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Cottage Gardens and Wildflowers in Cornwall
Our daughters say that Larry speaks in sentences and that I, in paragraphs. Is that because I write or do I
write because of that !?! Anyway, here is my background spiel on a Cornish village in May.
Photos follow, with mostly sentence captions!
As we made our southwestern way by car from London, I read the progressive warming of the land by the debut of
blooms along the route, until reaching the most southern ends of England - where everything seemed to be blooming altogether. Cornish bloom times and the plant varieties occur as garden anomalies due to the lower
UK's climate, as well as the history of imported botanica. The British Isles are located just below the same latitude line of Juneau, Alaska, but spared the same arctic cold by the Atlantic jet stream, which carries
temperate air from the Gulf of Mexico to the southern arm of England. Ask anyone in America if they think palm trees grow perennial anywhere in Britain and they usually learn with great surprise, that yes they do.
The stories of how they arrived there are equally fascinating.
The summer gardening climate of Southwest England could be loosely likened to Middle America's, with winters corresponding
to our USDA frost zones of 8 and 9, as seen on the Euro-zone map on our weather page. Because British summer temperatures are similar to Middle America, the flower-opening dates are also similar. In Texas, blooms
open 6-8 weeks earlier than both those regions, but there is another element that effects a wider variance than simply stating 'a 6-8 week difference'. Cooler climes with shorter growing seasons seem to condense
bloom spells, so that more varieties bloom at the same time, where ours are spaced further apart. An example was immediately noticed in the garden at our holiday residence. The Victorian house was perched atop of a
cliff over looking the village skirting the sea. Within a downhill terraced garden the last lilac blooms were still hanging on, while nearby, the first roses and lilies were opening enormous. In richer inland soil,
rhododendrons and a few camellias were still in color. At home, these same blooms would never meet within the same time frame.
Another observation of May blooms in Cornwall revealed the intrinsic nature of flower gardening itself. Varieties
frequently cultivated in Texan beds were blooming wild along the hedgerows there, while in well-tended English gardens; I would discover American roadside wildflowers. Favorites of American borders such as foxglove
and Queen Anne's lace colored rainbow roadsides voluntarily between London and Cornwall. At our destination on the most southwesterly tip of the country, I explored cottage gardens to discover Texas native evening
primrose (Calylophus hartweggii) and Indian blanket flower (Gaillardia pulchella) and California poppies (Escholzia californica) being tended with pride. This anomaly could be flippantly
explained as, 'gardeners are never satisfied with their own native plants', but I recognize the circumstance as, 'if everyone grew only natives, then all gardens would be the same within each region, as well as
matching the natural scenery'. I perceive gardening as an art beyond a collection category, and the more materials available to the artist - the more the possibilities.
In residential gardens, I recognized other plant immigrants that had made their way across even more oceans for garden
bloom and in many cases found these 'foreign' plants had escaped the cottage borders, into the wild. This same evolution occurred in early America to the point that many now consider established aliens as their very
own 'native wildflowers', which also reveals why so many of 'our' plants are also 'theirs'.
Our residence overlooked a beautiful fishing village, tucked within a secluded cove of rocky coast, garnished with
springtime color. From every window we viewed come-hither scenes in the craggy slopes that gradually melted into sea. On the sheltering bay's rocky ridges we found ancient footpaths tracing stony slopes. There we
joined a long line of adventurers who have for centuries ventured to land's end points, having worn level footings in tiny terraces for heavenly hiking. At close range we enjoyed the traditionally known English
wildflowers of hedgerow and meadow fame; bluebells, buttercups, forget-me-nots, campions and daisy-chain daisies at the feet of larger ferns, foxglove, centranthus, and seaside shrubs. Sprouting directly out of
stone cracks were sea thrift, wild peas, alliums and more tiny colors against vivid lichen.
Around the village, there was hardly a bed or a cliff without the magenta 'corn lily' (Gladiolus byzantinus), native
to the Mediterranean. Even the African calla lily had jumped lawns to add sculpture on the cliffs, both of which incidentally grow in this Texan garden. But Cornwall's indigenous immigrants must be of a larger
variety than anywhere in the country due to the mild climate and to the 'Renaissance of European Gardening' when brave plant explorers brought in exotic specimens to satisfy Victorian demands and ultimately, ours.
Much of what we now bring home from the shelves of Wal-Mart, local nurseries, other gardens and mail-order catalogs are ours for the gathering, because of these brave horticultural crusaders whose names are oft
recorded within the very Latin labels in our gardens. The peninsular county of Cornwall is a Mecca of ports and was a natural repository for much of the incoming bounty that can be read today as horticultural
history in the wilds and in the borders.
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