[Music]
hello and welcome to gardens through
history
my name is hazel gardner i'm a floor
designer and keen horticulturist in this
series i'll be visiting some of the most
fascinating english heritage sites
around the country i'll be meeting the
teams that help maintain them learning
about the history and finding out how
they keep these gardens as original to
their designs as possible
i'll also be sharing with you the top
tips and historical gardening techniques
i'm going to learn whether you're a
seasoned professional or just starting
out there'll be something inspiring for
you to use at home
coming up in this episode i visit
kenilworth castle in warwickshire which
is home to a stunning elizabethan garden
full of eye-catching blooms before i
talk to the team about how the garden is
maintained today i need to discover how
it was created destroyed and eventually
restored for that i'm chatting to john
watkins
hi john hi hazel lovely to see you
welcome to kenilworth
so we are standing in the incredible
kendall birth castle can you tell me
about why and when this castle came to
be so it's in the 12th century that
jeffrey clinton established the castle
here built it on a mount where sort of
two roads met a sort of important
geographical site in the midlands and it
continued to be an important royal site
it was king john that developed the
defenses here uh he built the walls
around the castle and also
developed the mir which is a large lake
that provided it with major defenses on
one side and also made it a very
attractive castle to live in as well
the earl of leicester was uh given this
by queen elizabeth the first because it
was actually his father that had first
been
given kennel worth castle and he didn't
hold for very long because mary the
first
had him executed for supporting lady
jane gray
robert dudley
as he was
initially known was the first person
that elizabeth the first gave a post to
they'd been childhood friends if you
imagine you're a young female queen who
do you make your first appointments to
the people you trust so she made him
master of the horse
by making him master the horse it meant
that he had to at her beckon court all
the time because he was responsible for
all her transport
she made him all of leicester
and also um gave him back the family
castle which was uh kennewor castle and
it was various posts that elizabeth had
given him that allowed him to have the
money to do what he did here at
kenilworth castle which was quite major
so elizabeth's final visit here was for
19 days can you tell me what exactly
happened during that visit and why the
garden played such an important role
elizabeth visited a number of times in a
way i was thinking it's elizabeth
visiting to see
how her investment is coming on because
it was sort of in a way her money that
was paying for it so she
the major developments on the whole
castle modernizing it there's a whole
new wing but her visit in 1575 19 days
was part of her tours around the country
to sort of set the picture if you just
imagine it's
it's all of those people it's all of
their staff and their staff would be the
people to look after them
people to look after their horses
you realize how this made the garden
very special
because it's the one place where it was
a private garden
for uh lester and his guest and the key
guest here was was the queen so it would
have been the top notch of the top notch
that would have come in here
there's a man called
robert langham he had the job of
plumping up the cushions for privy
castle meetings he had previously been a
mercer a mercer somebody buys and sells
cloth he wrote up a whole visit for 19
days as a letter to another mercer and
that allowed us to know about the garden
now
this letter is really useful first of
all it describes the structure of the
garden
describes a garden that is divided into
four quarters with a fountain at the
center with an obelisk in the middle of
each quarter
and it describes paths it even describes
what the gravel is like on the parts but
what is actually even more special it
tells us it's even much better than a
plan it tells us what it's like to be in
the garden
and if you've got a moment i'll read you
a bit of language letter because it
brings it
all to life
a garden then so appointed
as wearing aloft upon sweet shadowed
walk of terrace in heat of summer to
feel the pleasant whisking wind about or
delectable coolness of the fountain
spring beneath to taste of delicious
strawberries cherries and other fruits
eaten from their stalks
to smell such fragrancy of sweet odours
breathing from the plants herbs and
flowers to hear such natural melodious
music and tunes of birds tahu and i for
mirth summers springs and streams then
the woods
the waters for both pool and chase were
hard at hand in sight
the deer and the people
and that out of the east arbor and the
base of the court also in hand in view
the fruit trees plants the herbs the
flowers the changing colours
the birds flittering
the fountain streaming
the fish swimming
all in such delectable variety order and
dignity whereby at one moment in one
place at hand without travail
so full fruition of so many god's
blessings
so i think that really gives a a feel of
what it was like to to be in the garden
in in 1575. it's been fascinating to
learn about this garden there really is
something for every sense it's just
absolutely stunning thank you so much
john it's my pleasure
recapturing the stunning look of the
gardens was a difficult task not least
of all because of the limited source
material available recreating was the
