A collection such as this alerts you to the diversity of snowdrops – tall,
short, slender, fat, single, double, glaucous or green-leaved – and of their
myriad markings, as well as how long a flowering season they have. “G.
reginae-olgae is out in the autumn, G. elwesii Hiemalis Group at Christmas,
‘Atkinsii’ in January and ‘Straffan’ right at the end of February,” he says.
Since Sales likes to have his garden full of interest at all times of year,
he relishes this contribution.
Now, at their midseason climax, the snowdrops are accompanied by a lemon
yellow witch hazel (Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Pallida’) in full flush, and
pools of pink Cyclamen coum, growing in small circular beds around the trees
in the lawn. In one of these beds, the cyclamen share ground with crocus,
white bluebells, self-seeding love-in-a-mist (Nigella), and Cyclamen
neapolitanum, giving an all-year flower display entirely on its own.
Elsewhere, Sales has his snowdrops under shrub roses and tree peonies, between
summer perennials and pushing through wild strawberry and other ground cover
– all crisply presented against a thin mulch of dark home-made compost.
I wondered which of the many varieties he would especially recommend. “If you
were going for only one snowdrop, it would have to be ‘S. Arnott’ – a group
gives you a lovely honey scent in the air. ‘Atkinsii’ and ‘Magnet’ are old
favourites. ‘Galatea’ I love, ‘Ailwyn’ is the best double, and ‘Armine’ is a
good late one.” He also shows me ‘Lyn’, named after his wife and found by
her in a nearby wood. Tall “like a very early-flowering Atkinsii” and quick
to colonise, it looks terrific. With other snowdrops he has introduced, his
naming has been more playful: ‘January Sales’ and ‘Compu.Ted’ (named after
his grandson Ted, a computer buff).
Snowdrop ‘Lyn’ named after John’s wife (Heathcliff O’Malley)
Sales is still involved in the management of historic gardens as a consultant
for private estates such as Chatsworth. But when not busy with this, or
entertaining his grandchildren, retirement has allowed him time to develop
his garden into a plantsman’s paradise. The maintenance is immaculate,
including in the two covered glasshouses, which sport a ‘Cornish Snow’
camellia and pots of South African bulbs, including a fat clump of pink,
poker-like Veltheimia bracteata – this last plant producing a spectacle that
I am going to try to emulate in my own frost-free porch next winter.
A life in gardens
John Sales joined the National Trust in the early Seventies as an assistant to
Graham Stuart Thomas (1909-2003), one of the country’s greatest plantsmen
and garden writers. Sales has just finished writing his memoirs, so I asked
him about his days with the Trust.
“In those days, the Trust was run by aesthetes. It had very low membership and
visitor numbers, and yet they would still take on properties such as West
Wycombe Park with an endowment of just £5,000,” says Sales. “With inflation,
that was hopeless. At that time, most gardens were viewed by many in the
Trust rather as a stage-set for the house instead of having an intrinsic
worth.
“Since they had to be run on a tight budget and there was little opportunity
to do much research into them, making them presentable was the main thing.
But there was some great talent among the head gardeners – men such as Mike
Snowden at Erddig and Jimmy Hancock at Powis Castle. With gardeners such as
Pamela Schwerdt and Sibylle Kreutzberger at Sissinghurst, who had each other
to bounce ideas off, the visits with Graham and myself were more like
conversations, but elsewhere we could be mentors to the head gardeners and
help address weaknesses – organising for them to go on a particular course
or work in another garden to help raise standards. Such interactions are
vital: people are not born good gardeners, they are made good gardeners
through contact with experts.
Vita Sackville-West with Pamela Schwerdt and Sibylle Kreutzberger at
Sissinghurst Castle (Valerie Finnis)
“There were about 80 gardens when I started, and Graham and I got around all
of them every year. His routine on a visit was to look at his previous
report, see what had been done and what hadn’t, discuss new issues and
courses of action, and then write up another report that same evening. All
the gardeners looked forward to these visits and the reports built up into
an invaluable historical record.”
During Sales’s time at the Trust, gardening and garden-visiting increased
dramatically in popularity. A membership recruitment drive by the Trust, as
well as the blossoming of garden history as an academic subject, meant that
huge restoration projects could be supported by in-depth research.
Sales maintained the system of annual visits to each garden by one of the
advisers based in Cirencester and, where there were more complicated
decisions to be made, supplementary visits by the Trust’s panel of outside
experts. He regrets changes that have happened at the NT since his
retirement.
“The aesthetes have been replaced by the money men and, in the major
reorganisation by management consultants, gardens’ advisers have been
demoted. Individual gardens now have to pay to use their services, and as a
result they don’t ask for them and don’t get visited by them. So, no longer
is anyone giving an overview. Gardens are now run by local property managers
with very few checks and balances, and with the permanent threat of
over-visiting and over-exploitation for events, food and so on, at the
expense of history and conservation.
“How is a new head gardener supposed to pick up the spirit of a place
and improve standards without mentoring and interaction with other experts?
And while you might think local decision-making promotes individuality in a
garden, in fact the opposite is true: gardens start to respond to the same
trends and begin to look the same. Winter gardens are probably the best
example. Property managers look at the moneymaking success of the one at
Anglesey Abbey and copy it, so you now have one even at Mottisfont Abbey.
What on earth has winter gardening to do with Mottisfont?
The Rose Garden at Mottisfont Abbey was established in 1972 (NTPL/Andrew
Butler)
“The Trust does terrific work, including with the training of gardeners and
the cataloguing and propagating of its gene pool of historic plant material.
But gardens are processes more than objects, and they need careful guiding.
They are complex contrived ecosystems, with layers of planting done over
different periods that need constantly adjusting to conserve their essential
character. Without an overview and a continuity of management, you get what
I call dripping transmogrification.”