The Russian gardening revolution: where the good life meets luxury

The winds of change are blowing in a new Russian Revolution that’s having a dramatic impact on some of the last vestiges of the Soviet Union and is making its mark in the UK, too. A people once ordered to dedicate any patches of soil they had to producing fruit and vegetables are now embracing the joys of gardening for pleasure. And it would appear that they can’t get enough of the work of British designers, with some of our top names going to Russia to create and teach.

There’s even a Russian equivalent to Chelsea – the Moscow Flower Show – now in its sixth year and providing a high-profile platform for emerging talent. Yet, while the increasing interest in gardening in Russia is clear, there’s no getting away from the restrictions of a climate that plunges the country into temperatures as low as -20°C for six or seven months, followed by baking hot summers that see the mercury rise to 30°C.

The short but intense growing season means that the Russian plant palette is more limited than in the UK, with native conifers used in place of the evergreens found in UK gardens, and bulbs and herbaceous perennials often treated as annuals. Even so, Russian gardeners have developed ways to keep prized plants going from one year to the next, with roses wrapped in horticultural fleece over the winter in the same way as tropical specimens might be nursed through a cold snap in the UK.

One good thing that can be said for the weather in Russia is that it’s predictable: “Almost to the day they could tell me when spring would break,” recalls designer Chris Beardshaw. “You could pretty much predict when it was safe to have a barbecue or get the sledges out. In the UK it’s a bit more mercurial.”

The relationship between the Russian people and British horticulturalists is nothing new. The archives at Croome Court in Worcestershire contain documents that make direct references to the exchange of seeds between Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown and a Russian garden. Catherine the Great employed John Meader, a Scottish disciple of Brown, to tend her grounds in the 18th century. Her desire for what she described as “English simplicity” led to the creation of the celebrated landscape gardens at Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk near St Petersburg.

Under 70 years of communism the horticultural landscape changed considerably: citizens were expected to grow fruit and vegetables at home or on dachas – small plots of land away from the home - to supplement the meagre supplies available in the shops, while public planting schemes were somewhat grey, conifer-rich affairs surrounding memorial monuments and statues.

Approaches to gardening in modern-day Russia reflect both sides of the national personality, with some drawing on their country’s love of forests and regard for outside toil as a soulful refuge, and others wanting a picturesque plot as a fashion accessory.

“It largely depends on the client, but there’s a great interest in the celebrity status of gardening,” says Chris Beardshaw. “In my experience a great garden is to be shown off in the same way as a designer handbag or shoes. But there’s a great appetite to embrace some of the values of gardens and some of the values of horticulture and certainly amongst the young who have money and resources, a garden is right up there on the list of must-haves.”

Technology also plays a key role; particularly etched on Chris’s memory is an area around a block of luxury apartments: “Underfloor heating pipes were used around the external space so that the owners could look down and never see snow on the ground,” he recalls. “I’ve also come across music, lights and water combined outside.”

However, growing food to eat has also long been a part of Russian life and Chelsea-winning designer Andy Sturgeon says edible crops are still regarded as important, both in Russia itself and for ex-pats living in the UK.

“They forage mushrooms and are much more in tune with nature than probably we are,” he says. “Cooking and eating outside is a big thing for them, which means outdoor kitchens are often a feature, and they’re not averse to gadgets. We see a lot of outside televisions and WiFi.”

When it comes to ornamental gardens, Andy says people in Russia are “trying to catch up fast”. “They don’t have a tradition of gardening because of the Soviet era so there’s a massive gap in terms of education,” he says. “They are obsessed with the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and that kind of thing. Chelsea is all over their magazines.

“They see British gardening as being a pinnacle and have invited lots of British designers over to lecture.”

Andy and his team have created six gardens for private clients in Russia and undertaken a number of commercial projects, such as housing developments and apartments. Fifteen years ago he created a garden for a Russian client living in St John’s Wood.

“It was before anybody had heard the word oligarch,” he recalls. “Back in those days you never met the client or got a brief or budget. You just did what you thought was appropriate. It’s changed a bit now and we seem to always get to meet the client and have a relationship with them rather than their people – we refuse to do it otherwise. I think it says something about their interest in gardens now.

“Nevertheless I would say there’s a lot of Russian gardens in the country which will never grace the pages of a magazine: the Russians are very security conscious.”

Rosemary Alexander, principal of the English Gardening School, says gardens designed for wealthy Russians often involve the use of lots of different materials, such as various types of stone and marble in the same location.

“I don’t think I will ever teach them that less is more,” she sighs. “And unfortunately they’re still very keen on crazy paving.”

Russians have a great interest in what’s seen as the ‘English style’, although it’s often the case that wealthy customers do not want to wait for nature to take its course, says designer Paul Hervey-Brookes.

“They’re incredibly exciting about what they want but they don’t have the patience to wait, that nurturing element: they want it there because they have decided on it and they have the budget to make it happen,” he explains. “I’ve had a client who didn’t bat an eyelid over spending £150,000 to have a few trees shipped over from the UK.”

