NEWSLETTER
Members of the Essex Gardens Trust receive a full printed version of the Newsletter / Journal twice a year.
The lead article from the Spring 2009 Newsletter is reproduced below.
EGT & RHS Get Children Gardening
News of the Essex Gardens Trust's latest educational initiative
One of the aims of the Gardens Trust movement is to foster an interest and appreciation of gardens and gardening by the younger generation. With this in mind the Essex Gardens Trust has raised funds and participated in various schools and educational projects in the past. With the heightened interest in gardening in recent years, not only as an outdoor room but as a place to grow your own fruit and veg and as a wildlife habitat, several organisations have developed projects to educates and enthuse children about these possibilities.
The Trust met with Jill Baker, Education Officer, from RHS Hyde Hall to discuss how the two organisations could work together. The RHS already provide educational visits for children but there is currently a problem in paying for transport for schools to get to Hyde Hall. They have very good facilities and run courses and workshops at no cost. Jill was very eloquent in telling us how enthusiastic the children were nand how they benefitted from their visits. She told us of the various projects organsied for children including learning step-by-step how to sow seeds. She described how the children often rush their lunch, desperate to get back to their pots to see if the seeds have started to grow yet. They are also encouraged to go round the garden and to collect any flowers that have fallen, and bring them back to look at them closely and take them apart. They get involved in anything that is currently of excitement in the garden.
The gardens at Hyde Hall provide a splendid outdoor classroom for children and it continues to improve with new additions and features for all visitors. The story of RHS Hyde Hall began when Dr. and Mrs. Robinson came to Hyde Hall in 1955. Then there were only six trees on the top of a windswept hill and no garden. If they had known what they soon learned, it is very doubtful that they would have started the garden! The site was cold and windy, the top of the hill was covered in gravel and the soil on the slopes comprised sticky clay with a pH of around neutral. For centuries Hyde Hall had been a working farm and the area around the house was dumping ground for all kinds of rubbish. Mrs. Robinson began to garden in reaction to this, and as she cleared areas around the house she planted them with anything available. In this way she created herbaceous borders and a vegetable garden close to the house, and established the framework of the garden beyond with some 60 young trees she bought at an auction at Wickford Market.
The house, which dates from the 18th century, is a typical Essex farmhouse, timber-framed, infilled with lath and plaster. Records attest to the existence of a swelling on the site at least as long ago as the 16th century. At the back of the house Mrs. Robinson discovered the Tudor brick floor of an old stable under a pile of of household rubbish and soil. This floor was then exposed to become a natural pavement garden. Clearing the land around the house was arduous and time-consuming work but, with some assistance form the pigs, the refuse, brambles and scrub were eventually removed and the sticky clay soil improved with quantities of animal manure and mushroom and bark compost.
Since the Robinsons turned the first spadeful of clay in the 1950's, Hyde Hall has always been a dynamic garden, constantly changing to meet the various challenges thrown up the site and the soil. The story of the development of this inspiring garden with its extraordinary diversity of plants is a fascinating one, a triumph over conditions that would have daunted less keen and dedicated gardeners.
Hyde Hall is developing fast at present. Construction of a new visitor centre has just begun and it will be interesting to watch that taking shape over the next year. The gardens are continually expanding and there is always something new to see. The dry garden is a spectacular success: it's amazing what can be achieved without water. The garden originally created by the Robsinsons, who bequeathed it to the RHS, was getting a bit tired as any garden does. It is now being renewed section by section and new gardens with specific themes are being added. The fish are still in the pool, and many of the foundation trees and shrubs including some spectacular pines are where the Robinsons planted them. One of the new gardens has been named after the Robinsons.
Several schools have booked to attend the EGT Sponsored education sessions in July 2009 and it is hoped that further schools may be able to visit though the scheme in the Autumn.
You can read more about Helen Robinson in the EGT Publication 'Rooted in Essex: A Gazetteer of Designers, Nurserymen, Writers and Artists Associated with the Historic Gardens of Essex' (2006). To order your copy please click on the Publications page of this website.
