Shot! The 2019 Arundel Castle Allium Extravaganza
Now in its fourth year, the Earl’s Garden’s secondary floral event struggled to live up to its name
For me, the allure of alliums goes back a long way. I’ve been drawn to them for their geometric shape — those perfect balls of colour created with almost geometrical precision by their individual six-petalled star-shaped flowers.
That visual geometry was affirmed in 2011 on a visit to Nymans — one of the finest gardens in West Sussex — when I saw a couple of artworks by the sculptor Ruth Moilliet. Her over-sized steel alliums reminded me of something Escher might have created. Ever since, I’ve always sought out alliums at Chelsea and Hampton Court, whether it be on a show garden or on a producer’s display.
It’s strange then that this was my first time photographing Arundel Castle’s Allium Extravaganza. Now in its third year, it follows a few weeks on from the castle’s Tulip Festival — an event I’ve shot every year since its inception.
Like tulips, alliums are only at their prime for a brief window, a period of time determined by the vagaries of the previous six months weather, so I scheduled the day of my visit on the advice of Head Gardener, Martin Duncan.
Compared to the castle’s paean to tulips, this event is much more low key: not only is there no mention of it at the castle entrance, but traces of alliums are few and far between in the grounds.
Entering the Earl’s Gardens there isn’t the immediate visual impact one had at the tulip festival: there’s way less colour and way less blooms. Most significantly, the usually eye-catching Labyrinth is now just grass without a single allium in sight.
The truth is, the use of the word extravaganza creates an expectation of masses of alliums, when in reality, there are only small groups of them, mostly in muted hues.
On this visit, the most vibrant area of the garden was the Stumpery, which looked the best I’ve ever seen it, with vibrant green foliage contrasting against the greying weathered barks. One can only imagine just how stunning this feature could be if it had two or three times the space.
The fact is the Earl’s Garden is really not that large. Standing in the shadow of Arundel Cathedral, it’s built adjacent to the castle’s walled kitchen garden on the site of what used to be the staff car park.
The lack of space means the tulip festival flows beyond the garden walls, but while there were a scattering of alliums in the castle grounds, I really think there should have been many more.
Alliums of course are part of the onion family, embracing chives, shallots and garlic — indeed, allium is Greek for garlic. The pom-pom varieties are the so-called ornamental alliums. These come in subtle shades from mauves and lilacs through to white varieties.
The ones that are most impressive are those with the large ball-like flower heads — technically known as spherical umbels. But what alliums share with tulips, is they look their best en masse. Indeed, to my eye, the closer together they’re planted the better they look.
On my visit, I was somewhat surprised by how many alliums had already gone over or were still to bud. I was also surprised to see quite a few tulip varieties still in bloom. That goes to show just how difficult it is planning bulb-based displays for a public garden, and that’s without considering issues such as resting the soil, avoiding individual species disease and having to hide dying leaves which are an unattractive feature of both tulips and alliums.
That said, you can’t visit the Earl’s Garden and not be impressed with it. It’s rightly acclaimed as one of Britain’s best gardens. Even so, whenever the word extravaganza is used to describe a particular feature, the expectation levels are automatically raised. Whilst there’s no question you can apply it to the tulip festival, I’m afraid it wildly over-promises on the alliums.
Behind the image: The majority of these pictures were taken with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 using the 75mm 1.8 lens and the camera’s built-in digital zoom. All were taken hand-held and virtually all have been cropped. The weather conditions whilst I was in the garden varied from sunny to overcast and, compared to the throngs at the tulip festival, there weren’t that many people around which made shooting a whole lot easier. Without the mass plantings of the tulips, I focused my attention mainly on tight, creative compositions. Alliums are one of the best flowers for doing this, but the truth is, it’s all about the backgrounds. Get them right and you’ve got a good chance of getting a good image. I’m pretty pleased with my results, not least because they’re so different from the standard fare most floral photographers take. I also have to say how impressed I was with the iPhone 8 Plus — you’d be hard-pressed to tell which images came from the phone and which were from the camera. Shot in Arundel on 16 May 2019
