JANE TORDAY looks at different ways of
making yourself comfortable in the garden.
MIDSUMMER: the glory of the garden in June and July. The happiest gardeners I know develop as many corners in their gardens as they can in which to sit back and enjoy the fruits of their earlier labours.
Langley Forest Chair: a limited edition designed by William Pym Sculpture. Picture: Ross Beale
The trowel and fork are resting in the shed, and the lawnmower may or may not have done its work, but let's not worry about it; let's not worry about anything. It is the season for gardeners to soak up the beauty of what they have created and share it with friends and family - and if none of them are gardeners, they'll appreciate it all the more.
Much of the joy of gardening lies in the doing - a fantastic therapy in itself - but if ornamental gardens were not meant to be pleasure grounds as well as workplaces, why bother? It would be like incessantly cooking without ever sitting down to eat.
Sunshine and warmth are very desirable but, since we can't bank on it, it's advisable to plan our sitting places (or, as the Scots would have it, “sitooteries”) for cooler conditions. Create a sense of enclosure, keeping away from north-facing areas and even further away from draughty, wind-whipped corners. The arcadian idyll can be sullied by newspapers blowing about, glasses of Chardonnay being knocked over, and barbecue smoke gusting back into your face.
Many of us love eating outside, whatever the weather. It displays that great British propensity for outdoor discomfort in all its many variations. Picnics in vast open spaces like the beautiful moorlands of Northumberland are fine, but that kind of rugged experience satisfies quite a different need to the simpler pleasure of eating al fresco in the garden.
Sitting for any length of time in a shadeless spot with the sun beating down relentlessly can be a debilitating experience, just as sitting in a cold damp corner is depressing. What is needed is a fine balance where light, shelter and view can all be enjoyed.
Views do not need to be panoramic to be enjoyed: small town gardens can be jam-packed with delights on which to feast our eyes. Equally, a minimalist approach of stone, gravel, water and clean lines can add up to that calm oasis. Whatever the case, any garden worth its salt will have a few plants at peak performance in midsummer. Traditionally, roses, clematis and honeysuckle, delphiniums, poppies and irises, pinks, violas and sweet williams are those we dream of.
A very English passion is the lawn: men, children and dogs particularly like them. A good lawn - that carpet of emerald green - is handsome and elegant.
But are lawns a great place to sit? They can be jolly hard, but then a soft, cushiony lawn like my own at home is actually a rotten lawn because it is about 70 per cent moss. However, it looks fabulous when it has just been mowed.
A good lawn is not soft, however velvety its texture. The average lawn is pock-marked with bumps, and who wants to sit on those? Chairs and tables wobble, although a sun-lounger with a generous padded seat can sort out the comfort factor to some extent. But an armful of tartan rugs and squashy cushions can transform the lawn into an attractive surface on which to sprawl.
Ideal for a town garden: a beautifully enclosed and planted courtyard space with a seven-metre-diameter parasol.
An alternative, on a small scale, is a little camomile lawn. Its primary virtue is the heavenly, soothing scent it releases - if you appreciate camomile tea. The living lawn version is a full-on experience. Professor Elaine Perry in her wonderful Physic Garden, on a sunny plateau near Corbridge, has achieved just such a lawn. She doesn't make any special claims for it, but I suspect she has worked some indefinable magic to make it the enticing patch it is; camomile lawns are not a soft option. The Chamomile nobile 'Treneague' is a particularly potently scented one, while Chamomile nobile 'Flore Pleno' is more lush. In either case, bald patches are likely to appear and you will need to replenish them with fresh plants fairly regularly.
What else can we do with simply grass? It can be a surface on which canopies, awnings and tents can be erected quite easily, preferably by a team of two. Garden mail-order catalogues are awash with choices at good prices. I am lucky enough to be the owner of an old, square canvas tent with a charm all of its own. A friend of mine kindly bestowed it on me when her camping days were over, having travelled round the world with it in the 1950s. It was rather like a little military campaign tent: high enough for a six-foot chap to stand up in, and designed to be put up with the greatest of ease. I wish someone would go into production with a contemporary version - people of all ages love it.