The ability and willingness to spend has also been noticed by companies selling top end garden ornaments in the UK. “Our Russian clients are always interested in quality, statement pieces that will be an investment for the future,” says Darren Jones, managing director of Lichen Garden Antiques. “As well as attributable items such as Coalbrookdale, Coade and Pulham, we find that they are particularly interested in architectural pieces with great provenance.”

In Russia, more and more nurseries are emerging, particularly selling plants imported from countries such as Germany. Although Rosemary Alexander says that students visiting the UK still arrive with an extra suitcase so that they can take home those plants they cannot find in their homeland.

“They wash all the soil off the roots [to pack them]: I can never take them to the same hotel twice,” she laughs.

Veteran designer John Brookes has been visiting Russia to teach and work since 2007 and says the people are “mad about” gardening, even if they’re yet to develop all the skills they need to do it.

“I teach basic design: little to do with planting design and everything to do with lines and forms and shapes,” he explains. “In terms of skills they’re having to learn from scratch – even the journals aren’t terribly good yet.

While British designers have been heading east for a while, can we expect to see more Russian designers in the UK? After all, Karina Lazareva’s courtyard garden won a gold medal at the 2007 RHS Chelsea Flower Show and Tatyana Goltsova became only the second Russian designer to take part when she created The Imperial Garden: Revive at the 2016 show, for which she received a silver.

Meanwhile husband and wife team Denis Kalashnikov and Ekaterina Bolotava met the gold standard at the 2017 RHS Malvern Festival with their ‘Molecular Garden’, which they created as part of an exchange arrangement organised by the Moscow Flower Show. James Alexander-Sinclair has been an advisor at the Moscow event, founded by Ms Lazareva, for several years and believes there’s “a lot of potential and talent there”.

“It would be nice to see more Russian designers in the UK,” he says. “We need to encourage Russia to experiment more and become better.”

Elena Sysoeva, 29, is among the Russian-born garden designers to graduate from the Inchbald School of Garden Design in recent years. Previously she had worked in banking but moved to the UK after her husband got a job in London.

“I was in love with the gardens here,” says Elena. “I think it’s great to have gardens in the middle of a city. The climate here is great and there are plants from all over the world.

Elena says gardening in Russia is labour intensive. “You cannot install a watering system because it will freeze during the winter, and we have to water things all the time during summer because it’s very hot,” she says.

“Nowadays more and more people in Russia are gardening and changing the style of their gardens: before we had kitchen gardens that could supply us with food. Now many people in Moscow and St Petersburg look to go for a rest in their gardens.

Owners of garden design schools in the UK say Russian students, both in their native land and the UK, are a hard- working bunch. “I love my Russian students, they’re actually my favourite students,” says Rosemary Alexander. “They’re enthusiastic and keen to learn, with a natural love of plants. I have been going out there for 35 years and it will get better and better.”

Andrew Duff from the Inchbald Garden Design School says he’s been impressed with the attitude of Russian students. “They’re so eager to learn and study really hard. I think they’re the ones to watch,” he says. “We’re yet to see a big Russian practice established in the UK but I think it’s on its way.”

Russian gardens to visit

• To tour private gardens, visit the Russian Open Gardens Society website (in Russian only). Travel company Mango MICE offers tours of notable Russian gardens.  

• New Holland, St Petersburg: Former shipyard on the River Neva that’s recently opened as a park. Includes a herb garden in front of an old foundry.  

• Stanislavsky Centre, Moscow: Award-winning factory redevelopment by John McAslan & Partners, with a series of linked public and semi-private open spaces. Address: Ulitsa Stanislavskogo 21, 123610 Moscow.

• Krymskaya Embankment (Crimea Quay), Moscow: a four-lane road that’s been turned into a landscape park, bringing life to a deserted area of Muzeon Park between the Central House of Artists and the Moskva river. 

• The Apothecary’s Garden, The Botanic Gardens of Moscow State University: Russia’s oldest botanic garden was founded by Peter the Great in 1706.  

• Gorky Central Park, Moscow: the city’s favourite park has gone through a significant landscape revival in recent years and is much loved for its formal planting and woodlands.

• Mikhailovsky Gardens, St Petersburg: a landscaped park created in around 1825 following the completion of the Michael Palace and restored in 2003. Features the English style in the centre and French around the outside. 

• Peterhof Park and Gardens, St Petersburg: these gardens represent two centuries of European aristocratic fashion and are commonly associated with Empress Elizabeth. They contain several fountains and statues.  

• Tsarskoe Selo, St Petersburg: this was the first landscape park in Russia, commissioned by Catherine the Great in around 1770, and it lies close to the Catherine Palace. There is also an older Baroque garden of c 1750. 

• Pavlovsk, St Petersburg – this landscape park was designed by Scottish architect Charles Cameron for the use of Grand Duke Pavel, son of Catherine the Great. Contains 60 garden buildings and a number of lakes.

• Gatchina Palace, St Petersburg – landscape park designed by Italian architect Antonio Rinaldi between 1766 and 1781 for Count Grigori Orlov.

• Tsaritsyno Park and Gardens, Moscow – landscape park with adjacent forest. Structures such as pavilions, pergolas decorative bridges were built in the 19th century and restored between 2005 and 2007.