When in Great Britain, stop and smell the flowers

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Apr 3, 2005 by David Armstrong San Francisco Chronicle

LONDON -- It might not be strictly true that all British people are born with a green thumb; it just seems that way.

Truly, the Brits are, in the wryly affectionate words of the Economist, "potty about planting." Rarely has any nation been so dedicated to digging up and beautifying even the smallest front yard plot, while Britain's public gardens provide glorious outbursts of color in deepest countryside and central city.

Britain proclaimed 2004 "The Year of Gardening," to honor the 200th anniversary of the Royal Horticultural Society, an esteemed nonprofit organization that dispenses gardening advice, runs magnificent gardens of its own and organizes the annual Chelsea Flower Show (Britain's Woodstock for plant lovers).

Among many other things, travelers can visit a working lavender farm on the isle of Jersey and watch as five varieties of aromatic lavender are steamed and distilled into essential oils; inspect a garden in Cumbria inspired by Beatrix Potter, author of the "Peter Rabbit" tales; drop in at Perthshire, Scotland, to see the country's largest collection of heather (900 varieties).

The choices of public gardens are almost too many to count. Here are seven personal favorites, concentrated in London and the southeast of England.

Kew Gardens

Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, better known as Kew Gardens, was recently designated as a World Heritage Site, and you can see why. At 300 acres and hosting a record 30,000 plant species, it's the mother of all British gardens.

"Eclectic" doesn't begin to describe its bounty, including a 10- story high Chinese pagoda, a bamboo garden and a Japanese garden, just to show its keepers are aware of the great gardeners of the East, as well as their own Western tradition. Two wonderful view- corridors slice through the spacious grounds, with grassy lanes shaded by tall, full, ancient trees. The waterside promenade through gnarly English oaks along the River Thames is a delight.

The elegant white glasshouse called the Palm House, which inspired San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers, is a must-see. A splendid example of Victorian grandeur, it holds all manner of tropical plants hauled back by Her Majesty's imperial emissaries

in the 19th and early 20th centuries; they flourish in a steamy hothouse atmosphere cooled by delicate sprays of water. You'll probably share the building with giggling gaggles of English schoolchildren in their shirts and ties and pleated skirts.

Kew also boasts a huge glasshouse for temperate plants, a blooming rose garden at its height in the summer months and no fewer than four restaurants. If you want to take a load off, the Kew Explorer, a small-wheeled tram, circles the grounds in 40 minutes (for an additional $6 adults and $3 for children 5-16). Oh, there's a redwood grove, too, for homesick Californians. Crikey.

Sissinghurst Castle

Well-known for its literary associations, this estate with its magnificent gardens and grounds was the mid-20th century home of the author Vita Sackville-West and her writer/diplomat husband, Harold Nicolson. Vita's sometimes-lover, Virginia Woolf, was a frequent visitor. Now maintained by the nonprofit National Trust, the gardens were designed by Nicolson and Sackville-West in the 1930s and actually number 10 gardens, each reaching its peak at a different time of year.

The site features the British penchant for garden "rooms": distinctly different spaces demarcated by hedges that re-create the feeling of rooms in a great-house. The most famous and most impressive garden "room" is the white garden, planted, at Sackville- West's suggestion, so she and Nicolson could find their way around the grounds in the moonlight reflected from white and gray blossoms of clematis, roses and other plants.

Also notable are the herb garden, the orchard and the lime walk, a formal corridor of pruned lime trees.

Wisley

Diversity is the byword at RHS Garden Wisley, one of four gardens operated by the estimable Royal Horticultural Society. The alpine display house holds flowering alpine plants and mosses in a small glasshouse, a big, working vegetable garden demonstrates organic methods of cultivation and the orchid house allows up-close-and- personal looks at this most extraterrestrial-looking of flowering plants. A rock garden and an herb garden are also on ample display.

When we visited in late May (last year), daisies cheerily sprinkled a hillside meadow and water lilies floated elegantly on the surface of a foreshortened canal, while wisteria climbed the loggia at the canal's end. Wisley is known for its brilliant rhododendrons in springtime. A large nursery captures attention on the way out. We bought half a dozen large seed packets of beets and parsnips and other winter vegetables for our small home garden, as living mementos.

Museum of Garden History

Installed in a desanctified church bordered by a churchyard cemetery and greenery, this Thames-side institution is one of London's quirky curiosities.

Antiquated garden implements abound in glass display cases indoors, and vintage advertisements tout bygone garden tools such as a lightweight "ladies' lawn mower." A simple cafe sells organic nibbles and teas. In back of the old church, the small walled green space exhibits plants introduced to Britain in the 17th century and features a knot garden: a tight, symmetrical pattern of hedges interspersed with roses, herbaceous perennials and other plants that provide color and fragrance in summer.