9. Far Side of the Pond

Several stands of Gunnera manicata – often called giant rhubarb – grow on the edge of the pond. These are remnants from an enormous plant that once grew in the Alpine Meadow.

One visitor to the garden claimed he came across Gunnera manicata in South America. - It was so massive that a man on horseback could shelter beneath the leaves. When he saw Bowles’ plant he was impressed, declaring it the largest he had ever known. “But”, said Bowles, “you told me you had seen a man on horseback beneath gunneras in Chile. “So I have”, replied the visitor, “but it was a very small man and a very short pony”.

Across the pond is a royal fern, or Osmunda regalis. Bowles called it the pièce de resistance’ of the pond.  In the 1860s Bowles’ friend, John Walker Ford, bought it for 6 pence from a tramp who was carrying it on his back as he walked down London’s Fleet Street. Ford planted it by a pool in his father’s garden at Enfield Old Park. It grew larger each year. Eventually, before the First World War, Ford offered Bowles the plant if he could move it whole. Bowles told the story:

Voice of Bowles:

Our bailiff and I went and looked at it, and we scratched our heads over it, and decided that, short of hiring a strong crane for the purpose, we could not undertake to uproot it and haul it over the stone wall at its back, and I regretfully declined the kind offer. Then came a letter to say I might take it in any manner I could accomplish, as that was better than its being chopped up and distributed in portions.

Narrator:

In the end it was cut into three pieces, and it remains here to this day – although it is much smaller than it was when Bowles rescued it.