Lancelot Brown 1716 – 1783

Lancelot Brown is the most famous gardener who popularised English landscape design. Lancelot Brown’s nickname ‘Capability’ came from his saying about an estate he was commissioned to work on ‘It has great capabilities’ .

During his life he was Sheriff of Huntingdon, gardener to King George III, architect and innovator of ‘Landskip’ gardening. At the age of 24 he went to Lord Cobhams garden at Stowe where he learnt from William Kent who had studies Italian and Grecian gardens and John Vanbrugh. In 1764 Lancelot Brown was appointed Master Gardener at Hampton Court.

Lancelot Brown described himself as a ‘place-maker’ not a ‘landscape gardener’. He didn’t want a series of tableaux within a garden, he wanted a piece of countryside. Formality and straight lines had to go and to avoid fences he created the Ha-ha a sunken version. Flowers were cosigned to walled gardens and trees imported to suit his design.

Some of his designs were elaborate and involved changing hills and lakes and some thought them lavish. After his death the strong vision he had carried through in his work fell out of favour and only in the last century was he fully rehabilitated.

Capability Brown is believed to be responsible for over 170 gardens surrounding the finest country houses and estates in Britain. He never worked in Ireland saying ‘he hadn’t finished England yet. His work still endures at Blenheim Palace, Warwick Castle, Harewood House, Milton Abbey and below is a further edited list of his work. Get out and visit some of these 18th century landscapes:-

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Acidity and alkalinity are measured on a pH scale. Below pH 7.0 is verging towards acidic so pH 4.5 is very acid. Test kits are available from many sources.

Increasing Alkalinity.

For vegetables a pH of around 6.5 is ideal and to achieve this it may be necessary to add some lime into the top 6 inches of your soil.
Garden lime is available from most garden centers. Builders lime or quick lime is more aggressive to plants.
If your soil is around a pH of 7.0 (neutral) I would not bother to try adjust it. Above that it is limey soil and less suitable for acid lovers like rhododendrons and blueberries.
Adding lime helps vegetables take up nutrients. It also suppresses club root in members of the brassica family.
Manure then a couple of weeks later lime your soil during winter, it helps to break up the soil.
For lawns, shrubs, roses, fruit or trees, apply lime before planting.
Calcified seaweed and ground chalk or powdered limestone are other forms of calcium carbonate that will help reduce acid soil.

The RHS has a table of lime quantities needed to correct different levels of acidity read more

Acidifying Soil

To change the pH of the top 6inches of soil from neutral pH 7.0, or slightly alkaline pH 7.5 to slightly acid pH 6.0-pH 6.5 sulphur powder may be required.
Aluminium sulphate or Ferrous sulphate can also be used as a soil acidifiers. The effects are rapid, but large quantities can interfere with phosphorus levels in the soil and may also reduce pH excessively.
Soil-acidifying materials can be applied at any time of the year but products containing sulphur take longer to work when the soil is cold so are normally best applied from spring to autumn.

You can plant your own edible hedge now until late March which will give you a supply of edible fruit and berries for years to come. Bare rooted plants are very reasonably priced.

Easy Step by Step Hedge

Clear the ground to remove weeds and old roots by digging or using Glyphosphate based weedkiller. Leave for a few weeks.
Pick a frost free day and when ready to plant put bundles of bare rooted plants into a bucket of water to give them a drink.
Mark out the line of the hedgerow bearing in mind you will want two staggered rows of plants. You can put down mulch matting and plant through it if you wish.
You will need 4-5 plants per square yard.
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John Cushnie 1943-2009

John Cushnie the landscape gardener, author and radio pundit has died suddenly from a heart attack on 31 December 2009 at the age of 66.

For the last 15 years John was a regular panelist on Gardeners’ Question Time, the Hedge Man on Radio 2’s Chris Evans Show, and presented Greenmount Garden for BBC One in Northern Ireland. He always used his quick wit when offering tips and guidance to his audiences. As a feature writer with the Daily Telegraph he has a list of New Years Resolutions in todays paper that were printed before news of his untimely death was available.

An experienced landscape gardener, who ran his own business, Mark Damazer controller at the BBC Radio 4 said “John Cushnie was a towering figure on Gardeners’ Question Time,” “His trademark acerbic wit was deployed with terrific timing against a wide variety of plants he did not like – and it was always done with an affectionate twinkle in his eye, with an exuberance of voice and with unrelenting sympathy for fellow gardeners.”

John Cushnie Landscapes web site focuses cleverly on ‘About You’ and has useful information for those considering landscape changes. As a good employer in Northern Ireland we hope the business continues in John’s name.
John Cushnie also wrote for the Belfast News Letter, Gardens Illustrated magazine, Gardeners World magazine, Amateur Gardening, Ireland’s Homes Interiors and Living magazine and several books.

Top 100 Gardeners John Cushnie

Use the comments section below to send us the name of your favourite gardener (not the gardener themselves).
We will add it to our list of 100+ Top Gardeners

Your nomination may be a gardener who inspired you or has left a legacy in the form of an outstanding garden. Both are true for me with Geoffrey Smith and his Rhododendron garden at the Royal Horticultural Garden Harlow Carr where this memorial stone is displayed.

Celebrity gardeners are well represented in our list but you may know of one we have forgotten. As we admit the plant hunter/gatherers are not well represented and we would appreciate nominations is this category.

Sponsors of gardens are becoming a regular feature at shows like Chelsea but the well-to-do have long financed the gardening exploits to create beautiful surroundings for their homes and estates. Do they deserve more recognition or should that only go to the more earthy recipients of the Victoria medal (VMH).

International gardeners deserve a bigger profile and multiple nominations would be welcome. We would all like to know whose work to look out for when visiting new places.