A day out at Wisley- Part one

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I met up with Willinilli early Sunday morning and we set off for Wisley together, excited about the day ahead. We had been planning it for weeks, because we were interested in the ‘Grow your own’ demonstrations and talks being held over this weekend. As it turned out we experienced very little of the ‘grown your own’ information on offer but had a really brilliant day out anyway. When we first arrived, we were both in need of a cup of coffee. The grounds of Wisley were already filling up with lots of visitors and gazing out of the window of the restaurant as we sipped our coffee, we could see one of the reasons why. I had completely forgotten the Spring plant fair that was also being held that day, so this was a nice surprise and that was where we started our day.

The daffodils really shone out in the sunshine

A fat little robin, hopped around giving us a lovely welcome

And I had fun, having a tip-toe through the daffodils – or is that another different song?
Very soon we saw what we were after -

All manner of nice goodies were waiting for us inside

Here I am with my first purchase of the day – an erythronium x tuolumnense Susannah

After alot of browsing and plant hunting we sat a while for a little rest.

We were really facinated by this really knobbly old tree….

Im sorry I didnt get the name of this – does anyone know what it might be?
By this time it was nearly lunchtime, we hadnt explored any of the garden yet and there was so much more to see. We made our way up to the new centenary glasshouse. Im not going to include the photos I took in there on this blog as there are so many, so will put them on seperately. We could have spent the whole day just in there!
The next part of our day was a bit of a disapointment. We had intended to go to one of the talks entitled ‘grow your own’ The morning talk had been cancelled by the speaker intended, so Charles Dowding was due to talk again in the afternoon. We arrived at 2pm for the 2.30 talk and were sadly turned away as the room was already full :((. Oh well what else is there to see?
We didnt have to look that far:

We found the demonstration vegetable/allotment garden. Not much seemed to be going on there. We were alot more interested in the alpine greenhouses and outside areas

Does Willi look disapointed to you?
There were lots of little treasures inside the greenhouses. Sorry I did not make a note of the names but most of them have readable labels:

There were some real beauties in there. There were quite a few trough gardens outside too but a little early for the flowers

By this time I was wondering how we were going to fit in all the other things that were of interest in the garden. I really wanted to go to battlestone hill. There was a notice at the front of the garden that the magnolias were looking particularly at their best – we cant miss those. This blog is getting a bit long so I will do a seperate one for that, dont want you to get bored!
The container garden had some interesting features. Its in the model garden area, to give people ideas for smaller gardens. Here are a few that we particularly liked:

!http://media.growsonyou.com/photos/blog_photo/image/This gazebo was made from living trees bent over to form a beautiful structure. I dont know what the trees were, it did not say, no labels, but you could probably do it with quite alot of ornamental trees? – answers on a postcard please….. lol. The potted/container garden was interesting as they had used cornus twigs around the edges of the pots to give a ‘caged’ effect, which I liked.

This area also had some particularly lovely shrubs, all in flower:

Sorry I missed the picture of the living gazebo – so here it is:

Time for another rest?

Just a few other random photos.
The bonsai trees, newly moved

A cloud pruned ilex. (They had two!)

I had to include a picture of this little beauty. Ive just bought one and I know a few other GOY members have one of these too – Prunus incisa kojo-no-mai.

What a beauty, but sorry no idea how old it is. In the ground they are capable of growing up to 8ft. I am keeping mine in a pot and hope it wont grow as large. But they are slow growing anyhow, so lots of years of enjoyment to come, I hope.

This is quite a well known view of Wisley, looking back towards the long walk and their wonderful herbaceous borders. They are a sight to see…. in the summer, only a few months…

This is one of the newer cafes/tea shops. As you can see it was heaving with people at lunchtime. As the day wore on the garden emptied a little. There were not so many people around and we decided to round the day off with some coffee and cake.

Well where had the day gone it was by this time 5.30pm. We had arrived at 10am after an hours drive, the day ended too soon. So back to the car, after collecting our purchases, feeling happy and tired.

Hope you enjoyed this blog and didnt find it too long.

• 26 Mar, 2012
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