Foggy Bottom: A Garden To Share by Adrian Bloom. Padstow, Cornwall: Foggy Bottoms Books, 2023. 427 pp. $60.00
There are many beautiful books about beautiful gardens. Foggy Bottom is among them, filled with gorgeous photographs of Bloom’s renown six-acre garden. However, this book is so much more. First, it gives a fascinating history of the 57-year-old garden. Bloom shares old photographs of the meadow that pre-dated the garden, the building of his house, the early days of the garden, the days of heathers and young conifers, the conifer nursery, the digging of the pond, the growth of the garden as more beds were added, and the garden’s evolution into using deciduous trees, shrubs, perennials, and grasses alongside the conifers.
Bloom also takes us on an extensive tour of the current garden, detailing some of the key plants in each bed, and showing the beds from multiple viewpoints and in multiple seasons. He points out the seasonal changes in some of the conifers, grasses, and other plants. He discusses why the plants in a bed work well together. He shows some of his favorite design elements, like “rivers” of plants (a Galanthus river was my favorite) and a series of white clouds using Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’ or grasses like Stipa tenuissima or pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana).
Most importantly, Foggy Bottom provides a rare master class in the maintenance and continual improvement of a mature garden. Bloom refers to “the constant need for re-designing.” Bloom is frank in describing the many conifers that he has removed over the years, as they began to grow into their neighbors or to obstruct a view worth preserving. Bloom shows before and after pictures of several garden beds that were in need of thinning and explains which conifers he decided to remove and why. He also limbed up some bushy conifers like Pinus sylvestris ‘Lodge Hill’ and a trio of Picea pungens ‘Globosa,’ lightening their presence in the garden and providing room underneath for other plants. Other conifers are pruned annually to maintain their size. Additionally, he has dramatically changed the mix of plants in various beds over the years.
I do not share Bloom’s love for Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’ but many other outstanding plants and plant combinations caught my eye. A golden weeping beech (Fagus sylvatica ‘Aurea Pendula’) lit up the edge of the dark woods. Several Thuga occidentalis ‘Degroot’s Spire’ were underplanted with red Crocosmia and yellow-orange Helenium. The dark purple leaves of Heuchera ‘Prince’ was ribboned through a bed along with Allium ‘Purple Sensation,’ bookended by a weeping purple beech.
I admit that, as a long-time fan of Adrian Bloom’s, you had me at the words “Foggy Bottom.” However, there is much for everyone to love in this latest Bloom book and I highly recommend it. It is currently a little difficult to find in the states, but the search is worth the effort.
Deborah Banks maintains a large garden in the Catskill foothills above Oneonta, NY. She is a member of ACNARGS, HPS/MAG and the New England chapter of the American Primrose Society, none of which is anywhere near where she lives.