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Chris Beardshaw Ltd
The Chris Beardshaw Wormcast Garden - Growing for Life at Boveridge House
Designer:
Chris Beardshaw
Sponsor: The Wormcast Company
Contractor: Peter Dowle Plants and Gardens
Click here to view a panorama of this garden.
Click on the image to view a hi-res version
The Chris Beardshaw Wormcast Garden is designed by Chris Beardshaw, who will recreate in all its original glory a quintessentially English garden design inspired by two of the most eminent figures of Victorian/Edwardian garden design - Gertrude Jekyll and Thomas Mawson.
Chris’s design inspiration comes from a unique project to which he is committed and that is to restore 15 acres of garden at Boveridge House in Dorset to their original former glory. The garden is unique, because, perhaps without knowing it, Jekyll and Mawson, who had never been the best of friends, had unwittingly collaborated on a garden to create a completely unique and beautiful 1920’s formal garden. Thomas Mawson had laid out the gardens while Gertrude Jekyll had been consulted as to the planting schemes, probably by post.
Mawson’s trademark, which features in the Chris Beardshaw Wormcast Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show, is a lily pond with a cherub statue and a small rill running from right to left across the garden. Jekyll makes her mark at the show in the herbaceous borders which appear on each side of the garden; Chris has unearthed the original Jekyll planting plans and will be using this as his inspiration. He has incorporated Jekyll’s key signature plants such as Bergenia cilitata, Geranium himalayense and Euphorbia characias supsp. wulfenii into the planting. The herbaceous borders are based on those Chris has rediscovered at the Boveridge estate which features perhaps the longest parallel herbaceous border Jekyll ever designed (125m long and 3m deep).
The entire show garden follows Mawson’s design with a strong, symmetrical principal softened by Jekyll’s planting schemes. The focal point is the long rectangular lily pool and cherub, which was cast from its original mould found at the manufacturer to form the centrepiece, after which it will be put back into position at the Boveridge estate.
The pond itself is planted with Nymphaea 'Marliacea Rosea, a flesh-pink waterlily bred in France and described as 'unsurpassable' by Jekyll herself. Forming a counterpoint to the lily pond is a small rill running from right to left across the garden.
The calming influence of the water feature is best appreciated from the pavilion where there is two original cane chairs used by Mawson himself while surveying the work on the garden in the 1920s. The pavilion, painted in pastel colours, is a replica of one found on the Boveridge estate. There is a display of summer orchids in the pavilion following the tradition of using garden pavilions as a space for small exhibitions.
Beech trees stand sentry on each side of the pavilion, again creating the symmetry sought by Mawson. These beech trees are a common sight on the Boveridge estate, featuring in their extensive woodland areas and as dominant structure planting. The garden is bordered on each side by a clipped yew hedge above an original reclaimed stone wall, which works as a beautiful backdrop for the richly planted herbaceous borders.
The Chris Beardshaw Wormcast Garden is also being used as part of the restoration programme, back in Dorset. The original Mawson wall is being carefully removed from the gardens at Boveridge House itself to allow for restoration and grading of the terraces. At 40 linear metres and 90cm high, the wall is made up of huge blocks which will be cleaned, restored and numbered for exhibiting at Chelsea before being returned to Boveridge House.
The decision for Chris to exhibit a show garden at Chelsea is not only about promoting the cause of the restorations and highlighting this unique garden, but to also remind today’s gardeners of the extraordinary talents and skills of the gardeners at the start of the 20th century.