plants, such as drought-tolerant cistus, rosemary, abutilons, spiky agaves and ceanothus. Along the terraces leading down to the lower garden, Scots pines frame the views across the Cotswolds – it is this aspect that makes Kiftsgate unique. In 1938, Heather bought what she believed to be a Rosa


moschata, a rambling musk rose, which was later identified as a filipes and given the cultivar name of ‘Kiftsgate.’ Tis rose can still be seen today. It is a rampant rambling rose that clambers up trees and walls and cascades down with simple white petals and a heavenly scent. Heather went on to propagate a similar rose to the Kiftsgate but much smaller and less rampant with a simple white flower, which was named ‘Rosa Heather Muir.’ It was this huge legacy that Heather left to her daughter,


Diany. Diany was committed to learning all the plants and shrubs in the garden, littering her dressing table and mirror with notes on the names of plants (often misspelled) to help with memorising them. Her mother had moved out of Kiftsgate but was nearby, and Diany admits in one article she wrote that it was difficult to change things and in fact it took me four years to pluck up enough self-confidence to alter my mother’s plans but realised finally that gardens, like time, do not stand still and once I had started to implant my own idea, there was no turning back”. Diany became an accomplished plantswoman, with a feeling


for the unusual. Her first big project, in the early 1960s, was the creation of the half-moon swimming pool on the lawn of the lower garden, she also significantly changed the white sunken garden from her mother’s design, it was one of her favourite places to sit in old age. Diany was more hands-on than her mother, but there was still a team of gardeners helping. In 1974, however, Diany divorced and money became an issue, she moved out of Kiftsgate and even considered removing the roof. She once commented: “How exciting to have a ruin – a grand


ruin complete with Palladian portico in the middle of the gar- den. It would be so easy to take the roof off Kiftsgate, allowing the yellow Banksia rose to weep over the top and perhaps meet up with the wisteria. No longer would one have to cut the huge leaved magnolia delavayi away from the windows, and per-


18 FOCUS The Magazine July/August 2019


haps… the Kiftsgate rose would seize its chance to overpower all around and make it the ramparts of a ‘Sleeping Beauty Palace’. I know I will never do it as it still means too much to me.” Diany was determined to maintain the garden to the highest


standard; with this in mind she opened the garden to the public on an annual basis as opposed to the odd viewing her mother had allowed. Having visitors did not come naturally to Diany as she was a shy person. But with strong views on gardening, she would often be heard fiercely quizzing customers who were buy- ing the Kiftsgate rose (from cuttings she had propagated) as to whether their gardens were suitable or large enough for such a rampant rose, and even telling them to put it back. Diany passed the garden on to her daughter Anne in 1988, where she taught her how to manage and maintain Kiftsgate. Diany didn’t always approve of Anne’s changes – she was once caught cutting the heads off the tulips Anne had planted, as she did not like bulbs in borders. Anne Chambers, along with her husband Johnny, now runs


Kiftsgate. Once again, she has placed her own stamp on the gar- den. Tey now welcome more than 20,000 visitors a year, yet for Anne, Kiftsgate has remained a personal family garden. “We have only two gardeners and occasional help, because if you em- ploy more people you begin to lose that direct contact with the garden and it’s not yours anymore,” she says. Te Chambers have made two significant extensions to the


garden, the water garden is a stunning black pond covering the area of the Heather’s old clay tennis court. Te pond is sur- rounded by high yew hedges with white paving stones leading to the central island of grass. In the pond stands a sculpture of 24 gilded bronze leaves dripping water into the inky blackness of the pond. It is in stark contrast to the rest of the garden with its modern lines and comes as a complete surprise as you round the yew hedge and stumble upon it, yet it is a calm and peaceful space that reflects the changing times of the garden. An even bigger project was the creation of the ‘Mound and


the Avenue’, which opened to the public in 2017. A mown path leads through the orchard to a flight of steps up a semi-circular mound made from thousands of tons of soil excavated from the


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