Thanks to Banks

Steffie Shields applauds the creation of a new community garden in Horncastle to honour the life of Sir Joseph Banks, eighteenth century explorer, naturalist and founding President of the Royal Horticultural Society.

Words:Steffie Shields
Photographs:Steffie Shields and Gwen Grantham

A tribute to a great man or woman may be made in many ways - a memorial plaque, urn or statue, a biography, an educational foundation or trust, a tree-planting.... Very occasionally a park or place is named after them. Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) is one of the county’s most famous sons, whose love of the natural world took him, after Botany studies at Oxford, on plant-collecting adventures overseas into the uncharted waters of the New World. Banks commissioned further plant-collectors and enjoyed a life-long dedication to letters and science, to become the founding father of the most prestigious, and invaluable, horticultural society in the world, now commonly known as the RHS. The Banks Peninsula on South Island, New Zealand, Banks Islands in modern-day Vanuatu, Banks Island in Canada’s Northwest Territories, and in Australia the Canberra suburb of Banks, the electoral Division of Banks, and Sydney’s suburbs, Bankstown, Banksia and Banksmeadow, are all named after him. He has appeared on an Australian $5 dollar note, and on a 1986 postage stamp.

Here in Lincolnshire, a window in Lincoln Cathedral keeps his profile alive. The Sir Joseph Banks Conservatory at The Lawn, Lincoln attracts tourists with exotic hot-house vegetation. In Boston, a commissioned portrait hangs in the Council Chamber of the Guildhall Museum. Yet it has taken almost two hundred years for the most appropriate tribute – a garden displaying many of the Australian and Southern Hemisphere specimen plants, (where climatically sufficiently hardy) that Banks discovered, collected and introduced to English gardens and to Europe. Perhaps the task has been made easier by possible global warming. A grade II listed building in Horncastle, a stone’s throw from Banks’s own townhouse, restored by the Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire, recently became home to the Sir Joseph Banks Centre and the premises included an enclosed setting surrounded by protective walls. An inspirational courtyard garden with Banksian plants could be created at long last, the first garden in his memory.

The fledgling Sir Joseph Banks Society, with Sir David Attenborough as Patron, had the momentum to take such an appropriate, visionary project forward, given enthusiastic support from both the Society President, historian David Robinson OBE and Chairman Dr Cheryle Berry. Local historian Jean Burton has been the driving force however, working in close harmony with Richard Locke-Wheaton, manager of the Linkage Employment Services, and also the Lincolnshire Community Foundation, in securing funds from the Heritage Lottery Fund, ‘Breathing Spaces, and a local Grass Roots community grant. She approached Riseholme College, where a design competition was organised, giving students the brief to create a garden accessible for wheel-chairs and the handicapped, and both user-friendly and educational for children. The project aim was also to tell the story, by providing information boards for visitors highlighting how and when specimen plants or seeds were brought to England. The confined, irregular space with unprepossessing walls posed quite a challenge. Vee Reed came up with the winning design: curvaceous raised beds, trellis, gravel walkways, and embellished by an apt feature, a compass.

This was just the beginning. Before a sod could be turned, a great deal of botanical research and sourcing of plants from nurseries was necessary. Jean drafted in Pat Hickson to compile a plant list, and both sought expert advice from Professor David J. Mabberley
Keeper of the Herbarium, on a visit to Kew Botanic Garden archives. Sir Joseph Banks had particular foresight in researching plants that could be used for practical purposes in agriculture and for commercial exploitation and is credited with the introduction to Europe of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa, as well as the genus named after him, Banksia (unfortunately not hardy enough for out-of-doors Lincolnshire). Now approximately eighty species bear Banks’ name. Fortunately local plants woman, and former Vice-Chairman of Lincolnshire Gardens Trust, Gwen Grantham, also volunteered not only to advise on seasonal plant choice but also to help plant up the garden. Together Jean, Pat and Gwen worked through over 3,500 plants.

Gwen went on to source seventy different varieties, using ‘Plantfinder’, travelling widely to various nurseries further afield with her husband Geoffrey and ordering from Johnson’s in Whitstable, Burncoose in Cornwall, and County Park Nurseries in Hornchurch. They were pleased to find a great deal locally, for instance, the eucalyptus came from Bay Tree Nursery. Some, such as Tulbaghia violacea, came from Gwen’s own garden. Some specialist Banksian plants were also grown for the project by Linkage’s plant production team at Scremby. “This exciting development offers new training opportunities for our service users both at the Sir Joseph Banks Centre in maintaining the garden and plant sales, and at Scremby Grange. It will also increase opportunities for the retail area within the Joseph Banks social enterprise at Horncastle,” said Richard Locke-Wheaton.

Imagine the logistics of delivering 150 bags of manure into the small space. Late September 2009, I drove over to meet the team, who hope to undertake further research in the future. I witnessed the last elements of planting coming together under pressure, so as to complete the garden in time for various grant deadlines. Pat Hickson was valiantly watering in the new, leafy residents in pristine white-walled, serpentine beds. (Later, it was decided that soft sage was a better colour) Gwen’s knowledge, design expertise and attention to detail came to the fore. Jean Burton quietly confirmed “Gwen’s input is the making of the garden”.

Then came the worst winter for decades. I thought of the new garden, and in particular the garden-makers, many times as temperatures plummeted and remained below freezing for days, wondering how the tree ferns and acacias provided by Anwick Nursery could possibly survive. “We could not have picked a worse time to make the garden” was Gwen’s verdict. However, nature continues to amaze. Thankfully, most of the tropical planting came through unscathed. This June, the formal garden opening was a splendid, well-attended affair, as Mr John Godfrey, High Sheriff of Lincolnshire, unveiled the plaque, in scorching, southern hemisphere sunshine as if Banks himself had arranged it. Was it my imagination, blooms seemed somehow to be a patriotic blend of white, red and blue: Libertia grandiflora, a clump-forming white New Zealand iris, blue Parahebe perfoliata, or Digger’s Speedwell, from Australia, as also red Grevillea ‘Canberra Gem’.

Many congratulations to Jean and all who made this unique, fitting Tribute Garden so delightfully intimate and relaxing, with smart labels that clearly tell the origin of each named specimen. Naturally, the Chilean rose, Rosa banksiae lutea is there, an early-flowering, vigorous pale yellow double or semi-double climbing rose with evergreen foliage (actually named after Lady Banks). Few of us will cross either oceans or skies to visit the Southern Hemisphere, so how uplifting to see first-hand the warmth-loving, unusual and exotic specimens, some for the very first time, for which the remarkable naturalist had the thrill of discovery and the utmost fascination. Thanks to Banks our lives, and our gardens, have been enriched.

NB. Lincolnshire Gardens Trust members visit to the Joseph Banks Garden Thursday 9th September. See website www.gardenstrusts.org.uk/lincs to join and for booking details.

Published August 2010