first step the next was maintaining the
gardens so they could be appreciated for
years to come to discover more i'm
speaking to philip coral garden
supervisor here at kennelworth castle hi
phillip hello lovely to meet you so nice
to meet you so we are standing here in
this beautifully maintained garden
can you tell me a bit about how you
decided to choose what plants went in
here
uh well many of the plants uh many of
the information about we have from the
garden was from the langham letter
so he wasn't a plant man by any means he
described some of the plants so they had
the pear trees they had strawberries and
a few other bits and bobs but
he didn't know about the plants
themselves
uh he did however describe that
many of them were highly scented which
tells us that this was a gilly flower
garden which was a popular style at the
time and gilly flowers they were things
like stocks hesperus
wallflowers and various various other
ones so the queen would wander around
the gardens she would be she would be
smelling the lovely fragrance as we are
today one of the things i've seen in
this garden is also the use of pots
what's the benefit of using them in your
garden well in any garden it allows you
to add interest and colour anywhere that
might be so hard standing historically
here one of the key aspects would have
been that many of these plants were
being seen in the country for the very
first time so they would have been
really really expensive and they could
be shown off
in pride of place just this individual
planter or one small group of plants
could be in this single pot just to
really show it off and what kind of
plants do you use here at kennel worth
in pots uh well some i'll use lily the
valley to help have some scent around
the place sometimes lavender marigolds
the main thing for this garden is things
should be absolutely perfect all the
time worthy of a queen
well i think they completely are
a little budgie tells me that also that
you need some help with some gardening
there's always plenty around here we
have a particular job with strawberry
plants for you if you like amazing my
favorite thing let's go
park up just there we'll go here
so the gardens about this point are 12
years old so they've started to develop
some issues with their pest diseases
with the planting plan being so as it is
the same in year and year out so one of
the problems we've had is the strawberry
plants planted around some of the edges
have been dying off so we have thrift
round one at one half and then
strawberries round another so what we're
going to do is basically swap them over
so this bed here used to have thrift in
it as thick as this one just here
and now it's going to be planted with
strawberries and they should thrive
perfectly well
this first one here they'll all be along
the edge here sang with it dig a little
hole
and we're going to plant it like that
yep firm the soil down get any ones out
of the way give a sort of nice ruffle
like that so it's nice and smooth for
the visitors
so the next thing to do would be with
our fancy measuring stick yeah we're
going to measure from the very center of
the plant just there and with the second
plant
it'll go at the very center of the end
of the stick and this way we know they
are equal distance apart and they'll be
all the same all the way around so if
you'd like to doesn't matter exactly how
but it's roughly right yeah and just so
they're all exactly the same for this
formal garden it gives you a guide
doesn't it that's it nice firm firmly in
contact with the soil and the soil is
nice here do you kind of add anything
naturally to it uh we also add some
manure to it and various things
throughout the years i've just top soil
just to just to help beef up the plants
so they've got all the nutrients they
need to grow and flourish as they do and
people watching may be like oh my
goodness strawberries have a tendency to
go everywhere in your garden if you
plant one but not this time they do
indeed these ones are called baron von
solmascher
which is a variety that doesn't produce
any any runners so it's uh very easy to
maintain so
purely spreads by seed
and we can just keep them going as that
yeah brilliant one of the reasons we
have uh flowers on the edge i've been
told historically was uh so the ladies
can walk past and brush with their
skirts and release the scent of the
leaves i know that that's still used now
actually it's really important in garden
design that you do have something that
you can ruffle past whether it's
rosemary or anything like that to give
off that scent as well do you feed these
or do you just let nature take its
course uh we'll sometimes add a bit of
fertilizer over the soil yeah so usually
i prefer to have manure over the winter
and but uh it turns on it is really but
uh yeah we'll always answer to try and
help it out it can't can't survive on
its own merits forever
well beautiful thank you so much for
showing me this very handy technique
thank you very much that's a bit of work
done
[Music]
i really hope you've enjoyed my visit to
kenilworth castle gardens here today
i've learned some fantastic techniques
that i really want to share with you the
first one is the use of pots they're
great you can control the soil and you
can grow herbs vegetables and obviously
flowers my second tip is to use vertical
trellises and arbors they're a great way
to punctuate a pathway and also perfect
to frame windows and cover walls
i really hope you've enjoyed the series
and make sure that you tune in next time
when i'll be visiting another
fascinating english heritage garden