Sabina Rüber has a unique bond with plants.She appreciates each plant for its own personality and skill as a garden photographer.She works as a gardener for Chiltern Seeds, a seed firm, planting, growing, and taking pictures of flowers for their catalog.She also grows tulips to test for her own collections of Flare & Flame bulbs.Her garden in Presteigne, Wales, is filled with flora, as one would anticipate.”I do have an addiction,” Sabina chuckles as she acknowledges.One should certainly be more strict in a limited place, but I find it impossible to beI’m not very good at getting rid of things that come up, and after photo sessions, I usually have a van full of plants.”
Upon moving here seven years ago, she was surprised with a 70-by-7-meter stretch of grass that was completely devoid of any trees, bushes, or flowers. At the further end, this culminated in a tiny tract of woods. “It was once a burglary scheme,” says Sabina. Burgage plots were long, narrow strips of ground behind terraced buildings in the Middle Ages that served as a person’s residence and place of employment, giving the occupants a chance to make money. She continues, “I really enjoy how circular it is that I am restoring the property to its original purpose.” In less than a year, she transformed the area into a sanctuary full of flowers by constructing a greenhouse-turned-studio situated one-third of the way up the garden, with a small courtyard area in front and the main garden beyond.
The seasons have a full bearing on Sabina’s existence. She claims that the garden and the current state of nature are intrinsically tied to her mood. “I start the year with little early spring bulbs that I grow on tables. Next come the tulips, annuals, and dahlias, and lastly, the amarines.” My heart sings when I see these plants.
The garden has its first real explosion of color thanks to the tulips. The majority are grown in pots, with new types being tested year. Sabina usually fills each jar with a single flavor as opposed to combinations. “Impact is what I want,” she says. You dilute the colors and variations by combining them in a pot. By arranging the containers in this manner, I am able to generate color blocks that I can then rearrange to achieve the desired effects. Another benefit of using pots is that you may plant late and early kinds to create a color progression. I store the pots and swap them out with later-flowering kinds when the early ones fade.
Her selection of tulips for the borders is limited to those that have a more realistic appearance or are known to return, such the fosteriana variety. Since the borders serve as Sabina’s backdrop for photos, they are overflowing with more evergreen perennials and self-seeding plants, which provide a background of subdued color and texture as opposed to striking drama. This sensation is produced in springtime by geums and other sorts of honesty. The dazzling pyrotechnics of the “Orange Emperor” or “Prinses Irene” tulips are set off by the purple haze of Lunaria annua “Corfu Blue,” and a pot of purple-hued Tulipa “Bleu Aimable” is framed by a cloud of white honesty.
Sabina also loves geums, which she became even more passionate about when House & Garden commissioned her to take pictures of the enormous collection at East of Eden Nursery in Cumbria (which will be published in the June 2020 edition). Geums, which come in apricot and scarlet hues, are excellent for bridging the gap between spring and summer because they provide soft color cushions that late tulips, alliums, and camassias may grow through.
This vibrant, dynamic area is like a stage set—it changes with the seasons and is expertly designed to always look its best. “I can’t stop looking at my garden, moving things around, and thinking of new ways to capture it,” exclaims Sabina. Through the lens of a camera, you may sometimes see things that are invisible to the unaided eye. I am delighted that every picture explores the beauty of a plant.
