LILIES - RHS Lily Group
LILIES - RHS Lily Group
LILIES - RHS Lily Group
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A celebration of Branklyn Garden<br />
– a living tapestry –<br />
Steve McNamara writes about the garden created by John and<br />
Dorothy Renton during the first half of the twentieth century which is<br />
now the home of the National Collection of Mylnefield lilies.<br />
RANKLYN WAS CREATED in 1922, when John and Dorothy Renton bought the land<br />
Bfrom<br />
a neighbour, Mr Aitkin, whose family owned the Orchardbank Nursery.<br />
They initially purchased around ½ acre on which they built Branklyn House.<br />
They later made two further acquisitions to the south, so extending their garden<br />
to the final two acres.<br />
Dorothy Renton had been interested in botany since childhood. From land<br />
knee-deep in bishop weed, thistles and convolvulus evolved a hard tennis court,<br />
an ornate pergola and rose-beds. This was soon abandoned as an embarrassing<br />
mistake. What sort of garden did John and Dorothy Renton create? John<br />
described himself as the designer, and his wife was the real gardener. Dorothy<br />
has said, “The garden has evolved gradually and the principal aim has been to<br />
give plants the proper conditions – it is primarily a home from home for plants.”<br />
There were three major influences that helped Dorothy and John Renton to<br />
channel their ideas and to produce a garden of international acclaim. First, there<br />
was their clear interest in the Sino-Himalayan flora, second, their enthusiasm for<br />
complementary plant associations, perhaps influenced by the ideas of Gertrude<br />
Jekyll. The third development was the concept of peat-wall gardening.<br />
Dorothy received several awards for her work in connection with the introduction<br />
and cultivation of new plants. Among them, the <strong>RHS</strong> awarded Dorothy the coveted<br />
Veitch Memorial Medal in 1954. The Scottish Rock Garden Club awarded Dorothy<br />
Renton three Forrest medals for her plant growing abilities.<br />
The impression of the garden is that John and Dorothy Renton wanted to<br />
create a little paradise, which could be enjoyed all year round, irrespective of<br />
flowering plants.<br />
One of the first things that visitors to the garden notice is the amount of plants<br />
in a small area. This stems from the legacy of plant collecting from an early stage<br />
in the development of the garden. The importance of the garden arises from their<br />
keenness in collecting and crucially recording all their plants and sources.<br />
The Rentons’ association with many of the plant collectors of the era is well<br />
documented. George Forrest’s collection of Rhododendron racemosum was a<br />
favourite of Dorothy Renton because of its good colour and it could be cut back<br />
on a regular basis. This was and still is a common problem in small gardens such<br />
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