Tales of Volunteer Plants, Cake, and Legacy

Contrary to what you may be thinking, this is not a piece about plants which set themselves in our gardens, often landing in a better place to thrive chosen by Nature than if we were to choose their home, but rather some brief musings on my recent acceptance as a volunteer at the charity Perennial’s York Gate Garden in Adel, Leeds.

Some of you may be very familiar with York Gate garden, as it was featured by the TV programme Gardener’s World no less than three times in 2023. Adam Frost, Rachel de Thame and Frances Tophill all visited for the programmes. It is a one acre garden in north Leeds which has grade 2 National Heritage status and was inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement.

The garden, widely thought to be one of the UK’s best small garden, under the umbrella of the charity Perennial, helps raise much-needed funds to assist anyone in horticulture who finds themselves on hard times for whatever reason. The Spencer family, Frederick, his wife Sybil and their son Robin originally bought the house and farmland in 1951 for their horses and then began the garden, laying it out in a series of rooms.  Sadly first Frederick died in 1963, leaving Robin and Sybil to continue the work but Robin too died at only 47 in 1982. Sybil was a plantswoman and it was she who collected the diverse plant collection, some of which is still there today.

Learning curve

Although a keen gardener in the modest plots I have been lucky enough to own over the years, attached to the various houses in which I have lived, I had no illusions that I would be allowed to delve for weeds into the borders or kitchen garden of this amazing, renowned one acre garden.

There are so many different plants packed into a relatively small space, some exotic or unusual, many familiar and much-loved and one would really not want to be responsible for hoiking out a prize specimen lovingly tended since the days of the Spencer family.  Or, indeed, plunging your trowel in the soil with gusto and finding you have accidentally severed through the roots of an unsuspecting newly acquired addition dear to the heart of one of the gardeners.

No, I can arguably do less damage as a new volunteer, ensconced in the Plant Sales cabin chatting to visitors to the garden about their purchases and, on occasion, proudly offering a little knowledge of a plant if I am reasonably sure I know what I am going on about.

For all other questions about plants on sale, those grown in the gardens the visitor may have just seen, or more complex horticultural queries I can dive for the walkie talkie and (politely and hopefully without any hint of panic in my voice) summon Jack Ogg, the head gardener to impart the relevant information.

In fact, one of the bonuses of Volunteering at the garden is that each shift one, if not all, the gardeners pop in to see if you’re getting on ok and for a brief chat... they really care about those of us who volunteer. I feel very lucky to be able to discourse casually with such knowledgeable gardeners about frustrations at recent plant name changes and how on earth one remembers the new ones, or what is currently going on in the garden.

Sweet success

And there is cake!  (Quite possibly also the best lemon cake I have ever eaten!) I fear I will have to try to resist the offer of said sweet treats on some volunteer shifts or I may find that the subsequent broadening of my waistline etc may preclude any energetic gardening of my own plot in the future.

On a less calorific note some of the salad leaves and edible flowers grown in the kitchen garden can be found on your plate in the cafe which is a thriving part of the visitor experience at York Gate, along with the very lovely, garden-inspired shop. I’m bracing myself for doing a preliminary shift in the cafe in the near future, as I hear that it is always busy, demanding and requires different skills from those I employed as a professional musician in my career until a (very!?) early retirement two years ago. I don’t believe I have any Greek ancestors so hopefully no plate smashing en route back to the kitchen will ensue.

Perhaps I should also rather shamefacedly reveal that, until I started volunteering back in the summer (2024) I had never worked a till in my life! I received very patient guidance from Andy, however, to learn how to cope and I don’t believe I have charged anyone £106 for a plant instead of £6 as yet. No doubt if they ever get to read this the team will be checking my till receipts carefully for the foreseeable future.

Rooms for reflection

Sybil Spencer, after her husband and son passed away, used to sit at the gate in a high-backed wicker chair and collect the entrance fee and I can actually just remember her when I first moved to Leeds before she sadly passed away in 1994. She kindly left the garden to Perennial with the wish that the garden would continue to delight and inform visitors.               Sometimes when I walk around the garden I imagine her seated on the side of the canal (apparently she wanted a moon pond) next to the dolphin fountain, trailing her fingers in the water or deadheading in a straw hat on a lovely summer’s day. I am positive she will be very approving of the way the garden looks nowadays and pleased that her chair is still onsite (protected now from the Yorkshire weather though.)

Finally, during my recent volunteering work in the shop, as plant sales are shut for the winter since all the bulbs sold out in November, I can see some of the garden from the windows and the elegant bones of it at this darker time of year. All that green power waiting to push forth in the new gardening year and the thrilling prospect of the snowdrop weeks in February when the garden opens briefly again to show off those beautiful miniature jewels of loveliness, especially snowdrop 'S Arnott', that beautiful tall variety.

Then, in a matter of weeks it will be spring and the reopening of the garden for another year so that this wonderful collection of plants and trees can delight, inspire, educate, fill me with awe , lift my spirits or simply offer space for calmness and contemplation. I can wander through the many garden rooms... the Sand Garden if I am in Mediterranean mood with huge agaves, the Maze Garden where Sybil used to sit and welcome people at the original entrance with the fabulous Sequoiadendron giganteum pendulum, a weeping form which looks somewhat crazy but a real showstopper.

The old orchard has a large tranquil pond which leads me to the Pinetum where I can marvel at the height of the conifer trees - originally dwarf specimens now towering to the sky. Round the next corner I find an espaliered blue cedar (my favourite), six yew triangle shapes and the amazing (also espaliered) pyracantha on the house wall with cut-outs for the windows like two eyes peering at you.

The Dell is a woodland room where you can stand still and travel the world from New Zealand to the Himalayas and North America without going to the airport, including 60 plus varieties of snowdrop. Sybil’s garden has tropical plants, bananas, schefflera and the like, to take me on another flight of fancy. One of the most intimate rooms, I feel, is the Herb Garden which wonderfully and quirkily includes alliums and salvias and guides me to the summerhouse where I feel as though I have arrived in Italy ... I can dream.

Through the beech hedge alley I make it to the kitchen garden  from where I pinched the idea of putting small terracotta pots on top of my garden stakes to look decorative and to protect eyes. The wonderfully old fashioned potting shed is where I would love to be if this were my garden and look out through a round window to the white fire hydrant pictured above. Moving closer to the house, I drop down onto the Paved Garden with cacti and succulents... some of the aeoniums are nearly as tall as me as we come face to face in the summer and on popping my head into the small greenhouse I can wonder how on earth the small aeoniums grow in the cracks in the wall with no earth whatsoever. Going round the corner I open my eyes wide at the Hot Garden with all the sun on a bright day, but no time for sunglasses as I want to revel in those colours.

In conclusion I reach the White Garden to cool down once more, just in time for lunch, maybe followed by cake, giving me time to perhaps turn my thoughts to my own plot and how what I have seen at York Gate and, indeed other gardens I have visited, can influence and inform my planting over the coming year. I am currently redesigning my modest front garden so welcome the inspiration. After all, who will know the ideas were not all from my own head? Don’t tell anyone please! Now, how many more plants have I really got room for? Maybe not a Sequoia!