Last week I wrote about Bodysgallen, a country house in the Conway Valley in North Wales. Here are some photos of somewhere I visited on the same day further inland on the same river valley. It is Bodnant Garden. The mountains you see in the distance are the Snowodonia range, the highest in England and Wales. I visited earlier this year in May and have just been working outside in my garden here in New England. I was looking for some inspiration to remind of the ideal I am aiming for. So here are some photographs of the National Trust property. As you will see the planting is in the traditional British style of drifts of colour and lots of herbacious borders – in the manner of Gertrude Jeckyll. I really can’t think of much more to say other than please just enjoy the photos and to ask, why can’t we have a few more gardens like this over here in the US?
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You ask why we can’t have gardens like that in the US? But we do. Have you visited Dumbarton Oaks, Nemours, Biltmore, Winterthur, Middleton Place, or the great plantations of Mississippi and Alabama? They cannot be too similar to gardens in Wales and England, since soil and climate are very different, but the concept is the same.
Do bear in mind that we have some really glorious large gardens that have been planned with Jekyll’s sensibility, but they remain in private hands. In the UK you are able to visit more historic properties because of the National Trust (which is a completely different entity than our National Trust in the US, to which I belong). My understanding–and please correct me if I am wrong–is that changing economic conditions and high rates of inheritance taxation have caused some of the older families of the UK to open their houses and gardens to the public. For several reasons, that does not happen very often here; hence, not many of the fine gardens of South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and other states are open to tourists, except for spring charity tours. But beauty is being created on the living canvas of the earth by private American citizens all the time.
Thank you for the pictures of Bodnant. It has been too long since I was over there.
What a great contribution. thank you. Yes, it is a question of degrees rather than absolutes. I am aware that there are some gardens like this and I was in Dumbarton Oaks just this month, but they are, as you say either far fewer, or far less accessible. The other thing that strikes me in England is that ordinary gardens correspond to these grand projects far more than in the US. Even little spaces is planned and planted for beauty. In the US if you talk about planting a garden, people automatically assume that you are planting vegetables, whereas in the UK everywhere you go you see people doing a cottage garden (which is as you describe).