Latest news with #WilliamRobinson
Belfast Telegraph
3 days ago
- General
- Belfast Telegraph
Diarmuid Gavin: The 19th century Irish gardener who went on to influence the world
In the quiet countryside near Kilmeaden, Co Waterford, a boy was born in 1838 who would go on to transform the way the world thought about gardens. William Robinson was not born to privilege, and yet he became one of the most influential horticulturists in history — an Irishman who reshaped the English landscape, one perennial at a time.
Irish Independent
5 days ago
- General
- Irish Independent
Diarmuid Gavin: The Waterford gardener who became one of the 19th century's most influential horticulturalists
William Robinson, who rose from humble beginnings, transformed the way we think about gardens and reshaped the English landscape In the quiet countryside near Kilmeaden, Co Waterford, a boy was born in 1838 who would go on to transform the way the world thought about gardens. William Robinson was not born to privilege, and yet he became one of the most influential horticulturists in history — an Irishman who reshaped the English landscape, one perennial at a time. Robinson's early life was rooted in toil. As a teenager, he worked as a garden boy at Curraghmore, the grand estate of the Marquess of Waterford. From dawn to dusk, he maintained the elaborate, high-maintenance plantings that were the height of Victorian fashion — exotic hothouse flowers, regimented bedding schemes and manicured formality. But even then, he felt something was wrong. Nature, as he saw it, wasn't meant to be clipped into submission. By his early twenties, Robinson had risen to manage the hothouses at Ballykilcavan in Co Laois. Then came the rupture. According to one enduring story, he stormed out after a row with his employers and left the hothouse fires to die overnight — killing an entire collection of delicate tropical plants. Whether fact or folklore, the tale hints at the fierce independence that would define his career. He sailed for London and by 1861 had secured a post at the Royal Botanic Society's gardens in Regent's Park. There, surrounded by the spectacle of Empire and the extremes of Victorian horticulture, Robinson's vision sharpened. He hated what he saw: endless rows of red salvias, blue lobelias and elaborate carpet bedding — all costly, artificial and ephemeral. Gardening, he believed, had lost its soul. So, he picked up his pen and began to fight back. Robinson started writing for The Gardeners' Chronicle, and then began publishing books with force and flair. In 1870, he released The Wild Garden, a revolutionary manifesto calling for a new kind of planting, one that embraced native and naturalised plants, hardy perennials, wildflowers and the beauty of ecological balance. Let daffodils spread in meadows, he said. Let ferns and foxgloves flourish in dappled woods. Three years later, he launched The Garden, a weekly magazine that became his mouthpiece for the next 40 years. It wasn't just a gardening journal — it was a battlefield. Robinson used its pages to champion fellow naturalists, challenge powerful institutions like the Royal Horticultural Society and skewer his rivals. He was sharp-tongued and opinionated, but his ideas were catching on. One of his most fruitful alliances was with Gertrude Jekyll, a painter-turned-gardener with an eye for colour and form. Robinson supported her when others dismissed her as too feminine or whimsical. Together, they shaped the Arts and Crafts movement in gardening, a gentler, more human vision of landscape. Robinson's writing reached a crescendo in 1883 with the publication of The English Flower Garden. It became one of the best-selling gardening books of all time. Structured as an encyclopaedia of plants suitable for different garden types, it was also a deeply passionate call for change. He urged gardeners to abandon labour-intensive, seasonal planting and embrace resilient, long-lived and ecologically harmonious gardens. In effect, he gave ordinary people permission to garden with freedom and instinct. Flush with success, he bought Gravetye Manor in Sussex in 1884, a semi-ruined Elizabethan house with more than 1,000 acres. There, Robinson planted wild bulbs by the thousand, created orchard meadows, and filled his borders with drifting perennials. He lived there until his death in 1935 at the age of 96. He had no children, but his ideas survived him. Today, Robinson's legacy is everywhere — in modern naturalistic planting, in the return to meadows and no-mow lawns, in the rise of pollinator gardens and climate-conscious design. Designers like Piet Oudolf, Beth Chatto and Dan Pearson all walk in his footsteps. Even the Royal Horticultural Society, once a target of his ire, honoured him by renaming their journal The Garden in 1975. For Robinson — this feisty, self-taught gardener from Co Waterford — had redefined the English garden. So if you ever feel the urge to stop pruning and simply let things grow, you're not being lazy. You're doing what William Robinson did — trusting the land and letting the wild back in. Plant of the week Allium Ornamental onions are very cheerful plants that pop up their perfectly spherical heads in May and June. 'Purple Sensation' is a reliable choice with a rich colour. For something more dramatic, try 'Globemaster' which has giant lilac heads. If you prefer white, 'Mount Everest' is a good performer. My own favourite is 'Christophii', star of Persia, a globe of beautiful starry violet flowers with almost a metallic hint to them. Plant in autumn in a sunny spot in fertile well drained soil or add some grit to heavy clay soil. Reader Q&A Can you grow wisteria from seed? I have a wisteria which produced lots of seed pods last year and was hoping to grow some more but nothing happened. There's a much easier way to propagate wisteria — it's called layering. You do this by bending a long pliable stem that will reach the ground. Where the stem touches the ground, gently wound the stem by rubbing with a knife and now bury this part in the soil — if necessary, use a bit of wire bent to keep it in place. This will form its own root system while still attached to the mother plant. Next spring, you will be able to dig it up as a separate plant and pot up or plant elsewhere.
