‘What are you doing next Thursday?’
I hesitated and scanned through my mental calendar, searching for the event I’d forgotten.
‘Err, nothing, I think.’
‘Great. We’re going to Heligan, then.’
My wife took in the slightly sceptical look on my face. We had watched a programme about the enchanting Lost Gardens of Heligan but a few evenings before. But that to me didn’t seem enough to justify a road trip to Cornwall.
‘We’ll be staying in a pub on the harbour front.’
Ah, the magic words. I nodded enthusiastically.
And so began a journey that would change my life…
Phillipa Forrester’s superb BBC documentary had followed the story about how a chap called Tim Smit had chanced upon the ruined gardens of a grand old estate on the outskirts of a village called Mevagissy. To say that they were run down when he found them is something of an understatement, so overgrown were they and so dilapidated were the various greenhouses and huts hidden beneath. It was as though the entire place had been abandoned overnight.
Which, in fact, it pretty much had. A combination of many factors – not least of which was that most of the then not inconsiderable garden staff had gone off to the First World War and never returned – ensured that this once stately country pile had been left for nature to reclaim over the intervening decades. Something which Mr Smit and his merry band of volunteers discovered in 1990 when they first began cutting back the acres of rhododendron and bramble (amongst many others) that shrouded the land and buildings like an impenetrable green mat. However, despite the enormity of the task, they persevered and eventually The Lost Gardens of Heligan were opened to the public in the Easter of 1992.
The hour long film portrayed an idyllic corner of England where owls flew at dawn, baby foxes gambolled on lawns at night and cream teas could be taken during sun soaked afternoons while perambulating around gardens so improbably beautiful that they surely had to have been comped in by Industrial Light and Magic. In short, it all looked too good to be true.
Except it wasn’t. If anything – and this is no disrespect to the production team; rather a reflection on the sheer magnificence of the nature on offer – the film only managed to give a flavour of what the natural world, suitably tamed by a sensitive hand, could offer in terms of sheer sensual delight.
As I walked, hand in hand with my wife on a sunny May afternoon, through the various walled gardens, fields and – literally – forests of rhododendrons in full flower, for the first time I fully appreciated what it was about gardens and gardening that people got so excited about. Everywhere I turned, there was beauty, on a scale and in such vivid technicolour so as to stun the senses into submission. You were, you felt, in the presence of greatness.
Nothing, before or since, has ever left me quite as breathless and astonished as Heligan did that day. And that’s because, I think, they get the balance right. Yes, it’s a curated experience. Yes, a vast army of gardeners and farmers and horticulturalists work year round to have it looking just so when you visit, whether that be in May or September. But although it’s sculpted, organised and curated (call it what you will), it’s never cynical. They really have tried to return this extraordinary landscape to what it was like in its heyday and as you turn corner after corner, you realise that it’s all been done for its own sake rather than yours and, as you tour the 200 acres, you get the feeling that this is how it always was, how it was always meant to be. You are merely observing the organic beauty rather than it having been created necessarily just for you.
Inevitably the day came to an end and we found ourselves in the gift shop. For once I lingered, transfixed by the idea of taking something a little more permanent away with me than a mug or key ring. Outside the main building, some small pots caught my eye and in particular some rhododendrons that had been cultivated from the very plants I had been walking happily amongst all afternoon. I grabbed a small pink one and emerged smiling.
Actually, not smiling, beaming. It’s difficult to put into words quite what that day meant to me. I’d love to be able to say that, in a thunderflash of realisation, I quite literally saw the light and was an immediate convert to the cause of all things green. However I can’t, cause it didn’t.
You see, that’s just not the Heligan way. Heligan isn’t about flash, about the short term or the horticultural equivalent of a cheap sugar hit (although it does do a pretty good job of that). No, Heligan is all about the slow. It fair screams at you that this place took years to build in the first place, as long to bring back to life and that you should therefore take your time in enjoying not only it but also life as well. My day was more about a shift in spiritual tectonic plates than instant horticultural gratification.
And so, still beaming and armed with my plant (well, plants actually, I also bought three camelias) we went back to our home in Devon where I planted the camelias in with ducks and the rhodo in a pot. Before long I was spending more time outside, taking an interest in what my wife was doing in the garden and why. Shortly thereafter, I found myself not only accompanying her to the nursery but also having strong views on where her purchases might go. But most importantly I was outside. Just outside working and planning and breathing and just occasionally stopping to, quite literally, smell the roses. I felt better and still do.
I was lucky enough to go back to Heligan some years later to photograph its founder, Tim Smit (now rightly Sir Tim; he’s also the brains behind The Eden Project) for my photographic exhibition, Beauty&Truth: Healing Green. It seemed appropriate to include him in a celebration on green healers given that he has (albeit unwittingly) done so much for my own peace of mind through his work.
It’s always a risk returning to a place of spiritual importance where any kind of transformation has taken place. Inevitably the mind has applied a rose-tinted filter to the memory and the revisited reality rarely lives up to its remembered billing. Heligan, I am thrilled to say, was different. Yes, the element of surprise, that joyous feeling of discovery, wasn’t there but the sheer, overwhelming beauty of the place still was. Was it, ever.
As we wandered from outdoor room to outdoor room with Tim patiently sitting and chatting as I set up shot after shot (some of which I have included here), I was aware that even though my soul had somehow moved on from my first visit, the capacity for all things green and beautiful to touch it, to move it, was not just still very firmly inplace but had, if anything, been amplified.
Every May, Ginny, my rhododendron (named after Virginia Wade the Wimbledon-winning tennis player whose frilly knickers the annual blooms resemble) bursts into a riot of pink life. As with many things in the garden it is but a tragically brief pleasure and a week later they’re gone till the same time next year. But while they’re there, I can be found, most mornings with a coffee in my hand, simply staring at the sheer, fleeting wonder that nature can bring, even if it’s only for a week. I view the blooms as a living trailer for the main horticultural event that is summer just around the corner. More importantly, though, they are a living link to a place that transformed my life and that reminded (and still reminds) this weary soul that beauty leads to love leads to life.
Thank you Heligan.
Thank you Tim.