Black Monday: Box Blight
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Plants and Bulbs | 13 comments
Every now and then my sister Sara and I treat ourselves to a deluxe garden tour. I don’t know how we discovered Border Lines but found that we liked them. The tours suited us. Every now and then when we are feeling flush, we embark on another adventure.
The best garden tours seem pricey but having visited three amazing gardens in one day and enjoyed an excellent lunch, the Border Lines tours seem wonderful value. The memories stay with you for years afterwards.
We first started garden touring about fifteen years ago. A high points were being shown around Christopher Lloyd’s garden by the man himself and a coterie of dachshunds. But every single garden that we have visited on these tours has been memorable.
The best for me was the tour of three outstanding gardens in Herefordshire that we took last year. Booked in January, dreamt about and enjoyed months later. And that expectation is a large part of the pleasure.
The first stop was at the the garden that holds The National Collection of Pinks. Besides the plethora of pinks, the garden was wonderful with an amazing pond and a cleverly designed tunnel that led one through to a window that opened onto the pond. Suddenly I was gazing at the pond inches above the surface of the water. An amazing Alice in Wonderland experience.
We then travelled (lux coach) to Brockhampton Cottage, Brockhampton. The home of Peter Clay, one of the founders of http://www.crocus.co.uk/ (a massive garden resource web site). The sizeable cottage was set in several acres that fell gently to the river in the valley below. A marvelous spot, with fabulous views.
The informal planting around the house was clean and clear with just enough to keep you absorbed before looking up and enjoying the sweep of the valley to the river. He had planted a copse when his son was born – Jacob’s Wood. This touched me and also gave an instant pointer to the scale of gardening.
Good planting can exist for years after you have passed on to that great garden in the sky. One day Jacob’s Wood will be full of mature trees and wildlife coexisting with Jacob the man. I loved it, the young trees and their potential. He had also planted a Perry orchard and the year before had harvested his first crop. Exciting stuff.
After an excellent lunch we were driven to The Lasket in Much Birch. Home of Sir Roy Strong (author, broadcaster, former Director of the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum) and his late wife Julia Trevelyan Oman – a talented television, theatre and film designer. Both major greats of the past 50 years.
I have always had a bit of a soft spot for Sir Roy and am passionate about stylish, architectural gardens. I had heard about this garden, created from fields and worked on for over thirty years. So this garden was potentially the highlight of the tour for me.
The garden at The Laskett was amazing. I have even dreamt about it since my visit. Long vistas leading to fabulous, imaginative harbours that celebrated high points in their marriage and lives. It was moving, uplifting, intriguing and totally inspirational.
I had read about the very romantic parterre that they had created in front of the house, celebrating their marriage. Now the space was bare.
“Our box hedging was victim to Box Blight,” Sir Roy explained. They removed the infected plants but it ate away. Eventually the entire parterre was dug up and burned.
Tootling down our garden this morning I noticed that the mature box hedge on the round border in the first garden had large brownish patches. We have Box Blight (Voltella) too. It is a fungal disease that loves extended periods of wet weather. There is no treatment.
I called up to The Rat room and Danny was down in seconds. He ran his hand gently along the hedge, his face was grim when he heard the prognosis.
“We can live with tomato or potato blight. There’s always next year. But I love these box hedges. Fifteen years of growth destroyed in a month. This is Black Monday.”
Leave a reply
Hi Rosemary,
We love our hedges. We have box around a few small borders and lining the path to the bower. We have yew hedges, lining the pond garden and separating the three main parts of the garden. We also have beech hedging down one side of the garden. All planted by me and now mature.
There is something so friendly about box hedging.
The hedging was expensive and seemed to take ages to get established. However I was going for low maintenance hedging. All hedging is only cut once a year so until we got box blight I reckoned it was a good investment. Interesting to hear about Lornica, thanks for the tip.
Hi Kate,
I hadn’t heard of box blight until I visited The Lasket.
The National Collection of Pinks was great. I love pinks but they don’t seem to thrive here which is a real shame as I can’t work out why. I must look up Dianthus Superbus. Thanks for dropping by.
That is not good news to hear – I am sorry about your box hedge. I had never heard of box blight till now. Argh…
My eyes fastened on the garden of Pinks – it is one of my favourite plants. I have many growing here, though my special favourite is Dianthus superbus … the scent is incredible and the flowers are beautiful.
I’m so sad about your box hedge,we have two small ones here and hope to surround our round flower bed with some when we can afford it.Box is so expensive but it is my favourite,yew comes next,but again it costs so much.Lonicera is a good substitute but needs clipping at least four times a year!!
Hi Joanna,
We will find a way round the problem, I know. But we love(d) our box hedging.
The garden tours are very good.
I have a copy of Sir Roy™s book The Lasket. My sister gave me the book last year and it was instantly purloined and read by D “ no real interest in gardens per se but he loved it.
I had always put Sir Roy Strong into a sizeable box, lid on, until I met him. The first time was at a lunch table when he valiantly helped everyone to shine (even the shyest – and he took time with these). After that, despite the strong opinions, he was a hero. Since then I have met him again and have found him to be an interesting and sensitive man.
So sorry about the box … but one of the best things about gardening is that there’s always a new opportunity to try something else. It’s just when it’s things like 15 yr old box, or trees, it’s such a wrench … and then you get stuck in to the new project.
Thanks for the tip about the garden tours – I’ve been wanting to find a good company, personal recommendation is the only way to go. Have you read Strong’s book about the Lasket? It’s very good (I was surprised, because, yes national treasure, but also very annoying and a little pleased with himself) – full of enthusiasms and touching stuff about his wife, who had just died when he wrote it.
Joanna
joannasfood.blogspot.com
Hi Amanda,
Hope you had a great holiday! The box blight is really disappointing but these things happen.
Hi hedgewizard,
Spot on. Accommodating the problem is our only choice.
Hi Celia,
The hedges are/were integral to the look of the garden so we are feeling a bit sad. I felt for Sir Roy too, a hedge seems such a permanent feature. I know that he replanted using a different sort of hedge and am racking my brain to remember what the replacement was.
The garden tours are great. A real treat especially if the creator of each garden shows you around. We were lucky to meet Christopher Lloyd before he died.
Hi Pat,
As this is a fungal disease it must have been accelerated by the weather. Grrrr.
Ohhhh Fiona!!! So sorry to hear about your hedge!! This weather has alot to answer for this year.
Oh I’m so sorry about your box hedge – after seeing the devastation of some of the hedges at Ickworth gardens I’ve been checking out our embryo hedge (grown from cuttings made from hedge clippings from the neighbours which fell on our side if the fence). Our little plants are just big enough to be legitimately called a hedge – so I understand the attachement you must feel to your 15 year old hedge. And as for Sir Roy (a national treasure IMO) and his parterre – I’m heartbroken for him.
Those garden tours sound a treat. It must be a real treasured memory of that other national treasure, Christo, showing you around his garden. We went to Gt Dixter in the summer before he died – I walked round the corner into the riot of colour that was the old rose garden and came face to face with Christo in a snazzy purple shirt accompanied by his dachshounds.
Oh noes! That must be devastating – and a real challenge to accommodate within the garden, because I guess accommodating the loss is all that you can do.
Finally we have returned. Sorry to hear about the box blight. Awful when it’s been growing for so long.