MARY KEEN
Vistas, visions and possibilities
‘Do not describe me as an English flower lady,’ urged Mary Keen when I talked to her about appearing in this book. The thought had never crossed my mind that this energetic woman, who has made a name for herself as a columnist and garden designer, who ignores fads and fashions and takes a subjective approach to gardens, could ever be confused with the type of lady who wanders through her garden with a trug of flowers on her arm. Although from an aristocratic family and as the daughter of the 6th Earl Howe entitled to be addressed as Lady Mary Keen, she comes across as free of affectation and is an expert in the art of understatement. Well-read, rather intellectual, with an exceptional talent for design and a gift for the written word, she is one of the most celebrated figures of the English garden scene. She is also one of the few people assured enough to speak out on sensitive issues such as the tragic end of Hadspen Garden or the shortage of professional gardeners.
Mary Keen is at the peak of her gardening career, designing sophisticated gardens for famous clients. She was assisted on many recent projects by Pip Morrison, a young, talented landscape architect who trained at Edinburgh University and gained his practical experience under Christopher Lloyd at Great Dixter. Like many of the women gardeners in this book, Mary Keen found her way into the gardening world quite by chance. While her friends were still living in flats in London, she was already a young mother with responsibilities. As well as looking after the home and children, she was keen to find additional interests and was encouraged by her mother-in-law to take on the garden. Herself a talented painter and gardener, the senior Mrs Keen gave Mary such a thorough initiation into the mysteries of gardening that after just a few years her friends began asking for design advice. It was by this route that she became a garden design consultant. Books and articles followed, and Mary Keen soon found herself moving in distinguished gardening circles.
It would be quite wrong to think that her design and journalistic commitments – including columns in the Saturday edition of The Daily Telegraph and the Royal Horticultural Society’s monthly magazine The Garden – leave her no time to attend to her own garden. Located just north of Cirencester, in Gloucestershire, her garden is a private refuge rather than a show garden; a place specifically created for her own needs and those of her family. The Old Rectory at Duntisbourne Rouse (not easy to find without detailed directions) is hidden away within a labyrinth of narrow, winding country lanes. Time appears to have stood still deep in this ancient piece of English countryside. The fields here are smaller than elsewhere, deciduous woodland crowns the tops of rolling hills, and the whole area is steeped in a soothing sense of peace. Such spots are rare: to develop a garden in harmony with these surroundings is a challenging prospect.
SHADED LANDSCAPE
When the family moved here in 1993, the garden consisted of an area of lawn in front of the house, an odd sort of heather garden and an azure-blue swimming pool, all set in deep shade. The surrounding fields, woodland and gently undulating topography were invisible from within the 0.8-hectare/2-acre garden, which might just as well have been in a city suburb as set in the midst of such a bucolic landscape. What was lacking was a sense of atmosphere, and romance. Had this been a commission for a client, Mary Keen would have proceeded quite differently. However, the Old Rectory is her own garden and she makes clear that her personal criteria are different. She wanted it to be a place for the family to feel comfortable in and retreat to. It was to draw in the surrounding landscape yet also provide secluded areas. A kitchen garden was needed but not one so labour-intensive as to require several gardeners. And above all, the garden’s overall design should be such that the Keens could manage it alongside their other commitments, with only occasional help.
This scenario composed of the simplest of elements makes masterful use of light and shade.
Flowers play a subordinate role in the garden compared to shape, which is used to create superb effects.
Pillars of the box variety Buxus sempervirens ‘Greenpeace’ surround a large copper pot in the Summer Garden. The pot is planted, like the flower beds, with scarlet, pink and purple tulips such as Tulipa ‘Queen of Night’ and T. ‘Couleur Cardinal’.
OVERALL PICTURE
Mary Keen considers a garden’s ambience to be a vital consideration. Rather than focusing on individual plants, she is always looking at the overall picture, creating focal points and opening up vistas which reflect the spirit of a place. She favours an informal formality in which boundaries are blurred, and while nature has a place in the garden it should never dominate. Above all, Mary Keen seeks to highlight the possibilities of a place. In the case of the Old Rectory, all the essential components were present but they lacked a cohesive framework that would show them off to their best advantage. The picturesque church of St Michael’s, its interior adorned with medieval murals, stood forlorn in the middle of the adjoining field, and like the quaint outbuildings by the main house and the landscape itself, was positively crying out to be incorporated into the garden. Appreciating that a formal design would have been out of place, Mary sought a more subtle solution, an invisible framework that would pull everything together. In addition, the garden was not to consist solely of a series of highlights but also include tranquil, contemplative corners echoing the atmosphere of the place.
