ALAN POWER: Hello and welcome to the National Trust podcast.
In this mini episode we'll be learning about the power,
poisons and pleasures of purple through the amazing plant
collection at Mount Stewart.
One of the characters we're going to hear about today is
Edith Lady Londonderry, whose imagination and passion shaped
this place in the 1920s.
Our guide, Ellen Elder, one of Mount Stewart's volunteers
ELLEN ELDER: Purple. It's present in every corner of the
gardens. You can see Lilac, you can see Fox Gloves, you can see
Alliums, huge ones, the size of footballs and all sorts of other
plants in different shades of lilac and purple. It's really
lovely, especially the Irises.
Well, I think it was one of Lady Edith's favourite colours.
She wrote to her husband in 1931.
I do love this place so deeply. The view of sunset was quite
lovely. All gold and opal and deep purple. It is indeed the
land of heart's delight.
I think it was especially in times gone by. It was associated
with power, with royalty and with wealth and this was mainly
because of the intense and laborious process of making
purple back in the olden days as we would call them.
It took a total of a quarter of a million Mollusks to make one
ounce of purple.
The first recorded use of lilac as a colour name in English was
in 1775 although well connected botanists had to shrub in their
gardens at the end of the 16th century.
For those who know their onions, you'll have noticed that we have
a wealth of purple alliums in the Italian garden and around
the entrance way to the reception area. Allium
Giganteum, which is a common name for the giant onion is the
central and south western Asian species of onion but cultivated
in many countries as an ornamental border plant.
It's a ball.
Ours, of course, being at Mount Stewart are the size of a
football.
They're a beautiful purple colour and they consist of lots
of little petals making up the main flower and they're on a
very tall stem, of course. And when those are waving in the
wind, it's really spectacular.
Fox Gloves mainly to be seen up near the old dairy and the
walled garden. They come in purple, white and pink. The
scientific name means finger like and refers to these with
which a flower of Digitalis Purpurea can be fitted over a
human fingertip.
The flowers are produced on a tall spike, they're tubular and
they vary in colour. And although the entire plant is
toxic and led to the plants being called witches gloves or
dead men's bells.
Digitalis is used in drug preparations to treat congestive
heart failure. There's still a medical use there.
If you go up around the lake, you'll see some of our beautiful
Irises. And the worldwide success story of this flower
probably began in ancient times when King Thutmose of Egypt had
conquered Syria where Irises grew in great profusion
Being a gardener as well as a warrior.
The king ensured that Irises should be immortalized
And sculptures at Carnac. And I I saw those earlier on in the
year as well as in the Gardens of Egypt and drawings. They were
shown as symbols of the renewal of life. And they were named
after the Greek messenger of Gods Iris.
Who was said to have golden wings and to travel on a
rainbow.
Iris means rainbow and Greek fittingly representing the many
colours of the Iris flower. Here we have lovely purple ones to
fit the theme of purple and you can find them at the stream near
the Japanese bridges.
Well, I must confess that I'm now old enough to wear purple,
so I do wear it during the winter, but I love it. It's a
beautiful, rich colour.
And I think when Lady Edith called Mount Stewart, her land
of hearts delight, she was right. This was a song from the
Franz Lehár operetta Land Of Smiles. And our idea here at
Mount Stewart is to send visitors away with a smile on
their face.
ALAN POWER: Thanks for listening to this week's National Trust
mini episode.
Join us next week to learn about the tales behind the topiary in
Mount Stewart's Shamrock Garden. Until then from me, Alan Power.
Goodbye.