Beneath the Flight Path

Open Garden Squares Weekend’s partner, the National Trust, includes some beautiful and well-known places in London, such as Ham House; but a less frequented gem lies under London’s main flight path – Osterley House Gardens. Standing by the entrance, I looked up and was fascinated by the sight of aeroplanes dutifully stacked and waiting their turn for the descent to Heathrow. This is a plane spotter’s paradise, as well as a gardener’s delight.

Thankfully the noise of the turbines is indistinct and distant and soon you forget them entirely and become absorbed in the delights of the new gardens which await you. These gardens were only started eight years ago when the Head Gardener, Andy Eddy, took up his role. At the time not a snowdrop was to be found in the old park, but now they nodded cheerfully in abundance under the trees. Andy Eddy came to Osterley with impressive gardening credentials, having trained and honed his gardening talents at Kew and Sissinghurst - and it shows. 



Starting at the house, there is a typical Georgian garden, created by the 18th-century banker family, Robert and Sarah Child, consisting of a long walk around a large meadow. Otherwise known as the 'smug walk', it has stunning views back to the house, hidden every now and then by copses to enhance the effect of the sight of the house from across a countrified and bucolic meadow. In late spring the long walk, which extends for a mile, is carpeted with bluebells. Bankers then, and now, needed something on which to spend their wealth and they chose a garden house, designed by Robert Adam, as the focal point of Mrs Child’s Flower Garden, and an American garden. A Temple of Pan with stunning views of the great meadow was added, a meadow which has never been ploughed or fertilised and is a permanent haven for wild flowers. 



As well as faithfully recreating the past in the Long Walk, Flower Garden and Garden House, Andy has added some splendid modern touches. The Tudor walled garden is now a potager with a difference. There are four, huge, monumental vegetable plots. The garden obelisks are lime yellow instead of the traditional dark green and the vegetables have escaped from ordered rows and cascade into one another, showing off their red foliage and orange pumpkins. Rainbow chard, Italian heirloom beans and dahlias compete with one another in a riot of colour, usually associated with a traditional cottage garden. Is there a gardening award for such a show? There ought to be if there isn’t.

    

Andy and his team of two gardeners and dedicated volunteers are kept busy at Osterley. A winter garden has been planted as well as the Diamond Jubilee wood. In the past year they have lost 40 trees to the winds: logs lie sadly next to the flower beds. 70 arrangements of cut flowers grace the tables and sideboards of the house every week. The cut flowers will be on sale to the public this year, alongside the many heritage varieties of plants. Last year one modest polytunnel helped them to raise £6000 in plant sales – and the polytunnel itself is a work of art and joy to behold. Trained by two German assistants, who were originally employed by Vita Sackville West at Sissinghurst, Andy learned from them the art of using every inch of space in the polytunnel.




The climbing roses had just been clipped and pruned for next summer when I visited and their winter outline against the brick wall is worth keeping as an example of how to bend and shape a rose for maximum blooms in June. Visit in June as part of the Open Garden Squares Weekend and you will be able to smell and admire them as well as visiting the lake, working farm, and, of course, the tea shop in the stables.





Information on visiting Osterley on Open Garden Squares Weekend »

Our biggest, private, garden square?

Ladbroke Square Garden is a spectacular private garden square moments away from the hustle and bustle of Portobello Road. Given the location, not many people will be aware that seven acres of garden stretch out before you once you pass through the square’s iron railings.

Running from east to west across the northern side of the square there is a very wide, pressed gravel path, whose ochre hues catch the sun. Trees, of which there are over 300, are dotted along the path, some being so old that they require support, such as the cut-leaf turkey oak. The London plane trees are in fact the oldest and they rise up in all their glory in various places. Catkins could be spotted in the woodland areas, along with winter aconites. There is also a hornbeam, splendidly showing off its bare black, winter branches, speckled with green lichen, and a very rare hawthorn – Crataegus heterophylla. This hawthorn was such a rare one that there was no specimen of it at Wisley. The head gardener at Buckingham Palace took cuttings of it and grew it on, successfully producing saplings to share.

Henrietta Phipps showed me around the garden on a rainy January day. She has lived near the garden since 1963 and used to be in charge of all the horticulture. She now looks after the trees, which are meticulously labelled and inspected yearly. Her love and knowledge of all the plants shines through, as did the sun eventually. Leaving the formal wide path at the top of the garden, she led me through winding paths which connect all the different ‘gardens’ inside. There are two playgrounds for children; the one for the under-sixes has an enticing, long, wooden train and the other is devoted to adventure and climbing. Both are discretely landscaped amid the trees. An old fountain nearby has been transformed into a new planting bed with snowdrops, blue scillas and crown imperials following on in succession. Elsewhere there is a winter-flowering, shrubby honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima) and viburnums to scent the air. The main gardener and the part-time assistant look after the garden beautifully.

There’s a place in this square for everyone to play – including dogs. One lawn is for quiet contemplation, another for football. A rose arbour with roses climbing through stout ropes borders the quiet garden. And then a tennis court appears – apparently championed by the wife of Roy Jenkins, Dame Jennifer Jenkins. You can join Ladbroke Square Garden if you live within 100 yards of its railings (times have changed, the qualifying distance used to be 200 yards). It is managed by a private trust, has 650 members and costs £200 a year. Three local primary schools use the garden regularly, there are annual events for members, including a summer party and a traditional bonfire night party in November (with a competition for the best Guy Fawkes). And a well-kept noticeboard of events and garden information.

The land now forming the square started life as a racecourse, and was laid out as the largest of 16 communal gardens of the Ladbroke Estate in 1849 by Thomas Allason. It is now listed as Grade II by English Heritage. One unusual feature of the square is the way the private gardens of houses on its north side lead directly into the garden. There are imposing private gateways here to admire, each with an individual rope-tile-edged flower bed, including one which stood out with the yellow flowering shrub Coronilla glauca ‘Citrina’ and a scented viburnum. Several of these private gardens have cultivated espaliered trees on their borders. Visitors to the square on Open Garden Squares Weekend are encouraged to respect the privacy of these gardens, and to wonder at the landscape architecture and mature plants – but no peeping into private domains, please! Have a cup of tea and slice of cake in aid of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution instead.

Information on visiting Ladbroke Square Garden