hydrangea serrata ‘Intermedia’, a rarely seen hydrangea
Tucked away was the collection of Japanese Hydrangeas that I’d known before, most with their old labels at their base.
The ‘Japanese Garden’ had managed to retain the sense of the place I’d known when I first encountered this garden.
The Arboretum
One of the things I had always associated with Pine Lodge was its unimaginative ‘pinetum’. Rather than setting out the collection of conifers artistically, the Clemos had set each conifer out in a sort of loose ‘grid pattern’. The effect always was something of a ‘stamp collection’; each tree stands sad and forlorn, devoid of companionship.
Calocedrus decurrens ‘Variegata’ (‘Incense Cedar’), native to North America, with reversion
Certainly no spark of imagination or desire for change reached this bit of the garden. The conifers remain in their places, seemingly none removed and definitely none added.
I like conifers as trees and believe that they should be included in gardens wherever possible, but this sort of planting should be consigned to the 19th century.
The Winter Garden, and a possibly new pond
The ‘winter garden’ is the only area I’m conscious wasn’t there when I used to visit before. It’s a strange bit of garden, like a ranch for evergreen trees and shrubs; it’s just an assembly of plants in a fenced area with little sense of purpose.
Shrubs in the Winter Garden
Like so much at Pinetum Park, there was a sense that this area isn’t entirely under control.
I like intimate planting but the Winter Garden felt a little overgrown
There might also be a new pond. It seemed familiar but also unfamiliar (and was being re-lined during my visit so I didn’t take picture).
Perspective
Time can skew perspective. I associated Pine Lodge with a time of joyous discovery for me, but maybe the garden and I have just moved on.
I get the impression that things have been left to decline, but has the development of my own expertise and experience meant that I’ve just moved on and that gardens like Pinetum Park no longer have the same level of interest?
It’s nice enough, but maybe there was a time when this would have truly excited me?
The new owner was much more interested in developing the land rather than owning and nurturing a garden, and there are signs of this all around.
New houses intrusively border part of the site, while part of the site is now a caravan park, with the caravans backed right up to the garden fence. (Do you have caravans in the US or are they a European thing? They’re like a trailer version of an RV that you pull behind your car.)
I’m not naïve about these changes: the income they generate is almost certainly subsidising the upkeep of the garden. Opening a garden to the public can be very expensive, and while Pinetum Park isn’t shy about its entry fee (£16.50 per adult, just over $20 at the time of writing) I’m sure the place will have its ‘lean times’ where gate revenues don’t meet the costs of running the place.
Not Bad, Not Great
Looking solely at the Pinetum Park of summer 2023, I must say that it’s neither bad nor good.
It’s clearly lacking the devoted love of a passionate garden owner. The garden is reasonably well presented, yet there is also a sense of neglect. The gardeners are clearly trying to manage the decline as best they could, and I couldn’t help wondering how much of the garden was on a sort of horticultural ‘life support’. I suspect the garden is operated on a very tight budget.
A broken bench is not a sign of a garden doing well, especially when it’s near the entrance.
I left just over an hour after I’d arrived, feeling rather numb to the whole place. Maybe I expected too much? Maybe as the years rolled by my memories of this place became warped, and it was never quite as good as I remember?
The biggest challenge for Pinetum Park is competition from other gardens. Cornwall is crammed with excellent gardens to visit: 10 minutes in one direction takes you to Tregrehan (likened by some to the world famous Kew Gardens in London), while 15 minutes in the other direction takes you to the wonderful garden at Trewithen (a garden embarking on an exciting redevelopment that will vastly increase its offering to visitors). There are also fine gardens at Lanhydrock, Trelissick, Heligan, Pencarrow, Caerhays, Trebah, Trengwainton, Enys, St. Michael’s Mount, Tremenheere, Glendurgan, Trerice…
It’s not bad but it’s not good; not much to see in the height of the visitor season.
The next few years will decide the fate of this garden; survival will depend on funding and a desire to make the place better.
My prediction is that it will slowly slip away.
The garden you describe clearly has changed and one of the problems with dead people’s gardens has to be stagnation, even without shortage of funds.
But it’s true that we change too and with enough experience we may develop discrimination. That can cost us, resulting in pleasures which no longer give pleasure.
Ken Cox from Glendoick has a wonderful expression: he says that the best gardens are created through ‘benign dictatorship’.
The people who built the place were very keen and put a lot of themselves into the garden, but the new owner doesn’t have that bond with the place. It reminds me of the various phases of the National Trust over the years, from aiming for a culture where one figure was dominant (like Graham Stuart Thomas for example) and the gardeners blindly followed instruction, to a more recent trend toward encouraging gardeners being more engaged with the gardens they’re responsible for. Gardens need that personal touch if they’re going to succeed.
The story of Pinetum is a bit sad but from your photos I get the sense of gentle decay and peacefulness in a rather natural setting which in itself is enjoyable. Not every garden has to be a show garden but unfortunately there has to be something to bring in the public to keep them running. Perhaps a really eager head gardener could add some new found life to the place.
