Trained Fruit tree forms at West Dean, Sussex

The Walled Garden at West Dean is a special type of timeless garden. Perhaps something to do with the imposing and solid boundary walls, the permanence a complete boundary suggests and the Edenic atmosphere of such a well tended fruit garden.

The garden is laid out in three distinct walled sections; The Walled Fruit Garden, The Victorian Glasshouses and The Kitchen Garden. The trees pictured above are relatively young, not older than the post 1987 storm restoration project undertaken by the former head gardeners Jim Buckland and wife Sarah Wain (between 1991-2019).

I believe the term hortus conclusus is apt. The enclosed garden can be considered a paradox – bringing a controlled nature within whilst establishing a vertical axis as it eliminates the outside world, the garden below and the heavens above. With its inward focus it becomes symbolic of seclusion and strength, a heavenly paradise, Eden itself.

The trees in question pictured above, Apple (Malus), Pear (Pyrus) and Plum (Prunus), take to training in these restricted forms very well and are relatively quick to establish. West Dean exhibits some text book styles (fans, cordons etc) but also experiments with more expressive and creative forms, just for fun maybe or perhaps to deliberately provoke. More likely the garden’s creators understand that such a garden is infused with metaphorical meaning, of nature perfected through human creativity in the service of an ideal.