Knowing that first impressions are paramount, Mary Keen insists that visitors enter her garden by a particular route. If she herself is not there to welcome the party at the entrance to the drive, the instructions are to follow the gently sloping shaded drive up to the bend, then fork off following the narrow path between trees and shrubs until the vista opens up and you are standing at the end of a generous rectangular lawn with a view of the house. Flanked by vegetation on either side, this open area has a spacious and reflective quality and is a wonderful introduction to the garden. Just looking at the tall, two-storey former rectory with its doll’s-house facade gives you the sense of stepping into a period drama. Mary is quick to point out that the facade has no great architectural merit, but with plant pots arranged around the front porch and roses draped over the stone walls it does have great charm. Yet there is no clue as to what the rest of the garden will be like. Driven on by curiosity, you soon discover that this is a garden which opens up gradually, constructed on different levels so that it is impossible to predict what is around the next corner.
The juxtaposition of geometric shapes and informal groups of flowers, as shown here around the porch, is evident throughout this highly personal garden, designed by Mary Keen as a place for family members to enjoy.
Since there is no hierarchical organization in the structure of the paths, no separation into main and side paths, the choice of where to wander once the visitor reaches the front of the house is left open. Should I turn left towards the yew pillars, which are just visible, or right, towards the gap in the hedge? Individuals with a more adventurous spirit opt for the gap in the hedge and are surprised to find themselves looking down on a garden out of which four tall columns of Buxus sempervirens ‘Greenpeace’ rise. This is the Summer Garden, an area that appears to be square in outline but is in fact more like a quarter circle. The fact that the narrow, cruciform paths virtually disappear in summer in a sea of flowers is intentional as Mary Keen wants people to brush against the plants, feel them at close quarters and be obliged to stop and look at them. As is the case in the rest of the garden, the overall effect is important. Mary’s garden is not designed for a flighty, quick visit or to stroll side by side with a friend, chatting – the paths are too narrow for this – but to school the eye and awaken the senses to the spirit of the place.
SOPHISTICATED PLANTING
In the Summer Garden, colours and shapes capture the attention. A framework of shrubs, chosen for their form and foliage, both serves as background and provides highlights, living evidence of Mary Keen’s extensive plant knowledge: silver buckthorn (Rhamnus alaternus ‘Argenteovariegata’), Magnolia × soulangeana ‘Lennei’ and Buddleja davidii ‘Dartmoor’, as well as roses including Rosa ‘La Reine Victoria’, R. ‘Constance Spry’ and R. ‘Mme Isaac Pereire’. Pink, scarlet and purple are the predominant tones. Once the tulips have finished flowering, it is the turn of perennial honesty (Lunaria rediviva), comfrey (Symphytum × uplandicum), as well as peonies, irises and giant thistle-like Onopordum. The planting appears anarchic; it is not arranged according to height but interspersed with tall perennials rising up at frequent intervals. What Mary Keen has achieved is to develop and freshen the cottage-garden look and make it her own. The planting bears testimony to her masterly expertise and her passion for the unusual, such as the almost purple-coloured honesty (Lunaria annua) collected in Corfu and now flourishing in this sheltered, sunny spot.
The excitement of the Summer Garden is followed by calm; an opening in the hedge leads to the Pool Garden and brings a change of mood. Enclosed by yew hedging, the rectangular swimming pool is surrounded by lawn, creating an area which could not be simpler. Following on from this is another opening where formality gives way to more natural surroundings, described by Mary Keen as ‘the dell, a wild place with species Malus, Crataegus and Euonymus, and roses, and surrounded by banks of snowdrops which are followed by blue Anemone blanda and Anemone apennina.’ From here a long, narrow path guides the visitor along the boundary to two strategically placed yews, which frame a view of the church.
