Grow Your Own Downton Abbey-Inspired Garden With These Tips – Sunset – Sunset Magazine
Grow Your Own Downton Abbey-Inspired Garden With These Tips – Sunset
Grow an English Garden Fit for Downton Abbey
Cedars
Jaap Buitendijk / Focus Features
Downton Abbey’s gardens reflect trends not just from the past century, but 18th-century plant trends, as well. Mature Lebanon cedars surround the real-life Highclere Castle; Lord Grantham is seen walking his yellow lab beneath them in the show, and here, Lady Edith is seen strolling past them plaintively. The trees were planted over 200 years old, including some planted as seedlings by the castle’s original owner, Henry Herbert, First Earl of Carnarvon, in the 1700s. In the West, giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) and redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) typically replace cedars as the stately landmark planting, but golden deodar cedar (Cedrus deodora ‘Aurea’) will also fill the bill nicely.
Architecture
pcturner71 / Getty Images
Pergolas, gazebos, and other architectural elements added structure and clean lines to the wild perennial borders as well as offering shade and seating for a moment of respite and a spot of tea. Clematis, climbing rose, and jasmine were all typical climbing perennials to plant on these structures, and all work well in the West. Flame lily (Gloriosa superba) and passion flower (Passiflora spp.) would add an extra touch of Western living to this English style.
Water Features
Jacky Parker Photography / Getty Images
Around the Edwardian era (when the first season of Downton Abbey takes place), a few new garden trends emerged that are still widely seen today, like formal ponds and fountains. Even if you can’t quite accommodate a pond big enough for swans, you can make a water feature the center of focus. Even in droughts, water features can add a soothing tranquility to a garden; here are some of our favorite ideas for incorporating some water music into your garden.
Naturalistic Meadows
Jacky Parker Photography / Getty Images
Though a wildflower meadow may seem out of sorts with the gardens of Downton Abbey, the current residents of Highclere, the 8th Earl of Carnarvon and his family, have designated a portion of the estate’s grounds as a wildflower meadow, to the doubtless delight of the grounds’ invertebrate population. Edwardian gardens loved the juxtaposition of strict architectural elements (like pergolas) with vining flowers; crisply trimmed boxwood hedges with soft perennials; controlled bowling greens with the wild abandon of a meadow. This playful, balanced approach will make any garden fit for Cicely Mary Barker’s flower fairies (the beloved Flower Fairies books were published in the same era as Downton Abbey takes place).
Comments are closed.