History of Water Gardens

Pond and rockeries at DewstowFrom information and photographs supplied by John Harris

A lost garden has been discovered in South Wales and after six years of painstaking excavation and renovation has been opened to the public. What is unusual about this particular garden is that much of it is underground. Tunnels and underground grottoes were buried under thousands of tons of soil for over 50 years. Built around 1895 the gardens were buried just after World War II and rediscovered in 2000 by the present owner John Harris and his family.

THE MAN WHO BROUGHT COLOUR TO WATER LILIES AND SO ADDED THE WORD ‘GARDEN’ TO ‘WATER GARDEN’

One of the most influential people in England on Victorian gardening style and horticulture was William Robinson who, as prolific writer and founder editor of The Garden magazine, was never short a of comment, oftenNympaea xmarliacea 'Chromatella', Marliac's first colourful creation rude, in respect to the endeavours of his contemporaries. His influence still greatly affects how we garden today, especially when it comes to creating informal and ‘natural’ or ‘wild’ gardens. As to the subject of water in the garden, the topic seemed like a short fuse to fire up his irascible nature, in fact it was enough to make him most vehemently declare in 1883 in the first edition of his book “The English Flower Garden”:
“Unclean and ugly ponds deface our gardens; some have a mania for artificial water, the effect of water…… pleasing them so well that they bring it near their houses, where they cannot have any of its good effects. But have instead the filth that gathers in stagnant water, and its evil smell on many a lawn.”
I have the eighth edition of The English Flower Garden and in it we find Robinson dedicating a whole chapter to water in the garden and although he is slightly disparaging about plants that grow around the fringes and their propensity to get out of hand, he declares; “With a little thought…..there are so many charming opportunities for water garden pictures.”
There is no doubt what has caused his turn about in attitude because the cause seems constantly in the back of his mind:
“Gradually, however, the aquatics are coming to the front, and an altogether fresh impetus, as well as a great one, has resulted from the introduction of the many charming new hybrid Nymphaeas which are fast making their appearance in some of the best-known gardens.” It was new vareities of water lilies when previously there had only been a single hardy white variety that could survive in European ponds and this was more adept at making foliage than flower. This is the story of the man that created those lilies that were enough to shake the earth beneath stuffy plantsmen like Robinson and make them look long and hard at water gardens again.