‘When I started here, I wasn’t even allowed to cut the grass,’ says Joe Palmese. ‘I didn’t know a thing about gardening.’
We’re walking around Penzance’s subtropical Morrab Gardens with its head gardener. He’s telling the story of this extraordinary exotic haven, and his own extraordinary story from unskilled labourer to devoted and skilled plantsman at one of the UK’s most famous town gardens. But mostly we’re being interrupted by dog walkers, nature lovers and plant fanatics. They are greeting Joe, or promising him seeds, cuttings or a spot of weeding to keep this precious space forever growing and evolving.
The story of Morrab Gardens is partly about the exotic plants – towering magnolias, subtropical palms, giant-leafed gunnera, blazing sumacs, candy coloured camellias. But, unfurling like a glossy banana leaf, another story emerges. One of volunteering, community building and even healing. Many gardens are described as the lungs of a town or city. Morrab Gardens is also the beating heart.
Victorian origins
Morrab House, now home to a private library, was built in 1841 for brewer Samuel Pidwell. Several owners later, in 1888, the three-acre site with its walled garden came to all of us when it was purchased by the Corporation of Penzance for £3,120. Penzance Borough held a competition to design a park, which was won by London designer Reginald Upcher. The layout included a bandstand, curved walks and – an utter mania for the Victorians (and many of us today) – subtropical planting. On 27 September 1889, the gardens opened with a half-day holiday for townsfolk and a procession through the streets. A Monty Don of the era commented in Gardeners’ Chronicle, ‘One of its features is a Palm-grove, where tourists may fancy themselves in the tropics or on Mediterranean shores.’
Cornwall’s most westerly corner is blessed with a mild microclimate and, as explorers brought back exotic specimens that thrive in our mild winters, a tradition for subtropical planting grew. In fact, many of the exotic plants that first populated the gardens were gifted by neighbouring estates at Trengwainton, Trewidden, Tresco and Ludgvan.
Plants come and go, of course, but the layout of the gardens and much of the planting has deep roots. Joe points to a clump of trees. ‘The old rhododendrons there are the original ones donated by the present Lord St Levan’s grandfather around a hundred years ago.’
Morrab Gardens today
The sloping garden is divided into several distinct zones: the fountain area at the top, the magnolia lawn further down, and the bandstand and fish pond near the bottom. To the west side, a delightful jungle of bamboo and tree ferns makes up a quieter, more hidden corner.
Walking around with Joe is hearing his life story through the medium of plants. ‘I grew the yellow magnolia there and the giant redwood from seed,’ he says, as we crane our necks upwards. He points at some sizable, chunky tree ferns, perhaps eight feet high. ‘Those I grew from spores.’ Given that tree ferns traditionally grow at a glacial rate, this suggests some Robert Johnson-esque deal with the devil, trowels replacing guitars. Apparently not. Says Joe, ‘If you’ve got a tree fern and you want it to grow fast, give it a weak foliar feed – a bit of tomato plant feed – in the evening, over the leaves.’
As we continue, Joe points out loquat, pseudopanax, phoenix palms, fan palms, Australian grass trees, tetrapanax and peaches. There’s also an emerging collection of exotics from New Zealand, thanks to a Kiwi volunteer who personally paid for plants to come over via certified routes.
Virtually every plant has a story. Some are tales of hard labour, like the fan palms dug up from nearby offices, brought down and replanted. ‘We get them self-seeding everywhere,’ says Joe. ‘They come up like mustard and cress.’ Others are happy accidents, such as the peaches that have grown from people throwing the stones.
Then there are the slightly grisly stories no exotic garden should be without. Joe points to a flowering puya, which comes from Chile and Argentina. It sports a swathe of fine, swirling leaves dotted with nasty-looking barbs. He says, ‘If you put your finger in the flower, it’s full of a liquid that tastes like sugar. That’s why it’s so often covered in bees, moths and butterflies. On the ends of the leaves, the spines point outwards, but on the insides they all point inwards, so animals get snagged and can’t escape. And when the animals rot, the nutrients drip into the soil and feed the plants.’
Which is always a nice thought while you’re sitting in the garden enjoying your hummus and avocado on rye. And a disclaimer: Joe says this macabre feeding applies to much bigger specimens and there’s no danger to domestic animals from this one.
Begging, stealing and borrowing
One thing that makes the achievement of Joe – along with all the volunteers who help him – so impressive is that the days of lavish local authority budgets for gardens are long gone. The overall effect of Morrab Gardens is achieved through a process some may call ad hoc, but in the vernacular is known as begging, borrowing and – well, not quite stealing. Over to Joe: ‘We have to raise all the money ourselves for the plants in the garden, through plant sales and fundraising. It’s about propagation, donation, swaps, gifts – that’s it.’
