Sheena Patterson of Oxford Garden Design praises magnificent myrtle

If you had to choose just one plant from your garden what would it be and why? There’s an ancient legend that says God relented, slightly, when he expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

To put it mildly he was pretty upset about their eating the forbidden fruit but according to this legend, he allowed them to choose three plants to take with them into the world outside.

Not surprisingly apple was not on the list, instead they choose dates, as the best of all fruits, wheat as the best of all foods and a sprig of myrtle as the most aromatic flower.

Myrtle wasn’t a bad choice, and it’s this time of year that the small white flowers are throwing out delicious scent.

In March this year we planted a purely edible garden for a client in Headington. The brief was that everything in the garden had to be safe for human consumption. I went to visit recently to see how the garden developed over the summer and was particularly struck by the lovely scent of the myrtle hedge. All the berries from the genus myrtus are edible and delicious. The berries of myrtus communis (common myrtle) are dried and used in stews and casseroles in Turkey and other areas of the Middle East.

Myrtle arrived in Britain from Spain in 1585, imported by Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Carew, who are also said to have introduced orange trees to Britain. Here in our cooler Oxfordshire climate, myrtle needs to be tucked against a sheltered wall if it’s to avoid being browned by frost.

However, our recent warmer winters, which have encouraged us to embrace the olive, should also encourage us to plant more myrtle outdoors, particularly as it is the hardier of the two Mediterranean trees.

Myrtle is one of the most vibrant and luminescent of all evergreens, with glossy, dark, emerald green foliage, a little like a miniature bay tree, with fragrant foliage as well as flowers.

The tradition of carrying myrtle in the bridal wreath dates back to the Jews captivity in Babylonia. In Britain, carried in her bouquet by Queen Victoria at her marriage to Prince Albert in 1840, she planted the sprig of Myrtle in the grounds of Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. The cutting rooted and the bush flourished. The progeny from this original sprig have produced myrtles for Royal brides ever since. In 1947 Princess Elizabeth chose a bouquet of white cattleya, odontoglossum and cypripedium orchids, and added a sprig of the Osborne House myrtle for her wedding to Prince Philip. That sprig was also planted to start a second special myrtle source.

In 1981 Lady Diana Spencer’s waterfall bouquet had the Osborne House myrtle, yellow Mountbatten roses, in honour of the then recently deceased Lord Louis Mountbatten, Prince Charles’ great-uncle and “honorary grandfather”. Thirty years on, Kate Middleton used two sprigs of myrtle in her bridal bouquet one each from the Queen Victoria and the Queen Elizabeth plants. They nestled in the bouquet of lilies of the valley, ivy, hyacinths, and of course, what else but sweet William?

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