Times
03-06-2025
- Lifestyle
- Times
The UK's best kitchen gardens worth planning a foodie trip around
There's something rather thrilling about seeing a perfectly plump strawberry on top of a pile of meringues and cream at dinner, knowing it was plucked just outside. Especially when you bite into it and it's sweet as can be. And then there are wonderful homegrown broad beans, asparagus, courgettes and more. The UK's kitchen gardens are a fabulous bunch, and now is the best time to see them — when the days are longer, the weather is better and there's a bounty of beautiful fresh produce. Here are seven of the best, all with a great place to stay. William Robinson was one of the most progressive Victorian gardeners and is responsible for the classic English country garden. In 1885 he bought Gravetye Manor, which became the greatest example of his work with his trademark naturalistic aesthetic. Today it's a grand country house hotel with 17 elegant rooms and a Michelin-starred restaurant. The ecliptic kitchen garden is designed to get the best growth from the site, and gardeners focus on less common crops, such as unusual tomato varieties, heritage carrots and baby beetroots (three courses from £128pp). Garden tours run three times a week from April to October for hotel and restaurant guests (from £25pp). Stay overnight for a breakfast that includes juice squeezed from the orchard's apples and the chance to explore some of the other beautiful gardens nearby, including Sissinghurst, Borde Hill and pretty Perch Hill farm. Details B&B doubles from £400 ( • Gravetye Manor hotel review: Michelin-starred food and exquisite gardens in West Sussex The details are what elevate the tasting menus at the chef Tommy Banks's Michelin-starred restaurant with rooms. Strawberries are picked right before service so they retain the warmth of the day's sun and corn is removed from the cob just before plating, to retain sweetness. Book a garden tour to learn about what's grown in the two-acre kitchen garden, including red Russian kale, chives and beetroot, much of which is preserved so it can be used year-round (lunch tasting menu with a tour from £135). You're on the fringes of the North York Moors, so you can enjoy a good walk before retiring to one of the cosy rooms with a rolltop Half-boarddoubles from £545 ( • Read more about what to do and where to go in Yorkshire Every dish at Pythouse includes at least one ingredient from the three-acre garden year-round, thanks to smart fermenting and preserving techniques. For lunch, this could be chalkstream trout with purple sprouting broccoli and parsnip hash browns; for dessert it could be almond cake with poached rhubarb (mains from £22). Make a long weekend of it and you can kick back in the wood-fired sauna or opt for one of many workshops; 'Fill Your Boots' includes the chance to create a bug hotel and harvest plants for the kitchen and botanicals for home remedies (£105, including a two-course lunch). Don't miss the large pick-your-own flower area either, where guests can grab a bucket and a pair of secateurs after lunch to take a bunch of blooms home. A shabby-chic shepherd's hut with a cosy wood-burner and fairy lights is perfect for two. Nearby is Messums West, a brilliant modern arts centre in a 13th-century tithe barn with a sculpture garden (free; B&B from £130 in a shepherd's hut for two ( • Giles Coren reviews Pythouse Kitchen Garden, Wiltshire This may be one of the smaller kitchen gardens on our list (at just one third of an acre) but we love it because it shows how much you can do in a small space, even in an urban setting. There are multiple tasting menus to choose from, allowing for hyper-seasonal dishes that show off the garden's character. Take for instance the pelargonium leaves that are used to make a delicious ice cream, served with a honey gel made from the restaurant's beehives. There are eight stylish rooms, and you're just five minutes from the beautiful Nottingham University campus where you can go boating on the lake (£7pp; B&B doubles from £540, including a ten-course tasting menu for two ( • Garden fork to table fork — the value of a well-planned kitchen garden Dine at the Farm Caff and you'll receive a map with your menu so you can take a stroll around the farm after you've eaten (mains from £19, tours from £4). There are 50 acres to explore, with views out to Glastonbury Tor, fruit and nut orchards, agriwilding ecosystems (also known as 'food forests', which create abundant food and regenerate the environment), a four-acre market garden and a lake for wild swimming. The ethos here is focused on bringing the farm to the table, which means salads, herbs, greens and more are harvested just a few minutes' walk away and wild ingredients are foraged from the surrounding hedgerows. Our favourite? Crumpets made from the farm's wheat and served with seasonal soup. Make a weekend of it with a stay in one of two boho glamping cabins; the charming market town of Bruton is a five-minute drive away. Details Room-only doubles from £130 ( • Discover the best hotels, restaurants, things to do and places to visit in Somerset If bigger is better, Gordon Castle's walled kitchen garden close to the River Spey and Moray coast has to be one of the best. At close to eight acres in size, it's one of Britain's largest and was built more than 200 years ago for the Duke of Gordon, who lived here. Visit today to find more than 200 varieties of vegetables grown from seed every year (carrots, pumpkins, kale, peas), many of which you can buy in the brilliant on-site shop. There's also a relaxed café with fresh salad leaves picked every morning and a play area for kids (mains from £16). Cottages that sleep between 2 and 14 are spread through the estate and always feature fresh flowers from the garden. Stalking, shooting and salmon fishing trips can be arranged and each May the castle hosts its annual Highland Room-only doubles from £555, three-night minimum stay ( • 14 of the most beautiful places in Scotland This working family farm, situated in a south-facing valley near Truro, has been rearing cattle and sheep for nearly 250 years and is now in the hands of the ninth generation. Come for one of the regular ticketed feast and supper events, with set three and four-course menus that showcase organic meat alongside seasonal produce grown on site (four-course feast from £50, three-course supper from £45). The feasts are communal events where you mingle with other guests over long tables, the suppers are best for those who prefer to dine à deux. Get there early to take a wildlife walk, where you might spot deer or hares and peek in the kitchen gardens before you dine. Later, you'll want to stay in one of the converted farm buildings, which include a grade II listed mill house and a former piggery. The following morning you can clear your head with a walk along the golden sands of Perranporth beach, which is a 15-minute drive B&B doubles from £155 ( • Read more about the best hotels in Cornwall
