Those were the days...

While I was in Cornwall (told you I'd be going on about it a bit) I popped into the National Gardening Museum at Trevarno, near Falmouth (which is itself a lovely garden - the bluebell walk was in full flower and a welcome respite from the gale-force winds knocking us off our feet everywhere else).

I've only ever been to one gardening museum before - the one everyone's been to, the Museum of Garden History in London. That was a few years back now, and all I can really remember of it was the utterly charming knot garden nestled in behind it - which made it more of a garden visit than a museum visit really.

The National Gardening Museum is less charming, in that it's housed in a rather post-industrial barn-cum-warehouse, so it's best not to look up too often. But what it contains is utterly absorbing and quite surprisingly fascinating.

Garden museums seem to be largely about tools and sundries, not plants, unfortunately, but you do realise there's a story behind each one. I happened to be walking around behind a group of old boys, who kept remembering having used half the things on display. There was a quite absurd number of watering cans, some sinister-looking spray guns, and I'll never view gazebos in quite the same way again after seeing the Victorian version.

But most fascinating of all, to me, was the display of seed packets. Again, it's something you take so much for granted - yet did you know Suttons used to supply their seeds in what they called "close cases" - glass test tubes to you and me, bunged up with a stopper and presented in a sort of large cigar case, beautifully and with much ceremony. Even the labels had a touch of mystery and gave a real feeling that here was a little pot of gold dust.

It makes you feel the romance has gone out of gardening a little these days - I can't imagine them making a display out of your average Suttons seed packet circa 2008. I could be mistaken, though - no doubt we'll all get our seeds virtually in times to come, teleported magically into our gardens with not a seed packet in sight. Now there's a thought...

Close encounters of the horticultural kind

Just sometimes you meet a truly, truly memorable plant. The kind of plant you just know you'll think about for the rest of your life, in an "oh yeah... now that was amazing" sort of way.

This happened to me last week, while on holiday in Cornwall (of which much more later). The plant in question was a Michelia doltsopa in Caerhays - a fabulous garden, with a National Collection of magnolias and their close relatives, which include the Michelia family.

Now, I discovered while doing a bit of research for a recent article that this not-very-commonly-grown tree is causing some excitement in magnolia-growing circles (not very mainstream, admittedly) - since one of its close relatives (M. yunnanensis) in the process of being recategorised as a magnolia. Well - all I can say is, you might think magnolias are spectacular - but cop a load of this.

(my eight-year-old doesn't much like having her photo taken)... and every single one of those millions of flowers looked something like this:

You could walk right inside the tree, and in the centre, too, this was a magical, architectural, unforgettable plant:


And as if all that wasn't enough, the whole thing was scented - a rich, musky, sultry scent that went right to your head. Magnolia fans - eat your hearts out.

Cornwall #1 - The Lost Gardens of Heligan

I'm just back from a little break in Cornwall, where gardening is a religion. The result is some of the most beautiful gardens in Britain, and I had a fantastic week sampling some of the best.



Top of the list for me was the Lost Gardens of Heligan, a valley a little way inland from the coast at the fishing town of Mevagissey, "discovered" by entrepreneur Tim Smit who put his considerable talents into making it happen and then ensuring everyone knew about it. The best thing about him is that it's not just hot air - the projects he gets involved with are genuinely worthwhile and something to get really excited about.



The Lost Gardens are no exception. This is a truly magical place that has such atmosphere: you can do the technical gardening thing in the extraordinary, and beautiful, walled vegetable garden, or wander gently through the northern gardens or along the valley bottom and lose yourself watching tadpoles wriggling in the shallows of the necklace of pools that runs along it. Or you can marvel - and I really mean marvel - at the jewel in the crown, the fabulous jungle ravine where tree ferns jostle each other among Californian redwoods and unbelievably massive rhododendrons. If you haven't been yet - you're really missing something. It'll change the way you think about gardens forever.



The flower garden was spangled with ranunculus for cutting while we were there - and just look at those glasshouses.



We were lucky enough to catch the rhododendrons in full flower. I'm not usually that keen on them - but this was a breathtaking sight.



... and here's a single flower close-up. Amazing colour.



Rhododendrons were also a feature of the jungle garden - this one is a single plant, 75 feet across, and over 100 years old.



Gunneras were just unfurling their prehistoric leaves just below the rhododendron pool.



And here's a view down that fantastic jungle ravine.



You can't talk about Heligan without mentioning tree ferns. This was the garden that made them fashionable: and these are among the first tree ferns ever imported into the country, at the beginning of last century.



And last but not least - the beautiful natural mud sculptures by Cornish artist Sue Hill, seemingly carved from the earth, and just adding to the fantasy feel of the place. For me this just sums up Heligan: natural, as old as the hills, and so, so beautiful.