Propagation is a huge one. Among the most thrilling aspects of gardening for us amateurs (more plants – for free!) is undertaken on a large and ingenious scale by Joe. Thousands of seeds and cuttings grow at the business end of the gardens in the greenhouses. And there’s plenty of trial and error. Says Joe, ‘I’ve just been experimenting with a few bits and pieces – in this case, trying the hydrangeas straight into water. And they’ve started rooting. All sorts of stuff just seems to be rooting straight into water, so I want to try that a bit more.’
Joe’s story
Over the decades, Morrab Gardens has had some illustrious head gardeners. Thomas Dorothy retired in 1929 after nearly forty years. William Watson took the helm and stayed on until 1951, leaving this exhausted-sounding missive after two decades of cleaning up fallen camellia flowers, among other things. ‘In 21 years I have never had a public holiday and I have had no annual holiday since January 1937. In the summer the garden is open for 97 hours per week and for the whole of that time I may be called upon for duty.’
And so we come to Joe. Perhaps his time as head gardener is the most impressive tenure of all. He certainly has the best character arc. At school, he didn’t learn to read and write. And, for many years afterwards, he didn’t have much to offer the world of gardening. But something flowered when Joe and Morrab Gardens were brought together.
‘When I started in 1989, I didn’t have a clue,’ says Joe. ‘I just had to sweep up and weed and things like that. But I learned on the job. I was lucky enough to work with some guys that were really, really clever. I had a plant expert in here doing voluntary work called Mike Snellgrove, who was head gardener at Trewidden. He’s a lovely chap and he taught me tons.’
Joe went on to study at Duchy College Rosewarne in Camborne for an NVQ2 and NVQ3. Someone there gave him the money for a spellchecker along the way, and he was flying. For his NVQ3, he was awarded most improved student and scored highest in his year.
In the earlier days of his Morrab Gardens journey, Joe was pulled out of the gardens to look after the town’s hanging baskets, roundabouts and flower beds. Presumably, he wilted while away from its lush, subtropical shelter because his boss made a radical about turn. ‘He said, “I know that you love Morrab Gardens and I’m going to put you back down there,”’ remembers Joe. ‘“And I’m going to give it to you to look after.”’
And Joe has been the head gardener ever since.
A town garden – and a town’s garden
During his time at Morrab, Joe has helped cultivate a community as well as a garden. As we stroll around in the quiet early morning, voices drift through the light-dappled shrubs and trees, greeting one another and Joe. One lady enquires after a tree she has donated. She and Joe admire the space cleared for it to stretch out and grow. Another mentions some seeds she promised Joe and a third laments the lack of rain, which reminds Joe of a couple of newly planted trees that need attention. Meanwhile, he chats to his small troop of volunteers who are pruning and weeding.
As well as the plant lovers, Morrab Gardens features a carousel of Penzance people throughout the working day. ‘We’ve got a massive group of dog walkers. Most of them are fabulous. They know each other really well and they all walk each other’s dogs.’
Then there are the visitors who, like Joe’s plants, have grown from saplings. ‘I’ve had little kids coming in here with their mums this big,’ he says, bending down to waist height. ‘And then the little kids have grown up and they’re coming in with their own little kids. I know their babies and their mums. It’s fabulous.’
Meanwhile, the garden has enjoyed a boost of extra activity recently with the arrival of the Gardeners’ House. This former stables and coach house next to the library has become a community space dedicated to celebrating the unique stories of West Cornwall.
So, summing up, what does he think this famous subtropical garden means to the people of Penzance?
‘It’s everything. People come in here when they’re depressed or when they want to chill, and the plants make them feel better. A lot of people just walk through on their way to work, and they love it – they’ll stop and have a coffee. People have even met each other in here, and started their own stories.’
Perhaps this is the most exotic thing of all about Morrab Gardens. Amid a stunning subtropical backdrop, it’s a place where people come together and connect in nature, in the real world, away from the many distractions we face today. Or perhaps they just come to walk, and look and listen in solitude. This really is a precious subtropical oasis, both for visitors to Penzance and the local community.
SOURCES:
- Wikipedia for broad background.
- Morrab Gardens’ website for fascinating insights into the history, planting and gardeners.
- Morrab Gardens, for plants, flowers, people and dappled sunshine.
- Head Gardener Joe Palmese for telling a hundred fascinating stories about every nook and cranny of the planting. (Thanks, Joe!)