Увлечение Джорджа Харрисона и Ринго садоводством

Это Ринго в посвященном ему "Octopus's Garden"?

Ага.

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Sweet Little Queen XIII, пасиб за фоты :)

какие душевные фотки!! большое спасибо!! :-))

A Man With A Truly Big Heart



The man who founded Engbers Garden Centre has told how George Harrison helped him to establish the business in its early days.

Konrad Engbers recalls how George visited the centre just after he started. “He came in to see me and asked how things were. I told him it was a little slow and he said ‘I’ll give it a little push for you’. He then bought almost every tree I had in stock and first thing the next day a motorcycle courier turned up with payment.

“Ever since then he was one of my most loyal and regular customers.”

Konrad, aged 79, sold the business two years ago but has never forgotten how George helped him on his way.

They first met when he arrived at Konrad’s original nursery near Abingdon in the late 60s.

“He had called in to another nursery just along the road from mine,” said Konrad. “The owner there told him he didn’t serve hippies and to clear off. I had no idea who he was but we got talking and he began to visit regularly.

“There was a small hut in the nursery that I had converted into a bar. We used to sit together and enjoy a couple of drinks. I remember one particular occasion when he played his guitar there for me.”

And George would walk down the hill from Friar Park to the market where Konrad ran a stall. “He would wait in the queue, take his turn and never expected any preferential treatment. One day he asked me up to his garden for advice on some trees that were dying. After that, he regularly asked for my advice on any gardening matters.

“One Christmas Eve he sent a message down to the stall inviting me to Friar Park for a drink with his then wife, Patti . And on another occasion he took me over to the Catherine Wheel for lunch.”

When Konrad had problems getting planning permission for his nursery at Shiplake he had lots of support from many people, including George.

George continued to visit Engbers and, Konrad said, would sit in the coffee shop in his dirty wellies talking about herbs and Hare Krishna, herbal tea and plants. Nobody would recognise him.

But it was for the support that George gave him that Konrad remembers the star most.

He said: “He was such a kind man with no airs and graces — a man with a truly big heart.”

A Generous Man



George Harrison’s former stonemason has been fondly remembering the man he knew as a ‘generous and intelligent’ man who was deeply affected by the death of his former Beatles colleague John Lennon.

Speaking at his home in Oxford, George Robb, aged 81, told the Standard: “I knew George as an employer and there was never anything I could say against him.

“He was very good to me — a very generous man.”

“I remember the first Christmas I worked for him, and I was in a club down the road when someone told me there was a taxi outside for me.

“I went outside and George had sent me a hamper from Harrods all the way from London in a taxi!”

Mr. Robb was first invited to work on Friar Park in 1980 and he was awestruck at the beauty of the place.

“When I first went to Friar Park, I was stunned because it was such a beautiful, beautiful place, and I couldn’t believe that one person was undertaking the work he was going to spend on it, because it was a monumental job.

“I worked on the main house, the gardener’s lodge, the middle lodge and the front lodge during my years there, as well as the gardens and maintaining the lakes, which are probably two or three acres.

“George literally put millions of pounds into the place over the years, and I don’t think he would like it to be opened to the public, because he was always such a private man.

“I have worked all over the world but Friar Park is one of the most amazing buildings I have ever seen.”

Although Mr. Robb was always aware of his role as one of Harrison’s employees, he was very close to the family.

“When Dhani was learning to speak, George insisted that he called him Daddy George and me Stonemason George so that he didn’t get confused.

“He was an adventurous lad who loved climbing on the scaffolding, and he’d be up there with me, 30 or 40 feet off the ground quite happily enjoying himself.

“George himself was a generous and intelligent man who suffered no fools, and he was always very private. He used to enjoy a drink at the Row Barge pub in Henley but he didn’t go into the town as much after John Lennon was shot.”

Mr. Robb’s wife, Mina, added: “That really shook him — he used to say that if he landed after a flight, and came out onto the steps of the plane, he would be wondering which person might have a gun.”

Man of His Word.



The ex-head gardener at Friar Park this week spoke of George Harrison’s ‘wicked’ sense of humour.

Derek Mann, aged 48, said that George was a kind and gentle man, who was genuine and totally unpretentious.

“I first men George and his wife Olivia when I was working as a gardener at a hotel in the Virgin Islands,” said Derek. “I took them on a guided tour of the grounds and we spoke at length about gardening. He said that if I was to come back to the UK to get in touch and he would give me a job.

“When I returned he was as good as his word and I started at Friar Park in 1991.

“We would regularly walk around the grounds together so he could tell me what he wanted done. Sometimes he would have a ukulele with him and play a few cords while we wandered around.

