An Evening with Chris Beardshaw

Theme ‘Painting with Plants’

There was a full house of some 180 people at Darland School, Rossett, for the talk by the celebrated broadcaster and Garden Designer, Chris Beardshaw, on Wednesday, 22nd February.

This was the latest of a number of ‘An Evening with …’ events, organised by the Society. For Chris, this was a follow up to his visit in 2015, which was also a sell-out event.

The theme for Chris’s talk was ‘Painting with Plants’. However, his presentation, which was illustrated with lots of plans and colourful photographs and was laced with a number of humorous asides, began by showing that the foundations of garden design where common throughout the world.

He showed the design of a garden produced some 2500 years BC at Thebes in Egypt. He illustrated how the main elements of the design – enclosure, entrance, main axis to focal point and cross axes enclosing formal spaces – had been used in many great gardens ever since. Examples included the garden of the House of Velii at Pompei, various ecclesiastical and Islamic gardens and the gardens of the Taj Mahal.

The talk went on to show how the ‘Golden Section’ principles used in classical architecture could be used to create well-proportioned spaces in gardens.

Following on from this, the presentation showed how the basic design principles were developed to include the use of water and round shapes at the Villa Lante and how they were followed, in a much simpler form, at Aberglassney in 1594.

Other examples of how the ‘Golden Section’ had been used to influence garden designs were The Queen’s House in Grosvenor Park and The Palace of Versailles.

In complete contrast, Japanese Zen gardens, followed a very simple format, using raked gravel, rocks and mosses and these and the traditional Tea Gardens showed a greater reverence of nature.

In Britain, the formal designs gradually began to change, with the addition of more and more plants and the garden at Charnwood saw the beginning of what was to develop into what become known as the ‘English Gardening Style’.

The late 17th century saw the introduction of many varieties of plants from abroad, many due to the efforts of plant hunters such as Sir Joseph Banks, Masson and Robert Fortune. This influx gave the opportunity for the use of carpet bedding, as at Waddesdon Manor. Such planting was used extensively by local authorities, but has now fallen out of favour.

In the early 1800’s Mrs Warburton, of Arley Hall created the first herbaceous borders, very much pre-dating the work of Gertrude Jekyll. The garden area still had enclosure, central axis, focal point and a cross axis, but the borders were awash with colour from a mix of exotic and native plants combined.

It was Thomas Mawson, the first person to adopt to style himself as a Landscape Architect, who transformed the way we designed our gardens. His book ‘The Art and Craft of Garden Making’ promoted the idea that gardens should be places of theatre, drama and anticipation. He paid great attention to detail and his designs included Dyffryn Gardens,

It was felt that Edwin Lutyens, who came along later and worked closely with Gertrude Jekyll, had plagiarised Mawson’s work. However, it was the combination of Lutyens’ formal designs and Jekyll’s informal and colourful planting, which became recognised as the ‘English Gardening Style’. Jekyll, liked bold colours, but many of her clients favoured more subtle combinations.

Jekyll’s book ‘Colour Schemes in the Garden’ provided examples of planting plans for parallel borders, although some of the plants listed are no longer available. Chris explained the importance of plant repetition along the borders and also the way in which most of the drifts of plants were set at an angle to the front of the borders.

William Robinson in his garden at Gravetye Manor, extended the idea of informality, by creating a garden with no obvious boundaries, which allowed the wider landscape to tumble in. The design and planting were very relaxed and fluid, with little apparent control. There was an extensive use of colours and plants were allowed to self-seed at will.

The more modern garden at Wollerton Old Hall picked up many of the same principles and was a great example of how to combine space hierarchy and flowing planting. Green was used to calm things down and enabled vivid colours to be used together. In addition, some of the spaces in the garden were planted with mainly green trees and shrubs.

Chris explained how the use of different colours could change the perception of a garden. Cool colours made plants appear to recede, whilst hot colours made them appear to advance. A similar principle applied with leaf textures – small leaves appearing to recede and large leaves appearing to advance.

Chris concluded his talk by showing details of his Chelsea Gold Medal winning design for the Great Ormond Street Hospital. His talk, which was schedule to last one hour, actually went on for two,

After a break for refreshments, there was a question and answer. Although no advance notice had been given, Chris answered all the questions in very great detail, showing his very extensive knowledge of all things gardening.