Running a garden as famous as Hidcote Manor is as much about balancing competing pressures as it is about tending plants.
The inspiration for countless other spaces, this Arts and Crafts influenced garden created by Lawrence Johnston in the early 20th century has features, such as the Red Borders, that are instantly recognisable.
Yet, like all gardens there is the inevitable change of plants outgrowing their allotted space or lifespan, which must be managed. At Hidcote though, large-scale alterations would be frowned upon by the garden’s international audience. Do too little and you risk staleness creeping in. Be too radical – replanting the Red Borders as yellow, for example – and outrage would follow.
It’s something that underpins the work of Head Gardener Lottie Allen, now three years into the post.
Tasked with implementing a new conservation management plan, she is setting about revitalising the garden while remaining true to its creator’s vision.
‘It’s really exciting,’ she tells me. ‘The plan has given us a clear picture of what we need to do, what we already have, and how to go forward respecting what Johnston planted, his ethos and his belief in the garden.’
It’s no quick fix either with years of work ahead just renovating Hidcote’s many hedges that have become too big, taking up too much space or creating unwanted shade on borders.
Lottie is also determined not to rush into decisions: ‘The benefit of a garden that’s in so many sections is that we can do it one at a time and get it right before we move onto the next.’
The work is still in its early stages having been shelved when the pandemic cut the garden team to just four during lockdown.
‘We were very much down to the bare bones and the bare minimum of what we could do,’ recalls Lottie.
Some areas will be merely tweaked: a Holm oak to one side of the Gazeboes has been cut back to balance planting on the other side; trees and shrubs are being reduced in size in the Maple Garden to allow in more light.
In the Red Borders, the team are experimenting with the way the tender perennials and annuals are used, mixing them up rather than planting in drifts.
‘It’s not necessarily selection of plants that we use, but the way we’re using them.’
Much of the topiary has become too big. The much-photographed birds at the entrance to the pool garden had drastically narrowed the path. They’ve been cut back but Lottie is still undecided about whether to simply replant – ‘We’ll maybe give them another year to see whether they respond.’
Likewise, topiary birds in the White Garden have become a problem.
‘We call them the fat birds because they’re massive compared to what they should be,’ says Lottie.
‘You should be able to see the borders behind them but they’ve got way out of proportion.’
They too will be cut back first with replacements being grown on in the nursery in case they’re needed.
In places, the need to find an alternative to box thanks to the twin problems of blight and box moth caterpillar have led to other plants being trialled, notably euonymus.
‘I go through phases of liking it and not liking it,’ admits Lottie. ‘I don’t like the fact that it’s darker green and has really shiny leaves. It cuts nicely and it’s smart but it’s not box.’
So far, it’s been used in the Maple Garden and Fuchsia Garden where the team have discovered that they must cut it early in the season to ensure it copes with winter weather.
The Fuchsia Garden is one area where the planting has changed, going back to more permanent things with hardy fuchsias in the beds and the tender ‘Hidcote Beauty’ in containers.
‘We were planting tulips in here every year and then putting sort of seasonal bedding in and it's just too much.’
One area that has seen no reduction in workload is the Old Garden where huge herbaceous borders are a summer highlight. Such is their size and the density of the planting that Lottie admits weeding is an impossibility at the height of the season – ‘Unless something is waving at us from the middle of the border and we can’t ignore it.’
The colour theme is pastel with nepeta, geranium, alliums, hemerocallis, foxgloves, asters and foxtail lilies just some of the stars.
At its heart is a rustic arch made from wood found in the garden that’s smothered with honeysuckle and Rosa ‘Goldfinch’.
The White Garden has just been replanted to make its display more focussed, using a smaller range of plants that will flower together rather than trying to have something in bloom for many months.
‘It will look amazing for probably one month in the year,’ says Lottie.
Using the smaller areas of the garden for short, dazzling displays is something Johnston was known to have done, with the larger areas alone planted for longer interest.
In the Pillar Garden, the yew pillars have already been cut back and most have responded well. Self-sown campanula, and alstroemeria that’s all but hiding a low wall by the nearby philadelphus walk are also going to be tackled.
‘It’s become one of those areas that we've just been maintaining, and we need to really start to do some work and reflect on what Johnson did.’
Other plans include adding more shrubs to the stream garden to follow Johnston’s planting more closely, tackling infestations of bindweed and hogweed, and in time reinstating water in the primula pool to give reflections.
A long-term goal is revitalising the Long Borders, huge 12ft-deep spaces of Old English roses and herbaceous punctuated by Irish yew. One challenge is to extend the season beyond the roses: ‘They flower and then the whole border sort of crashes. There isn't really a lot beyond it.’
With a permanent team of 11, down from the pre-pandemic 13, the amount of work required to not only implement the changes but maintain them is always uppermost in Lottie’s mind.
‘I don't want to be taking on extra that we then actually can't maintain. So, it's important that we do it in a staggered, responsible way.’
Because of this, the Kitchen Garden has been scaled back with only one area now producing crops and those are mainly perennials, such as rhubarb. Other parts are now nursery beds to trial plants before they are put into the main garden or are laid to lawn for events.
There’s also discussion on how to cut down on the weeding needed in the Rock Bank, a feature reinstated at Hidcote some years ago.
That said, there’s a move to get away from the low maintenance planting introduced when the National Trust first took over Hidcote.
‘Johnston would never have expected us to keep it in aspic,’ says Lottie. ‘Instead, our mission is to reflect the genius of his planting style and cultivate the essence he and his friends would have experienced.’
Details of Hidcote Manor are on the website: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk
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