“There were a couple of spots in the garden where George would sit, watch the sun go down and meditate. There I planted night scented stock plants, which gave off a very strong perfume. He thanked me and said it reminded him of his mother who used to plant the same flowers in their council house home.”

Derek, who was forced to retire due to ill-health in 1994, recalls seeing Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr at Friar Park, “They always seemed to get on extremely well,” he said.

“The tennis star John McEnroe paid a visit once. He played a few sets with George, Olivia and their son Dhani on their own court in the gardens.

“John Lennon built a mosaic of what looked like an alien in the garden which was surrounded by roses named after Paul McCartney.

“George had a pet Yorkshire terrior called Winston, John Lennon’s middle name.”

And Derek said that George was not quite the recluse that everyone believed.

“He had a mountain bike that he used to ride around the estate on and would often put on a pork-pie hat and a pair of scruffy jeans with holes in them and cycle through Henley and onto the river bank.

“He also owned an old fashioned racing car, which was barely road-worthy, but on occasions he would race it up and down Gravel Hill wearing a leather flying helmet and goggles.”

Derek said that George was a generous man who gave his original head gardener a new car as a Christmas present.

“George was a genuinely nice man,” said Derek. “I remember fondly the times when he and I would sit together in his kitchen with a cup of coffee and talk about gardening.

“Together, with the rest of the world, I shall miss him.”

Rock Legend at the Rock Bank

Ringo Starr to Open 4head Garden at Chelsea 2005

Rock star legend, Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach will officially open the 4head Garden. Featuring over 250 species of plants and healing herbs, the 4head Garden is the largest exhibit on the rock bank at this year's show. The Garden is designed as an idyllic retreat somewhere in the Mediterranean, where pink flowers and soft pink rocks abound. The theme behind the 4head Garden illustrates the delicate balance and conflict that exists between man's designs and the enduring power of nature.

Sponsored by 4head, a natural headache medicine, and designed by Gold medallist Marney Hall, The 4head Garden features abandoned olive terraces, which form the setting of the Garden. A wall encircles a sheltered haven. In a series of curves it encompasses the larger rocks on the site many of which form part of the wall's structure and some of which, tumbling over the wall, have been utilised for a water feature, with water tumbling down over the stones in to the pool beneath. The curves of the wall are reminiscent of the work of Spanish Architect Gaudi.

Outside the walls the land has been left undisturbed, with old olive trees, wild flowers and herbs. Within the Garden, lush plantings of herbs and roses are framed by the wall that is clothed in vines, jasmine and bourgainvillias. In contrast to the wild colours outside the wall, the colour palette within the garden is restricted to pink from slate through magenta to white, with foliage from deepest claret, to silver acting as a backdrop. Plants from the hillside are found in the Garden and some plants have escaped from the Garden on to the hill, demonstrating the continual movement of plants from wild to cultivated and back to wild again.
http://www.creativematch.co.uk/viewNews/?91036

Dig It or Day Tripper?

Ringo Starr, opening a garden for WaterAid at the Chelsea Flower Show yesterday, was modest about his own patch. “I have an English country garden,” he said. “In Monaco I have a Monaco garden. In Los Angeles I have a Los Angeles garden. In Colorado I have . . .” So the former Beatle likes a spot of gardening? “I do the designing and very little of the digging.”

The most prolific crop flows from the Veuve Cliquot tree
By Caitlin Moran



IF GARDENING is the new rock’n’roll — which, judging by the gaggle of women hovering adoringly round the raffish spadesman du jour Diarmuid Gavin, it might well be — then Chelsea is its Glastonbury.
Of course, there are times when Chelsea reminds you that it’s not quite as mired in the primordial ooze as Glastonbury. The restaurant sells lobster and champagne, after all. There’s a stall vending “We’re in the gazebo” signs, and visitors to the ladies’ loos can wash their hands in a gently bubbling fountain.



But if it’s not dirty, Chelsea is certainly rock’n’roll; it knows how to party. On press day the most prolific crop appears to be from the Veuve Cliquot Tree. Chelsea is bling — even Jennifer Lopez would be hard pushed to conceive of the £65,000 Lalique crystal fountain. Or, indeed, the £50,000 bronze Phoenix Tree.

And, just like rock’n’roll, Chelsea provides an opportunity for the mildly deranged to express themselves. Even if that self-expression should entail the recreation of a small Highland lake, replete with wicker cave filled with pelts.

