FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Main entrance beds transformed
Winter 2007/8
CANNIZARO'S main entrance beds have been replanted with permanent new features following agreement between Merton Council and the Friends.
The Friends commissioned garden designer Susan White to produce a plan for the beds leading from the Main Gate to the Millennium Fountain and on to the Aviary.
She said: "The garden is Grade 2* listed on the English Heritage Register and requires sympathetic new planting. A balance is required between the obvious formal approach and the introduction of the Millennium Fountain, a very modern water feature, at the end of the vista from the entrance gate."
Most of her recommendations have now been accepted by Merton and planting started on 4 February.
The beds were traditionally filled with annual bedding plants to provide a colourful welcome for all visitors to the park. However, continuing Council budget reductions led to the axing of bedding plants in much of the borough last summer. Cannizaro's entrance beds were left empty during the main visitor season, leading to confrontation between the Friends and Merton. That has now been settled following talks between Committee members and Council representatives.
Susan White first suggested an avenue of lime trees between the Main Gate and the Millennium Fountain but this would have been both controversial and expensive, entailing removal of all existing trees. Instead she proposed a compromise, retaining the existing beds but adding topiary yew features at the centre of each one. Linking the existing yew hedge and topiary balls around the fountain, the new yews should create the illusion of an avenue framing both the fountain and the building behind.
Each bed is being enclosed with a low hedge of Sarcococca confusa whose dark green shiny leaves and highly scented winter lowers are spaced some 400 mm apart and join the yews in providing year round permanence. The enclosed areas, divided into sections, are being planted with blue flowers of Vinca minor Argenteovariegata, white flowers of Vinca minor Alba Variegata, and Euonymus - Emerald Gaity - with seasonal bedding plants retained in the front triangular quadrant.
The curved bed
(left) beside the Millennium Fountain is having a
single line of Lavandula Munstead edging, together with Rosa rugosa
(Roseraie de l'Hay) shrub roses for summer impact. Narcissus bulbs are added for
spring colour.
The curved area opposite the Aviary (left) now has several multi-stemmed silver birch trees (Betula jacquemontii or Grayswood Ghost), each with its own circular planting bay containing Cyclamen coum Album. A group of Cornus Mid Winter Fire will be seen behind the birches and the adjacent beech tree to contrast the white of both the Aviary and the birch trunks.