If you have space and resources in a garden it’s ideal to have a greenhouse. And to add a nursery to that. Having got two acres to fill with plants 39 years ago, I invested in (and we built) the greenhouse and then I built myself a nursery.
A long time ago. It was rather bleak!
But we got there!
Charles and Angus have just rebuilt much of the nursery – being mostly wood, it had mostly rotted. And I’ve begun clearing and tidying the greenhouse. I now look at the accumulation of plants – all outdoors in the nursery now – with great pleasure. Shortly we’ll be opening the garden to visitors, and then I shut the gate to the nursery to clearly indicate that I’m not selling plants. (Sorry)
Revamped nursery
I was remembering the other day that some open gardens also open their greenhouses to paying visitors. Maybe not their nurseries, as those do speak loudly of Sales! to most garden lovers.
Now, I’ve never really understood this greenhouse opening. On occasion I’ve wandered down a narrow passage looking at collections of plants on greenhouse staging and wondered why I’m doing that. Greenhouses are mostly for working in and sheltering plants from the weather, aren’t they?
And I’m a freaky garden person: I don’t relish just looking at plants for their own sake – I like to see them contributing to a beautiful or exciting garden scene. So this looking at plants in pots doesn’t do much for me.
An opened greenhouse….
Though, there I am, looking at my renovated nursery, full of plants waiting their turn for display or planting, thinking, that looks good. Not good enough to show anyone, but good enough to make me think that gardeners could make more of nurseries and greenhouses. A plant collection could be arranged to work as a dramatic display. There are models for this amongst the nurseries displaying their plants at garden shows, like Chelsea.
Definitely dramatic! Do not attempt this at home!
And it’s true that I continuously attempt to have the plants in our conservatory display well.
Just plants? Or a display?
But it’s definitely part of our home:
We don’t ‘open’ the conservatory when we open the garden, but we do let people who express an interest in it to look – the door is kept open. It’s a sort of after thought and it’s notable that when we’ve had the garden photographed for publication the conservatory (and the greenhouse and nursery) get left out. All these places seem to me to have a sort of ambiguous status – but then maybe gardens which open to the public do have an ambiguous status anyway? Have you ever visited a neighbour’s garden when it was open just to have a nose around? (This may be only a British practice)
People having an NGS nose around…
So, I wonder, are there places which specialise in beautiful displays in these ambiguous spaces. That may be worth a trip for their own sake? A greenhouse visit rather than a garden visit? That is what the Eden Project is, I suppose. Though, if I remember rightly, that felt more like visiting a gallery or museum than a garden. (or home) And I find the glasshouses at Kew the most boring bit.
Do people visit a greenhouse or someone’s conservatory as a kind of peek into a private space, so that if they just have a random assortment of plants sitting around in them that really doesn’t matter? Just being nosey?
That’s a nice one. I’d like a wooden one, but wood does rot….
Basically: are greenhouses and other random plant places in other people’s interesting?
(By the way, if any of you wonder what a wander round our garden at Veddw would be like it is here, on tv, in Welsh with English subtitles. Short scroll down)
Anne,
There is, I suppose, a curiosity that many visitors to Veddw might have about what it takes behind the scenes to support/manage a garden, hence nose-poking into your greenhouse. But there are also those who might be caught in your bedroom, peeking into your underwear drawer. The motivations are different.
Thank you for including the TV clip of your (wonderful) garden! It must have been quite gratifying to have it shown and to have heard it appreciated by the moderators.
I am not generally a fan of topiary. However, I think the strong lines of Charles’ perfectly clipped hedges go far beyond cute trimmed forms of bunnies. The hedges of Veddw are in a different category altogether. Stunning!
Just like the mystical Nazca lines and geoglyphs, Veddw’s hedges are additionally appreciated from high above. Veddw was shown to great effect by the aerial perspectives.
Kudos!
Thank you, John – we love the aerial views too. Fortunately it’s also possible to look down on the garden from within. Makes me grateful it’s not flat, though that makes it more and more of a challenge as I get older!
I could not agree more—that video gives a stunning perspective of your garden, already so enjoyed by me & now more than ever! Thanks for sharing the link.
I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you for the link to the video tour.
Enchanting! I enjoyed hearing Welsh and seeing the aerials. Makes me want to visit.
You’d be very welcome to visit – but I’d need to warn you that Charles and I don’t speak Welsh…..
Like you, I don’t find plants in pots particularly interesting. Nonetheless, I remember visiting greenhouses in two different gardens where I did just that. One near Washington D.C. had a spectacular collection of perennial geraniums and I spent a fair chunk of time admiring their leaves. The other was in a garden in England, near the border with Wales, where the display of ordinary geraniums in a multitude of colours made my head spin.
Greenhouses in larger public gardens often leave me cold. But again, I think of two exceptions. The large greenhouses at Longwood are beyond amazing, in a category of their own. As are the enormous domes at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. In both of these, plants are part of a larger landscape where they form the design.
Ah – I wondered what possibilities there may be – and they say that exceptions prove a rule.
I had a nursery greenhouse, at least a plastic-covered one, for 15 years. I loved it dearly. It was meant for propagation but held a few rare plants. It was useful, though not especially beautiful, and a constant worry. The wind could rip off the plastic and the furnace would fail sometimes.I don’t have quite the number of sleepless nights anymore. Rose asked once if I would like another greenhouse. The answer was unequivocal: NO! But I am jealous of your conservatory. It looks beautiful; Charles looks so serene. BTW…There was a tiny alpine plant house at Kew that I once liked very much. (Long ago in 1978.) Not the main Alpine House. A littler one, near the Order Beds with choice flowering alpine buns in clay pots Gentians, saxifragas, dionysias, primulas… I think it’s long gone.
I guess a greenhouse could be ideal for admiring alpines.
And you’ve alerted me to stop wishing for a brand new, bigger greenhouse!
You have a beautiful garden. And you seem like such lovely people! Thank you for the peek.
Kind of you – thanks.
My GardenRant on Dotty Woodson showed views of her greenhouse. It was a wonderland. It breaks my heart that it got too much for her, so that she had to sell recently. I enjoy greenhouses when there are interesting things to look at & her orchids and tropicals were sublime. I enjoyed seeing Christopher Lloyd’s tiny sunken greenhouse & was surprised to see how much they had going on in such a small space. I’ve always wanted a little greenhouse and some cold frames, but I think that ship has sailed.
Ah, maybe the lack of one adds a certain romance about them. (See above: Allen’s experience!)
Lovely film of your amazing garden – it looks perfectly imperfect!
Enjoying the film until at the end he’s admiring the wild meadow in the front and says”It’s proof you don’t have to work too hard when gardening. Somethings just happen. It has always been like this.” What!?!? Meadows need care too,.
Allow me to put a gentle case to the contrary.
We all grow plants, and we all have greenhouses or nursery areas to enable us to do so. I enjoy seeing other people’s work spaces and seeing how they are solving some of the problems that I encounter too.
How do they water? What size pots are they using? What potting mix? Where does their interest seem to be focussed for the future in terms of species or colour or form? What little treasures do they have tucked into corners? (We all have orphan plants that we grow on, but have no clear plan for, surely??)
To me the ‘working’ parts of the garden can be as fascinating as the finished, public-facing form.