Nowadays, tepees are all the rage. But what about that glorious circular tent originating from the Mongolian steppes, a yurt? There is something entirely satisfactory about the purity of a circle, whether for a pond, a flowerbed, a building or, in this case, a tent. The yurt does not require any tent pegs or staking because the historic Mongolian belief was that Mother Earth had to be treated with care and respect, and that to hammer stakes into the ground was sacrilege.
The yurt has an inner expanding trellis framework of wood over which the canvas is stretched and tied. This trellis provides a tension which makes the structure rigid and resistant to strong winds. It is fun to put up, provided that there is a willing team and a good instructor in charge.
Summer houses are now springing up in gardens again, maximising the potential for enjoying the garden in comfort by being nearly but not quite outside. In the garden of my husband's family home near Humshaugh there is a wonderful summer house on a rotating axis which swivels in any direction, accommodating itself to the weather and a choice of the most engaging view in any weather or season.
Some of the most attractive summer houses have a veranda: my own childhood home had one running right along the front where lunch, tea, drinks and play took place throughout spring and summer. The Victorians and Edwardians were masters of detailed and elaborate garden house constructions and, charmingly, Wendy houses for their children.
Jane Torday's home garden created from a paddock in Langley.
Even the most opulent of that earlier elite might gasp in awe at a new architectural phenomenon in the garden: a tree-house village being built right here in Northumberland in the Alnwick Garden. Once complete, it will add yet another 'wow' factor to this exciting and playful contemporary garden. But if you simply want a quiet place nearer to the sky, our nextdoor neighbour, craftsman and joiner Geoff Jackson made a little tree house in the woods beside his garden. It's a den for his children and latterly a hideaway for his wife who has a demanding job and who, like all sensible women, needs a space of her own in which to retreat intermittently. I don't know whether Geoff ever has time to sit in it.
One of the most elegant of houses on stilts you can see in Northumberland is the gazebo in the Frank and Marjorie Lawley's jewel box of a garden at Herterton House, near Wallington. The Lawleys have impeccable taste. I don't think they would accept plastic furniture in the garden, but no-one needs to now; there are so many alternatives.
While I'm on the subject, I hate those hideous benches joined to a table which you find in many a pub garden and picnic area - desperately uncomfortable and with no back or arms. Of course, they are perfect in terms of security: who in their right mind would ever wish to steal one?
Ingrid Gifford's garden on a slope in Allendale illustrates how enclosed sitting spaces can be created in exposed gardens.
But at its most simple, all you need are some chairs, wooden or metal, (comfortable), a table set on a level surface of flagstones ancient or modern, and an enclosure, however minimal. You could plant a living willow arbour - or how about a living summer house? I have just learned from Simon Cross, presenter of Tyne Tees TV's Kitchen Gardener series, of the most imaginative form of garden architecture - a summer house entirely constructed from fruit-cordoned apple trees. You benefit from blossom in spring, leaf shade in summer and fruit in autumn.
Ingrid Gifford has created a lovely enclosed sitting and eating area in her exposed hillside garden at Allendale using trellis, cleverly making an irregular space seem symmetrical. In midsummer the trellis can barely be seen for the bower of plants which it encloses.
There are so many pretty trellis patterns to choose from. Stain or paint them but whatever you do, choose a gentle colour - soft greens or that classic French blue/ grey. Use them for an arbour or simply screens over which you can plant lusciously scented roses (ramblers look natural and graceful), honeysuckles or clematis. Set a few brimming pots of the flowering plants of your choice around you and, bingo - you have your own little bit of heaven. Sit down, relax and enjoy it. •
* For details of visiting days for Frank and Marjorie's Herterton House and Elaine Perry's Dilston Physic Garden, or a factsheet on how to make Simon Cross's living summer house, send an s.a.e. to Jane Torday, The Garden Station, Langley, Hexham NE47 5LA, tel (01434) 684391. www.thegardenstation.co.uk.