Barrons Yew Screen

Verbena bonariensis, a favourite of bees

The recent sunny/rainy weather has certainly perked the gardens up at Betley Court. The summer/autumn flowers in the formal borders on the southern facing gardens are coming into their own. Crocosmia, calendula, geums and dahlias have turned the two path-side beds into a blaze of orange, yellows, and reds.

Crocosmia 'Lucifer'

Our climbing roses ‘Red Flame’ is in full bloom, and just as the flamboyant description on the label promised, does indeed have a scent with raspberry notes.

Rosa 'Red Flame with its delicious raspberry scent

At the end by the lawn, salvias, verbenas, echinops and centauries are a sea of blues and purples. We’ve had a surprise from the two Veronica ‘Moody Blue’ I planted last summer. They’re not blue, but pink, except for one spire, that has come up half purple, half pink! Never mind, insects seem to love them.

Our surprise Veronica - not 'Moody Blue' as advertised, but pink, apert from this spire which is half-an-half. Curious!

Nigel’s mentioned money in the plant buying budget. I may have to pop into a garden centre to top the beds up with more blues.

The retreat of the Heras fencing to 10 feet from the house has given back the terrace. Well, most of it, anyway, and Shane has set about removing half bricks and broken embedded chimney pots from the paths. Nigel saved this area of the garden becoming the building compound, so I’m very grateful to be gardening there at all this year.

At the end of the terrace is a rather straggly, overgrown yew tree that also narrowly avoided disappearing under the contractors’ yard.

The straggly yew tree

It doesn’t look remarkable at all, and is, in fact a horseshoe of eight (nine, if you include a deceased one) individual yew trees. 

Eight yew trees make up Barron's yew screen

They were planted to create a topiary screen by the notable Victorian landscape designer, William Barron (1805-91). 

The yew screen in its late Victorian heyday. Neat and tidy

In fact, you can view his original garden plans, drawn up in 1865 for this area of the garden in the William Salt Library collection in Stafford.

The yew screen, drawn on Barron's original garden design plans

Barron was known for his use of topiary (trimming evergreen trees and shrubs into intricate shapes), which brought drama and horticultural glamour to the gardens of well-to-do Victorians.

In its heyday, this horseshoe of yew encompassed a rather fine curved stone bench, and I recall seeing a photograph of a group of Fletcher-Twemlows in their finery in a formal pose in front of it. When the Browns bought Betley Court, the stone bench was in bits, and in typically Brown family fashion, the stone pieces were repurposed, and pressed into service as steps down to the forecourt side gates.

The practical opening that the Browns made through the yews, leading down to the forecourt gates

For the Browns, this was a practical solution to traversing around the gardens. With money in short supply, the yew was left to grow into the shaggy specimen we see today.

We have wondered about restoring this topiary feature, especially as it is part of Barron’s original vision for the gardens, and to this end, I found myself looking at a grant application to help us towards the costs of tree surgery, this week. While we were guests of Kew Gardens back in 2018, we spoke to Kevin Martin, the arboricultural manager, to pick his brains on how to tackle such a bold restoration on living trees. The reason yew (Taxus baccata) is so widely used for topiary is its ability to grow new shoots from cut surfaces and low on the trunk, even at a great age. It also responds well to close clipping, allowing it to be shaped into fantastical shapes. In fact, many of Barron’s most famous examples can still be viewed at Elvaston Castle, in the Derbyshire lowlands.  

Kevin’s advice was to approach any restoration with care. He counselled us that it must be done slowly, over years. Start with the roots, and pamper the tree with nutrients to gird it for the traumatic process to follow. Then the biggest job, reducing the height, to a foot shorter than we want it to be. That will need a tree surgeon, and possibly permission from the local authority (it might not as hedges are excluded from the same legal protection as trees, but as the yew can be seen from the road, and is in the Betley conservation area, we won’t be taking chances!). Let the trees recover for a year. Reducing the height will have the effect of letting in light, promoting that regenerative growth I mentioned before. Then, it is a matter of cutting back one side, each year, allowing the trees to gently regenerate. Future maintenance involves clipping annually to keep it nice and tidy.

Amazing results have been achieved with this method. Locally, the knot garden and topiary at Little Moreton Hall in in the process of being restored, and although it looked decidedly stubbly last autumn, will look spectacular when the green has filled in again. It would be quite an achievement to do that here at Betley Court.

Our 'Tommy', singed and bent, but undefeated by the fire.

Finally, an update on the subject of our ‘Tommy’. Last week, Nigel mentioned that the contractors thought they’d found our silhouette sculpture to commemorate the missing soldiers of World War One. We’d assumed it lost in the fire, but low and behold, it has emerged singed, and bend out of shape, but unmistakably, our Tommy. Friend of the Court, blacksmith Charis Jones, over at Etruria Forge, has kindly offered to look him over and see what can be done. Its an exciting prospect, and it is lovely to find one more thing that we thought was lost.

Take care in these continuing and peculiar COVID times.

All best wishes

Ladybird Su