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Gardens to visit, 2024

rowlandscastle444rowlandscastle444 Posts: 2,612
in The potting shed
Just done my first gardens visit of the year, and started off with Goodnestone Park Gardens, using the two-for-one offer, thanks to GW.

The staff said there was nothing to see yet - no colour. Well, green and brown are colours, and you can see some of the shapes you'd overlook at other times of the year.


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  • rowlandscastle444rowlandscastle444 Posts: 2,612
    I missed one out.

  • ViewAheadViewAhead Posts: 866
    I love the base of the tree in photo 7.  🙂  Would fit nicely in my current library book, How To Read A Tree. 
  • Busy-LizzieBusy-Lizzie Posts: 24,043
    Those closer photos are lovely. Just shows what there is when you look for it.
    Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
  • bertrand-mabelbertrand-mabel Posts: 2,697
    Planning to go to Kilver Court in Somerset in February (Free!) as part of Shepton Mallet Snowdrop Festival week. Meeting up with a friend who we have not seen for many years.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    edited 27 January
    This is an interesting, two hour talk by Tom Stuart Smith (TSS) - mostly soil-less Med planting. The video is hosted by the Med Plant Soc. - a group which might be interesting to subscribe to if you are interested in Med/sand/gravel garden/very drought tolerant planting in very wet areas.

    Many forum members have commented on their struggles to plant drought tolerant gardens that can cope with intermitent flooding and deluges. Hopefully this vid might give some thoughts on that.

    First is his design and planting of RHS Bridgewater (Manchester) 2020-2022.
    TSS created a Med garden on a site that has peaty soils, very heavy winter rainfall and temps commonly going to -8C. "A pretty extreme example" of difficult places to create such a garden. He describes the process of putting in plants that like super-sharp drainage, adding six inches+ of gravel over the whole site. He says that, to date, they have lost no planting to the wet. He gives quite a good plant list throughout.

    The RHS motivation has been to create section of the site that represent plants from different areas of the world, so that visitors can better understand the context of the plants they know. Salford council put in a lot of the funding themselves. 

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    He also discusses in detail the Knepp rewilded garden in Sussex (food and biodiversity focus) "pushing the limits of what is possible." Goes down to -10C, growing pistachios. They put in around 20 000  plants, 600 taxa, bringing in hundreds of tonnes of sand and crushed concrete.  I really recommend visiting.

    Also TSS' own home and a plot in Marrakech. 

    It's amazing to hear him talk as a plantsman as well as a designer. 



  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    Another talk hosted by the Med Garden Society, this time from Dan Pearson, on Sissinghurst and the details of how he redesigned the new Delos garden. It's a wonderful place to visit.  National Trust. I went in the first weeks that it opened.

    Vita and Harold built a garden around 1936, inspired by a trip to Greece; they tried to recreate a version of Delos, with Med, drought tolerant, planting on a north facing slope on heavy Weald clay. It failed; the vision didn't come to pass and it grew into woodland garden. By 1953 Vita wrote: ‘This has not been a success so far, but perhaps some day it will come right.’ 

    Current head garden Troy Scott Smith asked Pearson to help create a more successful Mediterrean wild garden (2018-2020).  Like the previous video, the Med planting had to be able to thrive with heavy rain and cold winter weather, as well as being drought tolerant. It is never irrigated, apart from the trees, having to face 40C temps. They used mostly crushed stone, gravel and grit as substrate.

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    The video has a few sound issues for the first few mins, and drops for a few mins after half an hour.

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    photos


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    A limited plant list here



  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698
    I really liked the Delos garden when I went to Sissinghurst a couple of years ago. The traditional gardens seemed tired and uninspiring by comparison, although bear in mind I went in October. 
    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    When I visited Delos I didn't know the history behind Vita attempting the garden in the 1930s. I think it would make much more sense (as it's sited right next to rose gardens) if one knows something of the story. Dan pearson talks interestingly of Delos as something of a theatrical set or like a Chelsea show garden - a pure act of imagination in trying hard to re-create Greek ruins in Sussex (not everyone's cup of tea). He casts the project as an experiment and praises the National Trust for being bold in funding it.

    Perhaps the piece most 'relevant' to plantspeople would be the methods of growing plants like pomegranate and pistachio in areas of heavy winter rain and over clay; how to found drought tolerant gardens that get no irrigation and will take the battering of the madly erratic weather ahead. Also planting for minimal maintenance.
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