Shropshire Magazine

The memorial sign on Carol’s gate on charity open day.

Ken Tudor visits a garden which provides a lasting legacy

Visitors were enthralled by the gorgeous garden of renowned flower arranger and gardener Carol Firmstone at a recent charity opening – nine months after the enthusiast had died.

Carol’s family and friends have kept her garden at Pear Tree Cottage, Whittington, near Oswestry, as a living memorial to her remarkable skills as an award-winning gardener and much-heralded flower arranger.

Carol, who travelled the world to teach the intricate skills of making floral arrangements, died last September, just two years after winning a top award in the Shropshire Star’s Garden of the Year Competition.

Her garden won the Under One Third of an Acre category in the competition judged by top TV gardening expert Roy Lancaster.

Roy, one of Britain’s most respected gardeners, loved the intricate planting amid a structure of fine trees and shrubs, and the highly artistic little corners with her knick-knacks planted with the odd tiny dot of a plant placed teasingly in a corner.

The famous plant-hunter thought that Carol’s garden at Pear Tree Cottage was a wonderful example of how to make the most of a small all-seasons garden.

And last month the garden looked just about identical to what it was when Carol, one of the most popular of gardeners, was fighting illness in her last summer in her beloved garden.

Lynne Hosken.

Son Tom and one of Carol’s best friends, Lynne Hosken, were in the garden as visitors poured through during a lovely Sunday afternoon to raise money for the National Gardens Scheme.

“We really feel that she is in the garden with us because it is all hers; she did it all herself really, with some help and ideas from Tom,” said Lynne.

“It has been very sad, but very comforting that all her bulbs came up in the spring and all her flowers are flowering for this charity opening,” said Lynne. “And it was lovely too that a robin nested and brought up a family in the garden for the first time this year.”

For her friends and Tom have kept the garden going by clipping the plants, keeping the pots looking healthy and generally letting it flower its head off in memory of its well-respected creator.

When Roy visited Carol’s colourful creation he took advantage of one of her great ideas, the inclusion of places to sit and admire the masses of roses, lilies and a collection of pot-grown plants including different cultivars of auriculas, aeoniums and echeverias.

He also admired the Carol ‘clouds’, created by the intricate clipping of dwarf conifers, and there are nice bits of informality, with things like Clematis alpina ‘Francis Rivis’ and the gorgeous golden hop scrambling about, with muscaris, hellebores, primroses, pulsatillas and sweet peas underplanting the framework of shrubs.

As you might expect Carol, as a professional flower arranger, had many plants to aid her artistry, with the twisted stems of the contorted varieties of willow and hazel, and of course the many shades of yellow, green and blue in her hosta collection.

Other plants she grew as garden-worthy lovelies, like the fabulous foliage plants such as heucheras – with the varieties ‘Palace Purple’, ‘Chocolate Ruffles’, and the magnificent ‘Marmalade’ being useful for floral displays too.

Carole never wanted a lawn but could see the value of a green area, so she planted a ‘green box’ in the middle of her garden, made up of the box plants Buxus sempervirens which Tom has kept well-clipped.

She liked artistic knick-knacks too: a pebble pool here, a bamboo water feature and terracotta pots planted with sempervivums and sedums, as well as coloured glass objects to catch the light.

Lynne, who was devastated by the death of her friend, said Carol would never be forgotten.

“She had an incredible ability to inspire the best in people and she inspired me to do a degree in fine arts and others to take other courses, including masters degrees.”

The garden this June was a picture of good health, with lots of plants shoehorned into an average-sized plot, many of them under a magnificent Stipa giganta, with its great grass stems moving in the Shropshire breeze.

Tom has kept up the clipping the ‘cloud’ conifers and has helped with the selection of the many containers.

“It is an amazing feeling because we sense that Carol is still in the garden with us at times,” she said. “I have felt it every time I have been down here.”

Remarkable

A colourful border sees roses, verbena and hostas included in the delightful mix.

“Carol was a remarkable flower arranger and used to tour the world competing and lecturing, taking in trips to Pakistan, New Zealand and to South Africa when I went along with her,” said Lynne.

“She could grow lovely flowers in a gorgeous garden and then use her artistic skills to produce the most marvellous floral arrangements,” she added.

It is of course too far ahead to think about opening the garden next year, but visitors in June would hope they could visit again to enjoy the garden, contribute to a charity and pay homage to a remarkable lady, gardener and flower arranger.

One of them, Vera Jones from Belle Vue in Shrewsbury said she had enjoyed all the gardens open that day in Whittington and had only heard about the sadness surrounding Carol’s garden at the end of her visit.

“I went back there and took in the atmosphere and I did feel that I was in a special place,” she said. “Well done to Carol’s son and friends for keeping it open for us to enjoy.

“It is one of those very special personal gardens full of things of interest and yet a place of peace and tranquility – and I do hope I can come back next year,” she said.

As do many other people in the area . . .