LILIES - RHS Lily Group

A celebration of Branklyn Garden
– a living tapestry –
Steve McNamara writes about the garden created by John and
Dorothy Renton during the first half of the twentieth century which is
now the home of the National Collection of Mylnefield lilies.
RANKLYN WAS CREATED in 1922, when John and Dorothy Renton bought the land
Bfrom
a neighbour, Mr Aitkin, whose family owned the Orchardbank Nursery.
They initially purchased around ½ acre on which they built Branklyn House.
They later made two further acquisitions to the south, so extending their garden
to the final two acres.
Dorothy Renton had been interested in botany since childhood. From land
knee-deep in bishop weed, thistles and convolvulus evolved a hard tennis court,
an ornate pergola and rose-beds. This was soon abandoned as an embarrassing
mistake. What sort of garden did John and Dorothy Renton create? John
described himself as the designer, and his wife was the real gardener. Dorothy
has said, “The garden has evolved gradually and the principal aim has been to
give plants the proper conditions – it is primarily a home from home for plants.”
There were three major influences that helped Dorothy and John Renton to
channel their ideas and to produce a garden of international acclaim. First, there
was their clear interest in the Sino-Himalayan flora, second, their enthusiasm for
complementary plant associations, perhaps influenced by the ideas of Gertrude
Jekyll. The third development was the concept of peat-wall gardening.
Dorothy received several awards for her work in connection with the introduction
and cultivation of new plants. Among them, the RHS awarded Dorothy the coveted
Veitch Memorial Medal in 1954. The Scottish Rock Garden Club awarded Dorothy
Renton three Forrest medals for her plant growing abilities.
The impression of the garden is that John and Dorothy Renton wanted to
create a little paradise, which could be enjoyed all year round, irrespective of
flowering plants.
One of the first things that visitors to the garden notice is the amount of plants
in a small area. This stems from the legacy of plant collecting from an early stage
in the development of the garden. The importance of the garden arises from their
keenness in collecting and crucially recording all their plants and sources.
The Rentons’ association with many of the plant collectors of the era is well
documented. George Forrest’s collection of Rhododendron racemosum was a
favourite of Dorothy Renton because of its good colour and it could be cut back
on a regular basis. This was and still is a common problem in small gardens such
53