The low down on Highgrove
The forecast spoke of rain so a quick stop in Tetbury to buy an umbrella seemed like a good idea. That proved easier said than done, until Farrow and Ball shades shimmering up ahead signalled the Highgrove shop. Saved surely, but it proved only to be a mirage as we hadn’t budgeted for a £90 umbrella. We were in luck though in the charity shop next door (for the princely sum of £4), but I was left wondering who spends such money on an umbrella.
Highgrove, country home of Prince Charles, is nothing if not a slick commercial operation. But,what of the fabled garden? I was hesitant about going, perhaps deep down thinking that such a visit amounted to voyeurism and garden tourism and was somehow below me, a professional garden designer. But it is rude to refuse a gift so I went with my wife and thoroughly enjoyed it.
A garden on such a scale could seem like an extravagence. But there is more to Highgrove than that. Work is being done here, issues are being tackled and messages are being sent. It is a very personal affair and one in which the owner is very much involved. I came away with a definite sense of a man, who otherwise lives apart, protected and at arms-length, having opened himself up a little, inviting scrutiny and comment. That in itself was interesting and a little surprising.
Highgrove is a large garden and made up of many parts. There is interest and intrigue, experimentation and playfulness, atmosphere and connections. What more could you reasonably ask? One reason for the rather eclectic feel of the garden is the large number of objects and sculptures (there are pots galore) dotted around. Many of these were gifts from nations and states, the rich and famous, and presumably have to be displayed somewhere for the requisite time period that is considered decent in such circumstances.
On top of that the Prince is, by his own admission, prone to returning home from travels, both at home and abroad, with new ideas or objects which the gardeners must incorporate into the garden. Entering the cottage garden you pass through a small stone gatehouse that was built solely to house a beautiful pair of doors that found their way back from India. All of this means that there is a lot going on, which, in my opinion, actually adds to the interesting and personal narrative of the garden.
‘Feed the soul, warm the heart and delight the eye’. That’s the mission statement for the garden, presented to us, and the rest of our tour group, in the video introduction. In that, the garden succeeds. And there is more besides, including the somewhat bizarre. Near the house a tall, curved and pointed gazebo with a golden finial shelters the stump of a once mighty cedar of Lebanon tree. The loss of the tree saddened the Prince so he commissioned this unusual structure in its honour. One huge branch of the old tree remains attached to the stump and protrudes horizontally from under the eaves for perhaps 10 metres at head height. Along its length dangle wind chimes and other objects like totems of an undiscovered tribe.
The other message that our tour guide is keen to get across is ‘let it be’. This is repeated many times and becomes a bit of a mantra and the reason becomes clear later. The miles of hedges are cut just once a year, the fountain in the walled garden is allowed to calcify and the mole hills are left undisturbed. Plants are allowed to self-seed and the occasional weed is tolerated. Some visitors, our guide explains, murmur that the garden is not as crisply maintained as they would expect, so the mantra ‘let it be’ is designed to make the point that all of this is as intended. Encouraging a more relaxed form of gardening than that which the English, with our arsenal of power tools and just so traditions, are usually associated must surely be a good thing for all the creatures concerned.
In the arboretum there is a small but quite lavish Hansel & Gretel house where the Prince apparently goes, every day that he is in residence at Highgrove, to contemplate. Perhaps we should be grateful to have such a thoughtful heir to the throne. It was not long ago that his obsession with all things green was thought of as a bit of a joke. Not so today. He may not have been the first to promote ideas of sustainability and there are no doubt many others today working as hard, or harder, on those issues but the fact that he is using his prominent position and resources in such a way must surely be a positive thing.
We will be returning, hopefully, and principally to see the meadow in full swing, with its many thousands of tulips, fritillaries and camassia. That promises to be a real treat and this time we will remember to take an umbrella.