It’s #NationalGardeningWeek so we sat down with our Senior Gardener India Sida-Murray to chat all things gardens, from top tips to first memories. 

What’s your favourite garden at Harewood ?
My favourite part of the garden has got to the Walled Garden because I spend so much of my time there. There are so many parts of it to explore and every season brings a new delight to see. We have delicate snake’s-head fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris) coming up in the orchard at the moment and the new-season hop shoots are making an appearance. There’s radish going in the vegetable plots and wild flower seeds germinating in the meadow. It is teaming with spring growth and I cannot wait to see it all verdant and buzzing again.

What’s your favourite time of year in the gardens ?
That’s a difficult one for a gardener because every new season is my favourite. The excitement of spring with the waft of fresh green growth in the chilly morning air, which warms during the day to newly mown grass. The abundance of summer brings gluts to vegetables and luscious full buckets of flowers. The soil is teaming with activity and the garden is full of visitors. Late summer into Autumn has such a romantic feel here. We enjoy the last of the vibrant colours as the garden comes to a magnificent crescendo. The final flourish of glowing Autumn tones reflects over the lake as if it is on fire and the migrating birds dance upon it before their final flight. Winter, most surprisingly, is our busiest time as a team. We work hard to prepare the garden for the coming year and many hours are spent reflecting and plotting for the future. While the garden sleeps we are full of excitement and anticipation, in the hopes that our careful planning and ambitions for the next season come to fruition.

What’s the best gardening tip you’ve ever received ?
You can’t grow everything all at once. It is very tempting to order everything in the catalogue you want to grow and get overwhelmed. Choose a few new things each year so you can spend the time really looking and understanding your new plants, as well as feeling confident at the ones you have already mastered. This is how you develop your craft; observation, patience and practice.

What are your first memories of gardening?
My parents took us to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight every year when I was small. Queen Victoria had nine children and each one had their own vegetable plot and set of tools with their initials engraved. I also come from a big family and this was so thrilling to me as a child. I have fond memories of my mother lifting our big perambulator onto the horse and cart that took you down to Swiss Cottage and the children’s gardens there. I was lucky enough to eventually work at Osborne and the feeling of excitement and kinship never wore off.

What advice would you give to a new gardener?
Keep going. If seeds don’t germinate, sow again. If a plant is sulking in a particular spot, then move it. If the rabbits eat it all, try another tact. So much of being a gardener and in fact gardening itself is about promise. It’s making plans for future days, for a future you, for a future garden. Don’t be put off by failures, just keep going and eventually you will look back and be amazed by what you have accomplished.

It’s #NationalGardeningWeek so we sat down with our Head Gardener Trevor Nicholson to chat all things gardens, from top tips to first memories.

What’s your favourite garden at Harewood ?
That’s a difficult one! I love all the gardens at Harewood, the Terrace gardens with the magnificent Italian parterre, stunning flower borders, fountains, and the huge sub-tropical border; the Walled Garden with its fantastic productive kitchen garden, hops, orchard, meadow and lovely herbaceous borders; and of course, the amazing Himalayan Garden with the beautiful waterfall, gorge, rock garden and wonderful drifts of primulas, rhododendrons, trees and shrubs. Restoring and developing each of these gardens has been a huge part of my life over the past 30 years. If I had to pick a favourite then it would have to be the Himalayan Garden, because I love plants, mountains, and wild places, and it reminds me of all the incredible wild places I’ve explored in China and the Himalayas and the wonderful native plants I found there.

What’s your favourite time of year in the gardens ?
Springtime, especially April and May when all the amazing rhododendrons come into flower around the beautiful lakeside, and when so many trees are flowering then. I love the fresh green of young oak leaves and seeing the oak apples starting to blush; and of course, who doesn’t adore the swathes of bluebells in the woods at Harewood? Spring is also when we sow our seeds and get plants in the ground too, so it’s an incredibly busy time for all gardeners.

