ALAN POWER: Thank you for downloading this garden cutting
from the National Trust. I'm Alan Power, the head gardener at
Stourhead in Wiltshire. And today I'm At Croome in
Worcestershire, one of Capability Brown's first
landscape gardens.
The National Trust works in partnership with many landowners
and tenant farmers around the country. But one particular
relationship that has developed at Croome Court is a
relationship with Karen Cronin and her husband Chris who bought
the walled garden and gardeners cottage here in the year 2000.
They've been restoring the garden themselves over the past
few years and have been opening it recently.
Karen, It's a pleasure to meet you and especially to be
standing here in such a massive walled garden. The work is
bearing down on top of me. I mean, what was it like in 2000
when you, when you bought the place.
KAREN CRONIN: Completely derelict and completely
overgrown and wild, but in its own way, it was very beautiful
even then. And I think that's what really attracted us to it.
We- it was in such a state that we really didn't know what we
were buying.
ALAN POWER: You're, you're productive here already. You
know, you've made massive, massive steps forward. Do you
mind telling us what you're producing at the moment and what
you're growing In the walled garden?
KAREN CRONIN: Right. Well, we grow a little bit of everything
really. I like to cook so I like the idea of, you know, coming
and picking my own produce. We've grown sweet potatoes this
year for the first time and they've been successful.
We've, obviously, as you can see, we've got lots of fruit
trees which are going to be espaliered against those wires.
We've got a whole path that are full of old varieties that have
come from either Hereford, Worcestershire or
Gloucestershire.
And then another path which is full of more modern varieties,
the eldest one- going back to 1955 I think the idea there is
that people will be able to see the difference of the progress
of apples and be able to taste the difference between an old
apple and a new apple. We've got espalier of pear tree and of
cookers as well. You know, we grow beans, we, you know, we got
cabbages, we grow everything.
ALAN POWER: Heading- heading into the winter and looking at
the months ahead, I mean, we can see the work that you've
achieved this year with the wires and the espaliers.
But what I love in the, where we're standing is the contrast
to the left, there's kind of established fruit beds, there's
cages protecting next year's crops on the right hand side,
there's a JCB, there's a dumper truck. You know, it's a real
story, isn't it? I know that you've mentioned that there's a
few Daffodils been planted, isn't there?
KAREN CRONIN: Yeah. Well, up in the very top bank there last
year we planted 5,500 Daffodils, with some help from our
volunteer friends. And this year I've bought just over another
1000 to go below that and then, that's then going to be sowed
with, a wild flower meadow, which I thought would be rather
nice to help with the pollination.
And also for the general public will bring summer colour and
also the bugs for the children to look out for and the
butterflies and things.
So we thought that would be very interesting. We also, developing
another bed further down which again, I've bought a load of
tulips to go in for. So that'll be all done in the next sort of,
you know, month.
ALAN POWER: In kind of five years time in the middle of the
summer. If we were to put a deck chair out here, what, what would
you want to see?
KAREN CRONIN: And the Todd Vineary will be fully restored.
And hopefully, we might even have managed to start on the hot
wall as well. Because our real dream is to be able to fire that
up again one day.
ALAN POWER: It's amazing. I want a hot wall.
It's, this hot wall was was heated by furnaces, wasn't it?
KAREN CRONIN: There was five underground little fireplaces
and in fact, the way that they look, is one that's exposed at
the top. We've left it for people to see if you can imagine
what, the- in a Victorian bedroom, the sort of size of the
fireplace in there.
Well, they're about that kind of size but we understand that the
main reason that you get a hot wall, is because of the, glass
tax, the window tax as people know it.
So, if you had a glass house, you had to pay tax on the glass
in your glass house.
So it was a way of trying to get, an extended growing season
without having to pay the Exchequer a lot of money. So, in
fact, when that, when the glass tax was rescinded, most people
just stop using their hot walls and I don't think there's that
many left now.
ALAN POWER: It's lovely. I've been to Croome quite a few times
and I've kind of wondered at the walls from the other side, you
know, and you wonder what, what's in there and, you know,
from what you've described, the- the National Trust volunteers
get to come through that gate and get that wow factor when
they come in and the fact that visitors can see the whole
property now, you know, they can see Brown's work outside and
they can, you know, visit, visit you when you're open and come in
and see what's going on in here as well.
It's been a pleasure to talk to you. It's been lovely to see
your walled garden. You very, very best of luck with it. And
thanks a million for your time today.
Hope you've enjoyed this garden cutting from the National Trust.
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BETTANY HUGHES: I'm Bettany Hughes. I've been visiting
National Trust Properties all my life. But in this series of
podcasts, I'm going beyond the delights of teas and topiary to
reveal the surprising European roots of some of the most
splendid sites in England. You can subscribe to my series by
searching for Bettany Hughes's 10 Places, Europe and us. On
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