The Long Border, Garden Museum, London.

The Garden Museum in London was closed when I went there for a walk a couple of weeks ago. It was too late in the afternoon, but the gates were still opened, and I was captured by the quiet atmosphere of the external garden. It was interesting too because, under the shade of the plane trees, I discovered the Long Border. Designed by Dan Pearson next to the deconsecrated church of St. Mary's-at-Lambeth, seat of the Garden Museum, in 2013, this rich composition was an initiative that accompanied the exhibition Green Fuse dedicated to his activity. 

The Long Border, inspired by his work at the Tokachi Millennium Forest in Japan, is a strip of woodland in central London. It is a special woodland indeed, with Vitis and Parthenocissus that climb long poles, the 'trees', and a rich tapestry of perennials and ornamental grasses that combines refreshing green shades and delicate colours with a careful arrangements of textures, heights and shapes. 

There were the unusual flowers of the Aralia, the bottlebrush white spikes of the Cimicifuga, the pink plumes of the Sanguisorba, solitary white flowers of the Houttunyia cordata, the arching waxed stems of the Rubus, the soft leaves of Selenium and then, ... surprise, surprise.... the starry white flowers of the Aster divaricatus. A colony of this American aster, in fact, had gracefully accomodated itself in the rigorous Asian palette of the Border, and generously flowered in the front.

The Aster divaricatus is not the only American plant in the list, and its origin is not really important, but it reminded me of the Tradescants, the men who inspired the creation of the Garden Museum. John Tradescant the Elder and John Tradescant the Younger, his son, gardeners, naturalists, travelers and collectors, are buried in the churchyard surrounded by a beautiful knot garden and a lot of flowers. In 1637, John Tradescant the Younger left London for the first of his three travels to Virginia, an activity in which his father had already indulged twenty before visiting Russia, Paris and Algiers. The young Tradescant returned with interesting seeds, such as Magnolias, Liriodendron tulipifera, Taxodium ascendens and Acer rubrum, but also asters and the Virginia creeper, Parthenocissus quinquefolia.

The plants in the Long Border would certainly fascinate these dynamic and adventurous men, something special for their next garden.

“... These famous Antiquarians that had been 
  Both gardeners to the Rose and Lily Queen
  Transplanted now themselves, sleep here, and when
  Angels shall with their trumpets waken men
  And fire shall purge the world, these hence shall rise
  And change this garden for a Paradise.”
(Epitaph on the Tradescants' tomb)

Full Plant List:
(22.08.2013 Garden Museum Border - Dan Pearson Studio)
Anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’
Aralia cordata
Aster divaricatus
Astilbe rivularis
Briza nedia
Cimicifuga ‘Brunette’
Disproum longistylum
Dryopteris wallichiana
Filipendula camtschatica
Gilennia trifoliata
Hakonechloa macra
Houttunyia cordata
Iris chrysographes
Lysimachia clethroides
Molinia 'Edith Dudzus'
Parthenocissus quinquefolia
Persicaria amplexicaule 'Alba'
Rubus thibetanus 'Silver Fern'
Sanguisorba hakusanensis
Selinum wallichianum
Thalictrum 'Elin'
Vitis coignettiae

Photos:
Garden Museum, London, 2015.
Except: Aster tradescantii, (current name: Aster lateriflorus), Species Plantarum, Carl Linnaeus, 1753.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/

Links:
Garden Museum, Lambeth Palace Rd, London, SE1 7LB.
http://www.gardenmuseum.org.uk/
Dan Pearson Studio, The Nursery, The Chandlery, London,
SE1 7QY SE1 7QY.
http://www.danpearsonstudio.com/#/journal/garden-museum-border/