As her year as our Horticultural Trainee comes to a close, Caroline Cathcart shares her final garden placement, far away from our Lambeth patch in La Petraia, Tuscany:
High up in the Tuscan hills in Chianti sits La Petraia, a secluded estate that looks out over a vast rural landscape. The surrounding vineyards roll into dense woodland, where the bare branches of the downy oak, blanched to a blue-green pallor with lichen, appear from a distance like the flowers of the smoke bush, Cotinus coggygria, amassing on the hillsides in glaucous swathes tinged with pink.
I arrived at La Petraia at sunset, and was shown around by the head gardener, Will Smithson. In the golden light, the garden’s wash of silvers and pale bluish-greens cast any notion of winter’s bleak colour palette aside. In fact, the garden held so much interest it was hard to think of winter at all, bolstered by the looming presence of the Italian Cyprus, Cupressus sempervirens, and the structural support of evergreen shrubs with their fresh foliage set against the white background of tufa stone gravel.
Although the garden’s verdure belied the season, signs of spring were hidden all around—in the almond trees burgeoning with pink buds; the green hellebore, Helleborus viridis, flowering amongst the leaf litter on the wooded banks; tulip leaves in terracotta pots, sweet violets, and the purple gleams of the aptly named crocus, ‘Spring Beauty’.
The next morning I awoke to a clamour of birdsong. A multitude of species hidden in the far reaches of the woodland, all singing together in a harmonious cacophony. My bird knowledge is poor, but I did spot a blue tit, (known as cinciarella in Italy), in the mulberry tree outside my little house, where we later found a hornet’s nest in the hollowed out trunk.
That morning, Will and I went hunting for hazel to coppice in the woodland. Having marvelled at the woods from afar, as I trampled through them, staring up at the downy oaks, I saw that many of the trees had held onto last year’s leaves. Shone through with early spring light, these lingering leaves, desiccated to the palest of coppers, had given the woodland the pink tinge I observed from a distance.
The downy oak, Quercus pubescens, predominates in the woodland. Its drought tolerance enables it to thrive in the dry, rocky conditions found there. La Petraia translates as ‘heap of stones’ or ‘stony place’, I could attest to this as I made my way through the forest’s craggy terrain, keeping an eye out for hazel catkins and wild flowers. The dry conditions made it inhospitable for many of my favourite woodlanders, but those that could bear it were scattered throughout—cyclamen, wild daphne, juniper and the stinking hellebore, Helleborus foetidus. I ate a dusty-blue berry from a juniper bush and it tasted like gin, pine-like and floral. But it was the cornus mas that won my heart, a true harbinger of spring, with its small yellow flowers on bare stems brightening up the understory beneath the oaks.
We used our foraged hazel to build arches in the cutting garden. In the summer months, cobaea and sweet pea would smother the wood. The autumn-sown seedlings saw out the winter in the glasshouse, where a mass of bees buzzed around the stored lemons, collecting the nectar from their white, sweet-smelling flowers.
A great many tasks and wanderings filled the rest of my week—sowing seeds in the glasshouse; planting cherry trees to be trained into fans; exploring the meadows; staring at lichen; a garden visit to Villa I Tatti; chitting potatoes; a full worm moon, pink sunsets, and lots of lovely chats with Will, whose kindness and generosity with his time and knowledge made the whole experience all the more special. I went home with my suitcase stuffed with lichen, porcupine quills, oak galls, and a handful of lemons picked straight from the tree.
When I returned to work at the museum, the crocus and irises that had seen us through the winter were finished and the early spring bulbs were out. St. Mary’s was awash with daffodils, and in the courtyard, hepatica, corydalis, and the eagerly awaited whorled fritillary, Fritillaria verticillata, were in full bloom.
Spring had come at last, and with its arrival my time as the Garden Museum’s Horticultural Trainee comes to an end. I began my traineeship on a rainy day last April and was instantly charmed by the array of beautiful and unusual spring flowers on show in the courtyard pots. Planted up by the previous trainee, Thomas Rutter, the pots signified a connection between his time in the garden, and mine, and symbolised the altruism that came to define all the plants people I met this year.
Just as Thomas was not there to see the spring bulbs he planted bloom, nor will I be. As I leave, the courtyard pots burgeon with the foliage of the flowers to be adored by the next trainee—to whom I wish the very best of luck. Although I’m sad to go, I’m leaving as a better gardener, thanks to Matt [Collins, Head Gardener] and all the other wonderful plants people I was lucky to meet along the way. I leave with a notebook full of rare and special plants, new friends, invaluable contacts and experiences in beautiful gardens I could only have dreamt of a year ago. For all that, I am truly grateful.
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