Little wonder, then, that rock’n’rollers find themselves drawn, like moths to nicotiana, to gardening. Look, here’s the Eighties pin-up Kim Wilde, now a successful garden-designer, presenting her first garden at Chelsea. It’s 9am and the RHS judges are due at 10am. Her Cumbrian slate-garden is looking pretty, but Kim’s having trouble with her pump. A hose trails disconsolately over her dry-stone wall. Her rill is a mere trickle.

To those who recall the last time Kim appeared on television, this sight has a poignant irony. Kim took part in Five’s Celebrity Detox, giving herself daily colonic irrigation. Alas, it seems she failed to pick up any basic plumbing tips during the sojourn.

There’s further rock’n’roll representation when Ringo Starr turns up with his wife, the former Bond girl Barbara Bach. Ringo is due to open a garden at 11.15am, but at 11.11am I spot him in the Great Pavilion, staring bemusedly at a giant cardoon. “I don’t know where we are,” his wife is saying from behind a pair of rock’n’roll shades. “We need to turn left at a load of rusty furniture,” Starr replies.

Over in Diarmuid Gavin’s garden, Chelsea is finally staging the face-off between rock’n’roll and gardening. The modish rock eccentrics British Sea Power are about to become the first rock band to play RHS Chelsea. Knee-deep in lavender, they play five songs, including a puckish cover of Julian Cope’s Out Of My Mind On Dope and Speed. During Bird, their lead singer Yan becomes the first pop star in history to get a head of aquilegia caught in his guitar-strings. Their reception is warm, punctuated by occasional screams.

Do British Sea Power believe that gardening is the new rock’n’roll? “Well they say music makes plants grow, but it’s reversible: plants make music grow, too,” Yan says, with typical Sea Power wisdom.

Back at the Cumbrian garden, meanwhile, Kim Wilde’s rill has more than a trickle.

Alleluia! And she punches the air as if she’s just got a standing ovation at Wembley.

24 MAY 2005

Rockers and royals alike turned to flower power this week as the annual Chelsea Flower Show got underway in London. Sophie Wessex was pictured sharing a joke with 88-year-old Army veteran Wally Offord at one of the displays, while former Beatle Ringo Starr came along to open another of the other attractions.

The Countess joined Wally for a pint of Spitfire Bitter at the Chelsea Pensioners' Garden. Built to look like an idyllic oasis from the England of 1945, the design aimed to recreate "a soldier's dream of Blighty".

And Sophie wasn't the only royal enjoying the fun. Her husband Prince Edward and brother in law Prince Andrew were there too. Princess Anne was meanwhile doing the honours at the launch of a new rose by horticultural company Harkness, who rewarded her for her efforts with a full basket of the pale pink "Elisabeth Casson" bloom.

The annual event also attracted some big names from the world of showbiz. Rod Stewart arrived hand in hand with his bride-to-be Penny Lancaster, while veteran actor Michael Caine was likewise spotted checking out the verdant creations. Green-fingered musician Ringo Starr was on hand to open the 4head Garden, which is one of this year's biggest attractions.

"It's absolutely lovely – very peaceful and pleasant," said the performer. "I'm a keen gardener myself and I really love being in the garden. I've got gardens at my homes in England, Monaco, LA and Colorado. Every time I come to the Chelsea Flower Show I pick up ideas that I take back home and use."

Photo: Ringo and his wife Barbara are both regulars at the event. "It's absolutely lovely – very peaceful and pleasant," said the former Beatle of the 4head Garden, which is one of this year's biggest attractions

May 28, 2005

RINGO STARR was reunited at the Chelsea Flower Show with Sir George Martin, the musical arranger for the Fab Four at the height of their fame.

Starr, with his wife Barbara Bach, posed for photographs with Martin and said: “This is for me, George. You don’t need the publicity.” Starr found Charlie Dimmock, the presenter of the BBC show Ground Force, which has been axed . . . at last. “You will never work again,” he said to the bemusement of Dimmock, who has said as much.

The showbusiness event of the week was the Leicester Square premiere of the film Sin City with Clive Owen, Brittany Murphy, Jessica Alba and Mickey Rourke.

The film, set in a seedy and crime-ridden fictional city based on Frank Miller’s cult comic books, has been criticised for its gory scenes. In the 1990s Owen was known for his role in the television drama Chancer but he is now one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars after his Golden Globe-winning performance in Patrick Marber’s Closer.

“Getting involved with this project was a huge deal for me. When I first saw the finished film I was completely blown away,” he said.

The best party in town was for Some Girl(s), starring David Schwimmer, from Friends — the latest US TV star to try to make it on the West End stage. His co-star is Saffron Burrows.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1630703,00.html

У меня тут образовалась маленькая подборочка фотографий ДЖорджа в саду.

Джордж и вилы.

Розарий