The Trowels and Tribulations of Taking on an Historic Garden by Maggie Tran
In our meeting on Friday 9th February, we were treated to a talk by Head gardener Maggie Tran, entitled The Trowels and Tribulations of Taking on an Historic Garden. The garden in this case is Bramdean House, which is situated on the A272 near Winchester. Bramdean House dates from 1784 and by the 1970s was in rather rundown. Five years ago, the present owner, Victoria Wakefield, wanted to restore it to its former glory before passing it on to her son. In comes the present head Gardener Maggie Tran.
Maggie has worked in places such as the Brighton Pavilion Regency Garden, Great Dixter, Wisley, Sissinghurst and Tresco Abbey Gardens to name but a few and has a wealth of knowledge in restoring historic gardens. This task was rather daunting at first as she had to deal with peeling back layers of overgrowth before even starting to set up basic systems like sorting out the chaotic potting sheds, compost heaps etc before reinvigorating the mature planting including the 300-year-old Grandad Beech, the cloud pruned yew hedge, Wisteria and the mirror image herbaceous borders. Maggie has also introduced no dig beds to the one acre walled kitchen garden. The Victorian greenhouses have also been renovated. This has also taken place over the last five years, so hats off to Maggie and her very small band of helpers!
There is a huge variety of plant interest in the garden throughout the year and well worth a visit. The garden opens under the NGS scheme on 3 dates; 25th February where the 100+ varieties of snowdrops could be seen; 16th June, which is an ideal time to see the roses and September 8th where there are the Giraffe giant sunflowers to be seen.
This was a fascinating insight to the work that head gardeners such as Maggie does and so I look forward to the next meeting on March 8th at 7.30 where we will be avoiding common gardening injuries!
Best wishes
Sue Sharman