Life starts all over again….
As Summer hovers, clinging on, and Autumn looms, about to spread, I think about Jordan Baker’s line in F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby,
“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”
I wrote about that idea in the last post. A potent activity that reflected the idea was also our recent evening visit to Harewood House grounds. For many years, it was a place to take children to go wild on the adventure playground; and in recent times the Christmas decorations have been a highlight. Now, it’s all about the grounds….
Head Gardener, Trevor Nicholson, led a small Covid-secure group on an exclusive tour of the site as the day visitors left and the sun went down. Accompanying Trevor was super-enthusiastic volunteer, Sam. We spent most of our time in the Himalayan garden and heard about the challenges of developing a great garden space and keeping it fresh each season. Many changes have happened over the centuries and in recent years, the mix of conservation, climate change, visitor experiences and the personal whims of gardeners and family alike have kept the team busy and scratching their heads and scrabbling in the soil to make the place spectacular for now but secure for the future. The Buddhist Stupa in the Himalayan Garden at Harewood is the only one of its kind in the UK and has been built and blessed by monks from Bhutan.
The Walled Garden at Harewood currently has twelve large borders, all useful, many growing fruits and vegetables that are used on the estate or sold in local farm shops. It too has taken many forms over the decades and access to pictures of its development were fascinating, including a surreal period when it housed a maze. We ended our tour on the famous Charles Barry terrace with a glass of Prosecco and a meet-up with our “rival” twilight tour of people who had been round the Bird Garden.
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