I think ‘decay’ is probably the right word for it. It doesn’t feel like there’s a managed decline, more that the place is quietly falling apart.
Yes every garden must have its draw, especially where competition from rival gardens is intense. I agree that the right person could inject life and enthusiasm back into the place, but the question is whether the owner, someone I doubt puts much value on gardens, wants to invest in the future of the place.
We’re growing older, but we will always have the memories to give us reasons to smile.
True, and maybe those memories do become a little idealised over time.
Hats off to you for this review (who wears hats these days). It communicates a deep sense of a garden declining but at the same time without you being overly critical. Though if anyone reads this I can’t imagine them willing to pay £16.50 to see it.
I would certainly not pay 16,50 £ to see this!
No, it was quite disappointing. Looking at the plants that weren’t in flower I couldn’t really say that spring would have been particularly good in this garden either.
So many other fine gardens to visit in the area.
It wasn’t a £16.50 garden for sure. I wonder if gardens, like the plants in them, have a finite lifespan? We know gardens can be lost, but I wonder if the garden as a whole only has a finite time before it must either change dramatically or fade away.
Im sorry to hear about your sadness.. Mine is similar but comes from an american saddened by what I saw happen to what must have been a glorious park in Tynemouth UK Is it still there? Beautiful mature trees and lush but tangled undergrowth with reflecting ponds full of bicycles shopping carts, trash and lord knows what else… paths strewn with dog crap and broken bottles…(as were the beaches with needles scattered about as well) we lived there 1998-1999 and I never expected an English garden/park to look like it did….I sure hope eventually a committee was formed to help restore it…
Tynemouth has been a troubled place over the years, but while I don’t know the area myself there are good reviews of the park online.
The decline of a garden, especially one meant to bring joy to so many people, is very sad.
I enjoy your entries very much…always from the heart.
I too, experienced a similar experience when I received a call from Burpee ,who had purchased my beloved Heronswood here in Kingston, Washington.
They were shuttering the Nursery and moving all the plants to their East coast facility and the worst was they escorted Dan Hinkley, the founder ,to the gate..I was totally in disbelief.
Dan is to me, one of the greatest plantsman and so influenced my love of gardening…
Over the years it was sort of maintained but really run down..
I returned once had finally been sold to a tribe with Dan back as its Director and first open house. It was not the same but they were working on it and today, is back to its wonderful past. I cannot purchase all the wonderful plants I would go home with but they do have plant sales with local small specialty nurseries including Dan’s Windcliff plants.
So, while we continue to lose a number of wonderful small nurseries like Joy Creek in Oregon. Heronswood lives on…so thankful.
Thank you very much for your kind comment.
I met Dan here in the UK shortly after the Burpee takeover; it was clearly very raw for Dan at the time, yet he was (as he always is) gracious, kind and enthusiastic. News of Burpee’s actions had already reached the UK, and there was a general feeling that while they ‘owned the asset’ as it were, there are good ways and bad ways of making changes. I don’t think they were ready for the backlash.
As coincidences go, on that Sunday morning I gave Dan a tour around the nursery where I was working at the time, and then we made a trip over to Pine Lodge garden! Thinking back, the fact that I would choose a garden like this as a place to show someone of Dan’s callibre does rather suggest that it was a different place back then.
I too, thoroughly enjoy your writing. You have a thoughtful and honest way of sharing your views and that makes the reading pleasant even when there is a sadness as in this account.
I agree that as we grow as gardeners and learn and experience more our expectations may demand more of a garden we are visiting. Thank you for this piece.
Thank you very much.
I’ll have my memories of the garden as I once knew it, and inevitably it will have had a positive influence on who I am now, and on my development as a gardener.
Not to be the least bit confrontational with Charles, who remarked on Ben’s hat, but maybe the sun is less destructive in the UK, or you would be enthusiastic about hats,
after one or two really painful visits to the dermatologist. As in, biopsies and freezing off dubious skin blemishes. The worst thing about sun damage is how insidious it is. The lovely golden tan l strove for as a young woman revisits me now as ever-possible melanoma, and my similarly aged friends are now missing the edges of ears or noses. I think suntans are to my generation as smoking was to our parents: unforeseen damage. Be careful out there.
The popular sentiment that the sun never shines in Britain is of course false; statistically August is a damp month for us (3/4 of Augusts since records began have apparently been wet), and of course that tends to be when people are on their holidays.
But yes, we do have to be careful working outside in the UK. While it’s currently wet and grey here, we’ve had a lot of heat and sun during the summer of 2022 and the early summer of this year.
I think Charles was alluding to the fact that hat wearing was universal in Britain at one point. Different tiers in society had different hats, a sort of informal uniform! Now people don’t seem to wear hats as much. My hat, however, remains firmly on my head at all times. It might even be stuck on…!