 |
The Royal Horticulture
Society
Garden Wisley
 On
one of my past buying trips, I had the great pleasure of visiting
Hidcote, Chatsworth House, RHS Garden Wisley, and several
private gardens. Any of these gardens are worthy of a write-up,
but since I have limited space, I chose Wisley. What a remarkable
garden! Just west of London, this has to be one of the most
spectacular gardens in Europe.
 There
were two aspects of Wisley that struck me the most. The first
was the number of different types of gardens within Wisley,
and each is so wonderfully laid out. With over 240 acres,
Wisley is huge, and it took almost a whole day to get through
it. One of the most spectacular and memorable of these gardens
was the rock garden. It was truly inspiring! Beautifully laid
out on a hillside with paths winding throughout, this garden
was the highlight. Other interesting gardens included the
trial gardens where you can compare all cultivars of a particular
perennial, annual, or vegetable all in one location. This
year’s trial gardens included delphiniums, sweet peas,
and day lilies as well as others. Additionally, there were
incredible borders, a woodland garden, a huge shade garden,
water gardens, rose gardens, alpine houses, and trough gardens,
to name a few!
The second most memorable aspect
of Wisley was that almost everything was clearly labeled.
There is an age-old debate about whether to label or not to
label plants in a garden, but being an intermediate gardener
thirsty for information, I was thrilled to see everything
labeled in this public garden. This helped me learn a tremendous
amount.
If you are visiting England, in
the London area, Wisley is not to be missed. As usual, I've
included pictures to entice you! For more information on RHS
Gardens Wisley, click on the link below: http://www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/wisley/index.asp
 
Click on any
of the above pictures for a better view (it may take a minute
to download)
|
