RHS Wisley Visit

With this glorious weather we have had recently, we have loved our countryside walks. Roadside verges, fields full of wild plants and flowers, provide the habitat loved by bees, butterflies, and all manner of other insects.

Lane-side verge left uncut

But we also decided to venture a bit further and visit the RHS Garden at Wisley. No need to say that it is easily possible to spend the whole day there and only see a small part of what is on offer. We admired the beautiful rose gardens, the new Hilltop center (with great veg gardens and café with seating amongst the vegetable plots); we strolled the paths through Oakwoods (the original part where the Wisley story began). But out main target was the garden area near the Glasshouse, designed in 2007 by Tom Stuart–Smith. It was very beautiful and inspiring.

At the Hampton Court Palace Flower Festival this year, Tom created a garden show-casing plants resilient to our increasingly hot and dry summers, full of Echinacea, Perovskia, Salvia, wonderful grasses and many other plants. Following the festival, the plants from the show-garden are to be transported to Wisley and used in Tom’s garden by the Glasshouse, for everyone to enjoy over the years to come.

Apart from this horticultural adventure, we also had a practical task --- we took with us our Seehow flowering guide, to check our hand-drawn illustration against their perfect originals. They do look good! – don’t you think? A picture really is worth 1,000 words!

Seehow is really easy to use outside, during walks or garden visits. It is portable; the plantsticks slide in and out of the wallets easily and chosen plants can be slotted into the empty wallets preserving your selection. It is a really wonderful way to plan your garden while being out there, relaxing on the grass amongst the plants and flowers – inspired by the beauty all around. Try!

www.seehow.co.uk

The above Text and all Photographs are copyright of Wincenty (Wicek) Sosna. Please contact SeeHow for permission to reproduce in any way, in part or as the complete text.