Horticulture - from Seed to Vase

Sustainable growing with respect for the environment and wildlife

Why locally grown cut flowers are sustainable and better for our environment

EnvironmentalColourful flowers are an important part of the planting scheme at Chernocke House and the ability to cut flowers has always been essential for me. The pleasure a colourful vase of flowers brings is so wonderful that sharing this feeling and pleasure was something I really wanted to do. I have always been a little saddened by the environmental cost of shipping flowers around the globe, even if they are free trade. We should not expect to get anything we want whatever the season, Roses in February are just not right and we shouldn’t expect to be able to have them. There is something special about waiting for the right time to have what is in season in our climate and appreciating them more. Tulips in April and peonies in May/June, Dahlias in July/August they are all worth waiting for and look so much better when they are picked and put in the vase on the same day. The small travelling distance allows flowers that are just not available in the supermarkets or wholesalers. They are also not treated with chemicals to extend their life; this does mean that they will rarely last more than a week in the vase, but their scent and beauty are worth it too!

I try hard to extend this view of sustainable flowers to my growing and practices in the garden. I do not use single use plastics and all my pots, trays, buckets and crates are often second hand and are always washed and used year after year. I have moved to peat free compost and use only jute twine which is compostable. We have three huge compost bins which we use to produce some of our own compost and any mulch we need to buy in is sourced locally. Last year we put an 18000 litre rainwater collection tank under our new Mediterranean garden to help with watering, alongside our existing water butts. All the taps and hoses around the garden are fed from this tank. We try to allow natural predators to control the aphids, slugs and snails in the garden which can sometimes be a little devasting when all my cosmos seedlings are eaten by snails in the greenhouse! I grow many plants to encourage bees and other pollinators and I have a small stumpery in the garden to encourage other wildlife. On my project list is a pond to add more biodiversity. Hopefully this Autumn we will manage to create a pond somewhere in the garden.

My Horticultural Influences and Education

My love of gardening has been central to my life since we moved to Chernocke House in 2002. The house is thatched and reflects the arts and crafts style of architecture – it was built in 1910 as a ‘dower house’ by the Chernocke-Downes family who then owned Aspley House opposite on Bedford Road.

In 2002 the garden at Chernocke House was mainly grass pock-marked with molehills. We had visited beautiful gardens including Sissinghurst in Kent, Hidcote in Gloucestershire and Houghton Hall in Norfolk.

These gardens inspired us to develop a style of garden design and planting that we nicknamed ‘country house meets cottage garden’. We divided the garden into a series of separate ‘rooms’ screened by hedging of Yew, Holly and Hornbeam. The main garden is overlooked by a large Horse Chestnut tree that produces a mass of beautiful red candle flowers in May – we have added Silver Birches, pleached Hornbeams, fruit arch, topiarised Holm Oaks and Olive trees for the Mediterranean garden. Over the years we have gradually added and extended herbaceous planting drawing heavily on the inspiration from the arts and crafts gardens style made famous by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson at Sissinghurst Castle. Our early development of the garden was self-taught with a large amount of trail and error. When I retired from a career in teaching in 2019, I took the opportunity to study part time at Shuttleworth College for the Royal Horticultural Society theory and practical level 2 diploma. This expanded my knowledge and practical skills in selecting planting schemes, soil preparation, plant propagation and maintenance.

The Covid Pandemic in 2020-21 was an opportunity to devote my newly acquired horticultural knowledge to the development of a cutting flower garden at Chernocke House. We cleared an old orchard area following the organic ‘no-dig’ method developed by Charles Dowding. I attended an inspiring Dahlia growing course run by Sarah Raven at her garden at Perch hill in East Sussex. I’ve also learned from and been inspired by Erin Benzakein’s Floret flower farm in Washington State.

These influences have given me the inspiration, knowledge, and confidence to make the garden at Chernocke House what it is today. We open the garden to the public twice a year as part of the Aspley Guise Open Garden scheme.