The holidays are unfolding faster than I can write about them. That's always the way, which is why I don't try to sit down every day to blog about what we've seen, but here I am with an hour to go between breakfast and when we need to set out for the first of the day's amusements. Practically nothing opens before ten, which is a waste of a potential tourist hour when your body clock is set for half past seven and all you want to do before returning to the cultural fray is take a shower and eat some wheatabix.
Kiftsgate Court I had cast an envious glance at the doors of Kiftsgate years ago, when we made our day trip to Hidcote. The two are just across the lane from each other, and I still can't work out whether the presence of Hidcote, with the National Trust marketing machine behind it, brings extra custom to its independent neighbour, or creams off some of their trade. Kiftsgate is still in private hands, managed according to my Cotswolds gardens guide by the third generation in a family of keen gardeners. That boded well, along with comments about planting for late colour, and the promise of views out across the countryside off the edge of the Cotswolds escarpment, and besides, I was curious to see the rose.
If you are not all that well up on Cotswolds gardens, and yet have an odd nagging feeling that you know the name Kiftsgate, it is probably because you have heard of Rosa filipes 'Kiftsgate', a fabled rambler capable of engulfing entire forest trees. The plant centre sold them, and I always felt private doubts when somebody bought one with the stated intention of hiding their shed, since from what I'd read of 'Kiftsgate' it was more than capable of engulfing the average garden. So I was keen to inspect this horticultural legend for myself, even out of flower.
Kiftsgate doesn't open until two in September, and we were there on the dot. I recognised a couple of other visitors from the Hidcote cafe, who like us had been waiting there for Kiftsgate to open. The Systems Administrator steered me past the plant stands outside the front door, and after some hesitation as to whether to go left or right, along or down, we were in the garden. If I tell you now that it is a wonderful, marvellous garden then anybody who is not all that interested in gardens can skip the next few paragraphs and still have got the general idea.
First off you encounter a network of paths strung down the side of a fairly steep cliff. The slope is well planted with trees, so you feel reassured that it must be quite stable, and under-planted with all sorts of interesting things, some of which like the spike of an echium, now gone over, I wouldn't have imagined being happy living under trees. It was all meticulously weeded, and my mind was racing trying to work out how the gardeners did it. Suddenly, you come to a stone tiled gazebo let into the face of the cliff, giving a panoramic view out over the countryside, and containing a venerable swinging seat with an awning and fat cushion. We were in that seat in no time, and lounged there, beaming benignly at the other visitors who went past and staring at the view. There is a semi-circular pool in a lawn at the base of the cliff, and, as we discovered when we finally peeled ourselves out of the seat, more good planting, a stone fountain and steps that are completely invisible from above, and a nice classical pavilion with proper tapered columns.
Around the sides of the house are terraces with lawns, crazy paving and low walls that give a nod to the Arts and Crafts movement, a little fountain producing just the right amount of plashing noise, and some topiary which again had me scratching my head as to how the gardeners managed to clip it without tumbling down the hill. You meander from one garden room to another and back again, edges wiggle and plants sprawl everywhere, some of them rare and many of them flowering abundantly in mid September. There are some fabulous large planted-up pots near the house, and a cheerful run of geraniums in mismatched pots around the edge of a portico that was half disappearing under a purple leaved grape vine. Apart from dead heading, almost nothing had been cut down in the borders, and I found the appearance of fullness, albeit yellow and brown in places, more satisfying than if the remaining flowers had been isolated in patches among bare earth and shorn stems.
The latest major addition to the garden was made by the third generation gardener, and is a reflective black pool set in a plain yew bordered grass enclosure, with a sculpture of heart shaped leaves set on tall stems that trickle water down into the pond, stems waving gently in the wind. It was a Millennium project, and I'd seen pictures when I was at Writtle and subsequently in magazines, another reason to go to Kiftsgate. It is a very, very good piece of water sculpture, and the owners have done well to resist the urge to embellish the space, no extraneous pots, or sculptures, or anything, just the grass rectangle, the enclosing yew, the black water (they must put dye in it since all the other water in the gardens we've seen on this trip was as clear as anything), and the rectangular grass island and stepping stones over the water. It was all very Chelsea exhibit, but since we weren't at Chelsea we waited until we were the only people there, and then walked across the stones to the grass island.
The reflective pool area feels very peaceful, and is hidden from the rest of the garden, a clever solution if you have worries about adding a modern feature to an historic landscape. Though it is in the nature of gardens to evolve and develop, because plants grow, and die, and a keen gardener's ideas are not usually static, but change over time as they get bored with some things and acquire new interests and enthusiasms. So the idea of a perfectly preserved garden is something of a contradiction, because if only Lawrence Johnson, or Christopher Lloyd, or Vita Sackville-West, or whoever it may be, were still alive, they wouldn't be doing everything the same as they did last year, let alone five or ten years ago.
Anyway, Kiftsgate turned out to be a magnificent garden, and relatively under-visited, which was great from our point of view, and might be disappointing for the owners, or else exactly how they like it. The problem with large numbers of visitors in a garden is two-fold. It is not just that every view you turn to has someone in it, or else scowling at you because your presence is spoiling their photo, but that the weight of feet and friction of passing bodies change the very structure of the garden. Paths have to be widened, grass given over to paving, narrow and fragile places fenced off entirely. Kiftsgate is not like that. You are allowed pretty much anywhere, and there is a refreshing absence of signs telling you not to trip over or fall off the cliff. Hallelujah, treat us like grown ups who can see a steep slope when its put in front of us and decide for ourselves whether we are capable of walking up it safely.
Oh, and the rose is even larger than I thought it would be. By now it is working its way through three large trees, the middle of which seems to be succumbing to its embraces, and a large section of flower bed. Although we missed the flowers, 'Kiftsgate' puts on a pretty good display of hips, and the foliage was extremely healthy at the end of what has been a bad year for blackspot.
There were still some things left on the plant stands when we got out, as the SA had promised there would be, and I bought a couple of Althea cannabina, since I know I need more and Beth Chatto had run out the last couple of times I was there, and a tender salvia with tiny orange flowers on furry stems, which I'd been coveting in the pots there and at Kiftsgate. It will probably catch botrytis over the winter and die, but I had to try with one.
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