Our Friends

Lionel de Rothschild I first met Peter through a mutual friend at the very end of the ’80s and visited Vico Morcote several times over the years. He was one of the most remarkable – and certainly one of the nicest – people I have ever met and I often felt I would quite like to be like him at the end of my life, not of course exactly, but in spirit, with his interest and enthusiasm an inspiration to all who met him. He was, as many have noted, multitalented, a polymath who excelled in all he turned his hand to and two areas in particular have touched my life and are the subject of this website. He was a gardener all his life and had a clear vision of how his garden at Vico Morcote would develop, seeing the long term with the logic of his beloved Addison and planning a garden that would mature with him and need less maintenance as he himself grew old. He was also a great plantsman, forever seeking or creating through his own hybridisation new and better varieties. (These two points, incidentally, regarding long-term maintenance and superior forms, are listed among his twelve “Principles for my Garden” in his wonderful autobiography, Adventures of a Gardener.) He had acquired part of my grandfather’s collection of nerines (Nerine sarniensis) in the ’70s and bred them on in a programme of which my grandfather would have been proud, showing flair, judgement and the necessary degree of ruthlessness in selection. He in turn was intensely proud when we reacquired them twenty years later and would have been pleased with the care which my brother Nick continues to lavish on them at Exbury and of the annual exhibition of them we mount there each Autumn in the Five Arrows Gallery. He was also, as visitors to this website will be aware, an extraordinarily talented photographer. He knew of my own interest in photography and encouraged me, including in the purchase of a similar Zone VI Field Camera; he was complimentary about my successes – modest compared to his – with Christmas cards and photos for The Rothschild Gardens book, for he always encouraged others in whatever endeavour they undertook. Many gardeners are drawn to photography to capture that special moment or bloom but there is, I think, a deeper link. My grandfather and namesake, creator of the gardens at Exbury, was also both gardener and photographer, taking many autochromes (early colour glass plates) before the First World War, and in a book on his photographs I have written that both arts share certain skills, requiring the same intuitive feel for colour and light and the same mastery of the art of anticipation, feeling by instinct the effect of one’s designs. Peter wrote that time is the fourth dimension with which gardeners practise their art and it is interesting that while he showed the same skills in both arts, they lie at opposite ends of the spectrum in relation to time – the photograph a matter of seconds, the garden a matter of years. Finally, I should say that I own not one but five of Peter’s magnificent photographs, each 5’ x 4’, gracing the drawing room of the modern house we built from scratch in Chelsea. I would not want to influence your choice but they are a nelumbo, arisaema, iris, magnolia and, on the other wall, a peony, all lit from a distance by spotlights and very much the central feature of the decoration. I could as easily have chosen a nerine or an epiphyllum, for they are all mouth-watering and glorious. I like to think that this too made him proud and happy; certainly I am happy and proud to have them. +++ Fabio Selli, Lugano, Member of the Board Being involved in a charity foundation is always an honour; being a member of the board and a friend of Sir Peter and Lady Smithers Foundation is an absolute priviledge.