What’s the best gardening tip you’ve ever received?
Gosh! There are so many. If I hadn’t taken sound advice from so many wonderful people, I wouldn’t be where I am now. We follow ‘no-dig’ practices in the Walled Garden now, but we used to sow vegetable seed directly onto the ground in carefully prepared seed drills. The soil at Harewood contains tiny clay particles, so after it rained the soil would develop a thin crust on top as it dried called a ‘cap’ which can stunt or distort seedlings as they try to push through the crust. To avoid problems from the soil ‘capping’ over the seedlings, my old tutor advised me to lightly cover the seeds in the drills with sieved potting compost mixed with sand. No capping. No distortion. Genius!

What are your first memories of gardening?
My dad was a gardener and so was his. Being from the north, gardening was big in our family, but not the posh, showy kind of gardening, it was allotment gardening, the proper kind where growing food in whatever space you had was the absolute norm throughout my formative years. We cooked and ate all the vegetables we grew and composted all the green waste. All our neighbours did it. We lived in a row of old railway workers’ cottages next to a disused railway, where the embankments had been turned into allotments by the locals for growing food. Weeding – between rows of leeks or onions or carrots – was just what you were expected to do as a kid. In the holidays we used to visit local gardens and parks. I can’t remember a time when gardening wasn’t part of my life.

What advice would you give to a new gardener?
My advice would definitely be to join a network of gardeners, such as the Professional Gardeners’ Guild or the Walled Kitchen Gardens Network, or your regional Gardens Trust etc. You will not only find genuinely kind and helpful people, but you will also have the opportunity of joining organised visits all over the country to some fantastic gardens and behind-the-scenes tours of some amazing projects. You’ll learn from seasoned professionals who are more than willing to share their advice. Follow your interests too, there are some wonderful plant societies out there, which are run by very knowledgeable people.

Why isn’t the Ferry running?

Harewood’s Ferry made its maiden voyage in June 2018 and has carried thousands of Harewood visitors every week between the Bird Garden, Bothy and Walled Garden.
In May 2022, the water level in the Lake started to decrease due to low rainfall throughout winter and spring. In June the water level reached a point where the Ferry ran aground and could no longer run. The mud banking you can see around the Lake has not been seen since the Lake was last drained many decades ago.

When will it be operating again?

Unless the weather for the remaining half of the year features a consistent and heavy amount of rain, it is unlikely that the water level will reach a point where we can operate the Ferry again until 2023.
Harewood House Trust, the charity that looks after this site, and the Harewood Estate are working with the Environment Agency and Leeds City Council to ensure the health and wellbeing of Harewood’s wildlife that rely on the Lake. The Trust and Estate are also looking at the Lake’s infrastructure to help plan and mitigate against the impact of climate change, including prolonged periods of dry weather.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Pih joins the Harewood House Trust executive team from Tate Liverpool. In this new role, he will lead the charity’s award-winning exhibition programme, and care for the museum’s outstanding collection of painting, decorative interiors, furniture and porcelain. His work will further Harewood’s purpose to make heritage relevant, using the collections and landscape to help shape a more sustainable world, unlock people’s creativity and enrich lives.

Over the past five years, Harewood has received universal recognition for its innovative programming including the Harewood Biennial alongside its new Craft Spotlight and Open History series addressing the urgent issues of our time from equality, diversity and inclusion, and social and environmental issues prevalent in society today. Darren has worked across exhibitions that have featured many of today’s leading artists, has toured major exhibitions for Tate Liverpool around the world, and has commissioned several new works. Most recently, his Radical Landscapes exhibition explores climate emergency, trespass and social and cultural change through a century of landscape art – an exhibition which shares Harewood’s values entirely.

With a history of collections care and producing exhibitions closely linked to Harewood’s programming ambitions, trustee of Harewood House Trust Iwona Blazwick OBE commented:

‘Pih’s deep engagement with modern and contemporary art will bring a dynamic new perspective to Harewood, connecting its distinguished history of arts patronage with the present. I can’t wait to see what his curatorial vision will contribute – not only to Harewood’s great legacy but the wider Yorkshire art scene’.

