Alan Titchmarsh: The legendary British garden designer who labored for kings, queens and A-listers across the world

Fantastic garden designers ‘have a plant vocabulary that runs into hundreds or even thousands’ states Alan — and that’s at the heart of Russell Page’s genius.

In the pantheon of excellent backyard garden designers, the identify of Russell Website page looms significant. It might be assumed that this is due to the quality of his clientele: kings, queens, magnates and musicians, but at the root of it all — apart from talent — is the simple fact that Web page grew his career, rather virtually, from the floor up. The re-publication of his memoir The Education of a Gardener serves as a reminder that, when it will come to coming up with gardens, no amount of artistic expertise can make up for deficiency of plant expertise.

Leonardo da Vinci, Canaletto, Joshua Reynolds and Pablo Picasso, no matter of what you assume of their design and style, all understood how paint worked — how to blend it, how to use it, its properties and its shortcomings. There are parallels in yard style and design: it is not more than enough to attract satisfying patterns on graph paper and to know a pair of dozen great plants that will match most cases.

Excellent yard designers have a plant vocabulary that runs into hundreds or even thousands. Website page was one particular these types of. Why? For the reason that his profession was established on a really like of crops.

A campanula he purchased at the age of 14 led him to construct a rock backyard garden to accommodate it, together with other alpines that sparked his curiosity. He grew his job pyramid with a broad base, launched on plant expertise, which, put together with his artistry and talent, built him one particular of the biggest of backyard garden designers. Schooled at Charterhouse in Surrey and the Slade College of Art, his awareness was augmented with visits to wonderful gardens and great gardeners — Lawrence Johnston at Hidcote in Gloucestershire and Gertrude Jekyll at Munstead Wooden in Surrey.

The backyard at Munstead Wood in Surrey. ©Country Everyday living

Website page was a sponge: soaking up know-how that he set into apply in his gardens — observing how plants grew, how they worked alongside one another, which problems they suited — or not — and how greatest to use them for remarkable impact. He realized layout from the likes of Geoffrey Jellicoe, Richard Sudell and Stéphane Boudin of Maison Jansen in Paris. He was a lifelong close friend of the renowned French horticulturist André Vilmorin.

I noticed him 40 years in the past at Chelsea Flower Display — shaven headed, with dim-rimmed glasses, putting on a black polo neck and black jacket. His physical appearance seemed daunting. I wish I’d had the nerve to technique him and say how a great deal I admired his work. As it was, I experienced to make do with a signed copy of The Education and learning of a Gardener, acquired from the nearby bookstall.

What built him so scary? I suppose it experienced a little something to do with the simple fact that most of his consumers have been famous, wealthy and effective: the Duke and Duchess of York (afterwards George VI and Queen Elizabeth), the King of the Belgians, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the Fiat heir Gianni Agnelli, William and Suzanna Walton on the Italian island of Ischia and the Wrightsmans in the US.

He was effectively aware of his individual worth: ‘I know much more about crops than most designers, and much more about style and design than most plantsmen.’ That put together information took him all in excess of the world, developing intimate gardens for a discerning — and properly-heeled — clientele, as perfectly as extensive expanses of terrain this sort of as the 140-acre PepsiCo backyard garden in New York.

Still none of these connections could have designed up for a lack of expertise. In 1951, he was involved in coming up with gardens for the Pageant of Britain in Battersea Park. It acquired him an OBE.

The Festival of Britain pleasure gardens at Battersea Park, London. (Photograph by J. A. Hampton/Topical Press Company/Getty Illustrations or photos)

In The Instruction of a Gardener, we master about his enthusiasm for vegetation, his viewpoints on how they ought to finest be made use of and his sights on what makes a excellent yard. His name could be little acknowledged to a new era of back garden designers, but they would do well to sit down and read his memoir, which is a heartening tale of how a boy who cherished rock vegetation remodeled into a very respected designer of higher-course gardens close to the globe.

As are all of us who style and design gardens, he was informed of the frustrations of working with a substance whose condition, type and colour is for good shifting. Our functions of art are hardly ever concluded, which is why Web site confessed to discovering that the system gave him much more satisfaction than the success.

I suppose we are all a little like that. ‘Success,’ they notify us, ‘is a journey, not a location.’ Web site would include that the similar could be reported for garden design and style. Not that purchasers experienced any problems about his function. They revered the outcomes each individual bit as much as the man who developed them.

Alan Titchmarsh’s guide The Gardener’s Almanac is out now


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