Finding Major Johnston

In a garden such as Hidcote you would think getting a sense of its creator not a hard task. In fact I've teased at the nature of the man ever since I visited his English garden almost a year ago. It has become quite an obsession, a quest to discover what appears to be unknowable, possibly intended that way by the man himself.

Penstemon 'Hidcote Pink'

" Johnston emerges as a stiff, formal, buttoned up, upper class English country 

gentleman of his own invention"  R. Strong

Hypericum 'Hidcote'

"I knew Johnnie Johnston for 30 years but I never knew him " Vicomte de Noailles

Campanula latiloba 'Hidcote Amethyst'

'I fear he is a waster' Gertrude Winthrop (mother)

Sweet William 'Hidcote Red' Dianthus

Career soldier-military service: Anglo/Boer War seeing action several times in the bloodiest battles known to man at that time; First World War, injured twice, once so badly his body was set aside for burial.

Symphytum 'Hidecote Pink'

'cosy, companionable creature' 'we share three passions...gardening, travelling and reading out loud'

'he is a good little man-that's why I like him' Norah Lindsay

'he was a decent sort of man....he would pat you on the shoulder and say it was good' (talking about work habits) Ted Pearce employed 53 years by L.J.

Verbena 'Lawrence Johnston'

Gifted Gardener and Horticulturist. Deeply loved

by all his friends. Inscription on grave

Close friends included Edith Wharton, they stayed at each others homes regularly. "Bill" Barrington, 10th Viscount Barrington, who was living companionably in a 'ménage-à-cinq' with a famed harpsichordist, her husband and two other lovers. The aforementioned Norah Lindsay, outgoing and ebullient, they travelled together frequently, each acknowledged their unbreakable bond. If she had not died before him, L.J. planned to leave Hidcote to her.
Not the social group one might expect for someone described as stiff and formal.

Jasminum polyanthum
(collected on Johnston's plant hunting trip to China 1930)

The plant above resides in the plant house, called the summer house by L.J. It was here I felt most in tune with the master of Hidcote. The overcast day turned for the worse and the sky darkened. I looked out over the lily pond, just a short walk from the old stables and garden sheds. I sensed L.J. walking at dusk across the courtyard from the house, checking on the hundreds of plants potted up in the stables, and then on to the summer house where he kept the tender plants from his travels. Here, in the stillness, I imagined him contemplating the next day's work, fitting it into some pattern known only to himself.

Recommend reading Hidcote-The Making of a Garden by Ethne Clarke 

Norah Lindsay: The Life and Art of a Garden Designer by Allyson Hayward