Since 2017, Harewood – which reached a record-breaking 250,000 visitors in 2021 – has been pushing the boundaries of its programming under the leadership of Jane Marriott, building on the Trust’s and the Lascelles’ commitment to acknowledging the estate’s colonial past for over 30 years, and exploring and provoking conversation around societal issues that affect us all. This commitment remains stronger than ever and is central to the Trust’s programming aims, the work of its staff and volunteers, and working with the communities in and around Leeds.

Trust Director Jane Marriott comments of Darren’s appointment:

‘I am delighted to welcome Darren as Harewood’s first Chief Curator and Artistic Director. This role epitomises our ambitions to reimagine the country house for the 21st century with bold, exciting and innovative programming. Darren brings a thoughtful approach and excellent track record, in combining the care of historic collections with the work of contemporary artists, in order to develop our ambitions as a charity and museum.’

Darren Pih’s first major exhibition under his curatorial lead will be Harewood’s second Craft Spotlight, to be announced later this year, and a Harewood ‘year of play’ to coincide with Leeds 2023 celebrations. On his appointment, he said:

‘I am delighted to be joining Harewood and contributing to its ambitions by leading its exhibitions programme. Harewood and its history make it a unique site for presenting art and ideas that engage with many of the most urgent issues of our time, including environmental responsibility, colonialism and social inclusion. It’s a fantastic opportunity to create new knowledge around its collections, by bringing contemporary and modern art into dialogue with the heritage and history of Harewood.’

Download the full press release including editor’s notes >> 

John Varley (1778 – 1842) was a key figure in the history of the development of British watercolours. From 1800 he studied at Dr Monro’s Academy and made early sketching tours to Wales from 1798 – 1802.  He was initially strongly influenced by Thomas Girtin. A founder member of the Society of Watercolour Artists in London in 1804, he would go on to exhibit over 700 works there. As a teacher, he impacted the next generation of watercolourists, counting among his successful pupils David Cox, Copley Fielding, John Linnell,
Samuel Palmer and Peter de Wint.

Varley first came into contact with Edward, Viscount Lascelles, son of the first Earl of Harewood and an avid collector of watercolours, in 1801. Two years later, in 1803, he visited Yorkshire and painted a number of accomplished views of Harewood House and one of the Castle.  This group of works was an important early commission for Varley. The watercolours displayed on this wall – Harewood House from the North West and Harewood House from the South West – are of considerable scale and ambition. They give far more architectural detail than the earlier more famous works by J.M.W Turner, also commissioned by Edward Lascelles.  The smaller Harewood House from the South by Varley shows the house from a distance, set within the landscape with a felled tree and woodsman in the foreground.  Boldly painted, it is undoubtedly influenced by Turner’s Harewood House from the South East but the tones are paler (displayed on the central wall).

It was only natural that the romantic medieval ruined castle, dating back to 1366, would attract visiting artists and it was painted by Varley, as well as his predecessors Turner and Girtin.  In Varley’s work, the castle is distant, partially covered in foliage and the broad landscape and foreground figures dominate the composition (displayed above the fireplace).

A further watercolour of the ‘model’ village at Harewood is also attributed to Varley or his circle (displayed next to the fireplace). The village drew the attention of the pastel painter, John Russell, who visited in 1802 and noted that the buildings were all ‘of stone, with a regularity and neatness that I never saw exceeded with a wide main street’, before being escorted through the arch by the steward to visit the house itself. Edward, Viscount Lascelles, who died in 1814, also owned an early view of Snowdon by Varley, but does not seem to have patronised him later in his career.  Varley went on to write a number of important books on watercolour painting, including Treatise on the Principles of Landscape Design (1816 – 18), and invented his own range of colours. This fine group of watercolours illustrates a key early commission when the artist was still painting views of country houses before developing an accomplished landscape style influenced by the 17^th century artist Claude Lorrain.