Gardening Southern-style: Philosophy of a Garden

 Gardening Southern-style: 

Philosophy of a Garden

Today in watching Great British Garden Revival: Series 2, with James Wong (Wong appears near the middle of the video), I heard a term new to me and, of course, looked it up. The term he used was referring to the rebirth of a rhododendron garden at Harwood House outside of Leeds, England. He used the term a "Barbara Cartland" garden. Since I found no exact definition of what they mean, I will interpret the meaning to be "romantic" (Cartland wrote and sold millions of romances), perhaps "blousy" (meaning untrimmed, maybe what might be considered overgrown), and when the blooms are in season the term might mean "billowing". Cartland's heroines would go to the garden to ponder things--mostly love and men. As an author who writes what I would call romantic historical fiction this concept of a garden appeals to me. 

Cartland's son, Ian Hamilton McCorquodale
Glen McCorquodale, writes: 

My mother, Barbara Cartland, loved the grace and beauty of all flowers whether they were pink or not.
Particularly daffodils, primroses and bougainvillea.
She enormously enjoyed her garden at Camfield Place and from her desk in the drawing room she could see a long swathe of the garden leading up to large clumps of rhododendrons, which in May would be a riot of colour fading away later to a peaceful light green.
I can never forget Barbara telling her friends “don’t send me flowers when I die, send them to me when I am alive so I can delight in them!”
The heroines in her wonderful romances love flowers too and they always go into the garden of the hero’s stately home to seek peace and tranquillity and to search their souls and, because the garden is so beautiful and fragrant, they suddenly realise that they are in love. And then we have to guess what happens at the end of the story!
And she fervently believed that flowers are an earthly symbol of true love. They look at you with love in their petals and smile because they know the real truth about love if only they could speak to us mortals.   https://www.barbaracartland.com/news/barbara-cartlands-love-of-flowers

As a Southern gardener, I appreciate Cartland's affection for rhododendrons. They are relatives of azaleas that make such a show in Southern gardens--when we allow them to. 

Azaleas vs Rhododendrons

• All azaleas are Rhododendrons but not all Rhododendrons are azaleas.
• Most Azaleas are deciduous, but true Rhododendrons are usually evergreen.
• Azaleas have funnel shaped flowers. Rhodi flowers tend to be bell-shaped. 
• https://plantaddicts.com/the-difference-between-azaleas-and-rhododendrons/

For some reason, the large azaleas known as Formosa have lost favor for the Encore azalea that re-blooms throughout the season. As a result we have lost that "blousy", "billowing", "romantic azalea that brings tours through old neighborhoods to see in early spring near Easter (in Dothan, Alabama). 

I suppose we might surmise that the individual gardener must decide her/his own philosophy of a garden. Blousy, billowing and romantic could very well fit me. I rail against the regimented conformity of too many neighborhood yards in our subdivisions. We Americans would do well to set forth on a Great American Garden Revival.

Monet, the famous Impressionist painter, planted his garden to use as subject for his paintings. When I ride through the old parts of my Southern hometown, I see one yard fading into another with the colors of an impressionist painting. White dogwood bloom above the boisterous azaleas--not those tidy repressed azaleas known as Encore, but for one brief shining moment the true azaleas burst forth.  My mother-in-law often said that was her version of heaven. 

One of the early gardeners of my community was Mrs. Lamb (I knew her when I was a little girl and Southern children do not call their elders by their first name so she will remain Mrs. Lamb to me). She was a seamstress who lived in a beautiful two story home in our neighborhood. Her back yard was a garden with paths between the camellias, haughty aristocrats of Southern gardens, and those boisterous, attention seeking azaleas. She was a leader in the community on gardening topics. 

My mother was a gardener (also a nurse at the Battle of the Bulge, a gifted seamstress, an active reader, and the best appreciator of a good joke in town). She started me gardening as a little girl in a piano crate painted with polka dots in a garden club for children called The Daffydillies. Ergo my continued fondness for daffodils. Daffodils and the luscious smelling silver bells bulbs are the harbinger of spring. Excitement builds for the show of the Azaleas. 

Southern gardening has been harnessed by lawn services and garden centers that convince their clients that planting something for two weeks of glorious beauty should take a back seat to something that might bloom unremarkably several times a year. Daylilies have suffered the same fate. Stella d'oro a minuscule yellow daylily is about the only daylily one can find at a nursery. One must search to find an independent grower to purchase the more unique and the antique daylilies. (I am looking for the old yellow/orange double petal daylily I remember from my childhood. Please contact me if you have one!) Fortunately Ozark has one of these mom and pop gardens called In the Neighborhood Daylilies. I did a video of my granddaughter's and my venture to the daylily garden and subsequent planting in our "garden." Daylilies are the country cousin to the regal camellia and blousy azalea acolyte in a Southern garden. 

Mother was not much of a rose aficionado so I must branch out on my own with this addition to my budding garden. David Austin Roses are my rose of choice for the formal grouping in my back yard off the brick patio. As I walked in my old neighborhood in the Garden District where my husband and I grew up, I saw one perfect pink rose in several gardens. I longed to have one of my own and eventually mentioned it to my neighbor, the Camellia Queen of Dothan, Alabama, Marion Grant Hall, whose mother set her on her gardening path with the same yard. She rooted a shoot of her own Dr. Walter Van Fleet and gave it to me. It eventually took over the fence around our swimming pool. Unfortunately we sold that house when my husband retired and we moved to Panama City. He then had three brain surgeries and we returned to Dothan after Hurricane Michael to be close to Flowers Hospital, my sister and daughters.  I had to start anew with my garden and missed my old friend, Dr. Van Fleet. I planted a New Dawn, one of his descendants, but that was just not the same.  Fortunately, Petals from the Past  came through for me and it is now planted on my front fence and the other I bought is in my sister's yard. 

Though I mentioned the Camellia as the Queen of the Garden, I did not elaborate. The Camellia has several divisions. The Sasanqua blooms earlier than the Japonica that blossoms at different times during the winter months. The Sasanqua has been miniaturized to fit contemporary ideas of foundation planting. The Camellia Japonica, however, rules regally throughout those winter months in older neighborhoods, yet apparently forgotten by garden designers in new neighborhoods. As president of the local Camellia Society, I have tried to remedy that in my own yard. I purchased eight camellias reminiscent of those in Mother's garden and planted them in November. At the Camellia Show held at the Dothan Area Botanical Garden (a must place to visit in Dothan) I purchased three more from Mark Crawford from Loch Laurel Nursery in Valdosta, GA.

 

I have been making a few YouTube videos to remind myself how things progress in my yard. As I write this, I realize how things have grown in the meantime! 

I think my philosophy for my garden will be for it to be "romantic", perhaps "blousy" (meaning untrimmed, maybe what might be considered overgrown), and when the blooms are in season the term might mean "billowing." 

Happy Gardening!