{"id":2092,"date":"2009-08-04T19:13:24","date_gmt":"2009-08-04T19:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/?p=2092"},"modified":"2009-08-04T19:13:24","modified_gmt":"2009-08-04T19:13:24","slug":"national-trust-gardens-poem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/national-trust-gardens-poem\/","title":{"rendered":"National Trust Gardens Poem"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2093\" style=\"width: 785px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-2093\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/04\/national-trust-gardens-poem\/hardwick_hall_national_trust_uk\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2093\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2093\" title=\"hardwick_hall_national_trust_uk\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/hardwick_hall_national_trust_uk.jpg\" alt=\"A 'Sissinghurst Border' at Hardwick Hall, built 1590-7 and famous for being little changed\" width=\"775\" height=\"517\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/hardwick_hall_national_trust_uk.jpg 775w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/hardwick_hall_national_trust_uk-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/hardwick_hall_national_trust_uk-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/hardwick_hall_national_trust_uk-624x416.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 775px) 100vw, 775px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2093\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A &#39;Sissinghurst Border&#39; at Hardwick Hall, built 1590-7 and famous for being little changed<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>Graham Stuart Thomas knew lots about flowers<br \/>\nSo the National Trust gave him unlimited powers<br \/>\nEvery Head Gardener was bullied and cursed<br \/>\n&#8220;You must make your garden more like Sissinghurst&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This verse was inspired by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/01\/stonehenge-theories-revisited\/\">Marian&#8217;s quotation from John Michell<\/a> and\u00a0by\u00a0 many visits to NT gardens. Graham Stuart Thomas was the National Trust&#8217;s first gardens advisior.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t have much evidence but I <em>suspect<\/em> him of\u00a0making NT gardens too similar &#8211; by applying the tradional, and wretchedly simplistic, theory that all you really\u00a0need for a\u00a0good garden is\u00a0some informality, some formality and good flowers from a good nursery.<\/p>\n<p>If the National Trust was more like a cultural organization and less like a commercial organisation then its website would be less like the website of a hotels chain and more like the brilliant\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.touregypt.net\/\">Touregypt <\/a>website. For example, compare these entries: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.touregypt.net\/featurestories\/philae.htm\">Philae <\/a>and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationaltrust.org.uk\/main\/w-priorpark\">Prior Park<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.relaischateaux.com\/en\/search-book\/hotel-restaurant\/gilpin\/\">Gilpin Lodge Country House Hotel<\/a>. Which two are the most alike?<\/p>\n<p>Note:\u00a0one can be as\u00a0sure they did not have herbaceous borders in 1590 as\u00a0of any most other details in the history of planting design.<\/p>\n<p><br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Graham Stuart Thomas knew lots about flowers So the National Trust gave him unlimited powers Every Head Gardener was bullied and cursed &#8220;You must make your garden more like Sissinghurst&#8221; This verse was inspired by Marian&#8217;s quotation from John Michell and\u00a0by\u00a0 many visits to NT gardens. Graham Stuart Thomas was the National Trust&#8217;s first gardens [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,14,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}