Christine North September 2005
Speaker Biography
Christine North trained in Horticulture,
Land Management and Design at Merrist Wood College in Guildford, Surrey, UK and
became a member of the British Association of Landscape Industries. A professional landscaper, she won a Merit
Award at the first Hampton Court Flower Show, culminating in a Silver Medal for
the Prince’s Trust garden. Designed and built the Metropolitan Police Exhibit
at Chelsea.
Christine North, professional landscape gardener visiting Vancouver Island from Surrey, England, spoke to the first Victoria meeting of the 2005/2006 season. All happily seated with fond remembrances of a successful convention, we were anticipating the evening's Power Point presentation of landscaping ideas and English gardens. Christine's English accent and fast paced speaking made it difficult for some to follow her commentary, but one of the fine features of computer generated programmes is the benefit of reading text on the slide which helped with identification of mixed plantings in herbaceous borders, trees and shrubs.
Christine placed emphasis on double digging garden beds, the
addition of mulch, compost and aged manures to give healthy starts to the new
plantings. Some of the plants Christine uses for her clients' gardens are:
arbutus, camellias, hybrid and scented rhododendrons, azaleas, cornus,
hydrangea aspera sargentiana, new varieties of heuchera, borders
of Nepeta, hammamelis and
many underplantings of erythroniums, bluebells, primula,
waldsteinia, lily of the valley, hellebores, cyclamen. Her favourite inclusion
in her client's gardens is Daphne aureomarginata as she likes to include
plants that provide a waft of scent as the viewer walks the grounds. We saw
gardens with lawn vistas, woodland areas, lakes and large country manors.
We have to remember that these lands have been in cultivation for
hundreds of years, and composted with deciduous leaf litter trees such as oaks
and beech. Yet, it isn't all a matter of planting and having plants thrive. The
chalklands of southern coastal England, the invasive ponticum
rhododendrons and Japanese knotweed, the rising winter temperatures giving
longevity to insects and disease such as Phytophthora ramorum; the
fierce storms such as the winds which swept across England in 1989 and uprooted
tens of thousands of heavily canopied mature trees; all have to be faced. The next threat to England's fine garden
reputation is that of drought. England will have to change its traditional
herbaceous plantings to more drought tolerant native cover if environmental
concerns are to be met.
Thank you Christine for visiting the Victoria Rhododendron Society and we wish you a good stay on Vancouver Island.