EXUBERANT COLOURS
The path then takes the visitor with great finesse up a slight slope to a small apple orchard, passing the schoolhouse and the hellebore borders en route to the ‘loud beds’ either side of the gate leading into the Kitchen Garden. Whereas white flowers were banished by Mary from the Summer Garden, they are on full show in this area. No attempt has been made to stick to a specific colour scheme: the gaily coloured and casual profusion of plants includes old-fashioned light brown and pale yellow bearded irises – Mary Keen finds the modern cultivars ‘too frilly’ – along with blue aquilegias and the lacy white flowers of umbellifers. The result is glorious and refreshing. Compared with this kaleidoscope of colours, the meadow under the apple trees on the other side of the path appears almost disciplined, even restrained. Having come finally to a halt, you suddenly become aware of the panorama visible from this point in the garden. Looking towards the house and into the landscape beyond, it seems as if the meadows and woods form part of the garden. Punctuated by the yew pillars of the lower terrace and framed by the apple trees in the orchard, this is the epitome of the English country idyll (pictured on pages 10–11). It was this corner of the garden that particularly impressed me on my first visit, the informal structures alongside formal ones, set off by wild ox-eye daisies in the orchard. The more time you spend in the garden, the more you realize how important these contrasts are and how the harmonious sequence of areas is what sets this garden apart.
ENCHANTED PLACE
Another eye-catching feature in the garden is the wooden half-gate leading into the Kitchen Garden. It restricts and frames the view, allowing just a glimpse through into the other side. Entering the Kitchen Garden is like stepping into an enchanted place. In front of you is a magnificent view of the church, beckoning in the distance. Both sides of the broad grassy path are lined with flowers for cutting, such as cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus) and sweet Williams (Dianthus barbatus), which surround the vegetable beds. Whatever route you choose to explore the Kitchen Garden, you will eventually end up at Mary Keen’s long, recently planted ‘pictorial meadow mixture’ border. Meadows are Mary Keen’s latest passion. The flower meadows at the Olympic Park in East London designed by Sarah Price, in collaboration with experts James Hitchmough and Nigel Dunnett from the University of Sheffield, received much acclaim – so much so that ‘pictorial meadows’ are all the rage and have found their way into many gardens, including Mary Keen’s. Unlike many amateur gardeners, however, she was aware that annual flower meadows are more demanding and require more maintenance than one might think. After having thoroughly prepared the ground, she scattered the ‘pictorial meadow’ seed mix developed by the University of Sheffield comprising a wide range of annual species such as Ammi majus, Eschscholzia californica and Phacelia tanacetifolia, and waited to see how they would develop. The first year was marvellous, but to maintain the effect the area had to be weeded and re-sown every year. Mary’s solution is ingenious: she added a framework of ornamental grasses such as Calamagrostis × acutiflora ‘Overdam’ and Deschampsia cespitosa ‘Goldschleier’, along with other species including Chaerophyllum hirsutum ‘Roseum’ and Dianthus carthusianorum. The hope is that these plants will bulk up and together with the self-seeding annuals be a colourful and airy but easy-to-manage border.
Hellebore beds line the path leading up to the old schoolhouse. Interplanted with all kinds of snowdrop, they provide a beautiful show in spring.
The garden’s sloping site, terraced into different levels, allows for some charming vistas – such as this glimpse of the church.
Patina, so vital to the feel of an English country garden, cannot be reproduced instantaneously. The knack lies in spotting and making the most of opportunities, as here at the entrance to the Kitchen Garden.
Fittingly, she paraphrases the poet Goethe in saying that a garden does not develop according to a plan but from the heart. Her garden invites you to linger, to sit in one of the niches dotted around the place and to daydream. The longer you spend in the garden of the Old Rectory, the more aware you become of the detail, the subtle alterations that occur as the light changes and as one season gives way to the next. As Mary puts it, ‘it is about making the garden accessible – you will see weeds.’ She has given her garden a voice, a unique character so natural that the garden could have been like this forever. Like a good piece of music, it is full of rhythm, quiet passages and crescendos, never loud or shrill but well-rounded, harmonious and exciting.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
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As Mary Keen explains in Creating a Garden (1996): ‘Garden design is much more than just drawing layouts on paper. The process begins by spending long hours outside to build up an intimate knowledge of the site.’ |
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Avoid trying too hard or the result might end up looking contrived. |
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Incorporate areas to explore and where it feels as if you could lose yourself. |
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The illusion of an English rural idyll pervades Mary Keen’s entire garden, an effect that is not due to flower displays alone but also a carefully conceived framework. The unexpected awaits round every corner. |
SIGNATURE PLANTS
Mary Keen would not wish to be without any of the following:
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Apple trees. |
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Snowdrops (Galanthus), different varieties and species. |
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Windflowers such as blue Anemone blanda. |
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Auricula primulas, placed on a stand or in a theatre. |
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Annuals and wallflowers including Erysimum ‘Bowles’s Mauve’. |
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Double Dahlia ‘Arabian Night’ and other cultivars. |