A Flagship Garden...

Rhapsody in Blue is gorgeous Spritz and so are the others you picked out for us but what a shame that you went to so much trouble to visit one of the countries best show gardens only to find weeds! Where was everyone, watching football?

Let me be the first to nominate you for the position of head gardener. Lol

What a disappointment for you both and any other visitors at what should be a colourful time in the Wisley garden :o(
Lovely pictures though and a pretty sleeping cat :o)

sorry you were dissapointed barbara and louise, cant believe it would be like that when visitors are going there, not good really, anyway glad there were good bits to for you both to enjoy, lovely pics barbara ;o))

Well, what a disgrace, I am very surprised and disappointed, pleased you managed to find some lovely roses to photograph.

Seems to me the RHS is a permanent committee arrangement that does strange expensive things. At Hyde Hall in Essex they planted roses on old rose beds and found they didn't perform. They took them out. They had to bring in huge amounts of fresh earth . Now they are fine. The roses on ropes are looking past their best (last year). Hermionie's garden is far too stark with its stone cages. It was a deep romantic dappled shaded delight, deemed unsafe....alas. Full of self seeded Hellebores.....can't have that. There was a brick paved area that had grown self seeded Pasque flowers.....can't have that either. Nothing can be serendipity for them. All has to be planned. They are probably still having meetings about the weedy borders!!!!!

Not how I remember it all ..groundsel and chickweed even the dreaded mares tail at Wisley ? surely not .. staff probably off on courses gaining horticultural megadegrees and digging and weeding a bit below them ..

I'm really disappointed and very surprised. I know just how much you two ladies were anticipating this annual pilgrimage to Wisley....it's baffling isn't it.... As for the empty annual beds...surely they ought to have been planted at the start of June......If I can have colour in Angus in June, then they have no excuse, and all my annuals are in the ground an budding up now. Shame on you Wisley, you let my friends down! Good to hear that the plant stalls were present and interesting though! ;)

that must have been so disappointing for you both, I know when I went it was beautiful. I'll be going again in early August, so I hope they've got it all done by then

My turn ..... ;-)

The minute i saw the Long Borders i was disappointed and i had this feeling that the rest of the gardens were going to be the same - and they were.
One disappointment after the other.

I come here every summer (this is my annual pilgrimage to my Mecca!) , usually in the middle of July when certain things are going-over so 'this' year i thought i'd bring it forward a couple of weeks so that i could see the difference ......
Well .... :-(((

I know we had an abnormally cold winter but, this is Wisley, gather your wits about you and tackle the damage etc and replant the gaps so that the summer visitors DON'T SEE loads of bare patches amongst the other plants - everywhere you looked - gaps and bare areas :-(

And the maintenance ...... what are all the staff 'doing' ????
Why aren't the hundreds of weeds everywhere being addressed ????
Are there staff shortages .... if so address them.
'COME ON' RHS, get to it.

As a separate and purely selfish point now, i did 'not' like seeing the large wildflower meadow that's next to the alpine bank area ..... i thought it was a bit of a 'cop-out', as an ornamental gardener i would have liked to see that area filled with colourful flowers, shrubs even - not wild grass and wild flowers.
I know others will disagree, but i'm having a major, major moan here so while i'm on a roll, i'm adding it !

There !
Said my piece and if any 'top-bods' at Wisley read this - feel free to send me a PM and i'll say it again ;-)

How disappointingfor you.When you go through the entrance,that is not the first sight you want to see..We went 2 years ago,before visiting Chelsea,and it wasn't like that then.I think the powers that be,should get their act together too...not good,and if they read these comments,I hope they take action.After all,it is the public who pay their good money to visit Wisley,and quite often,they judge whether to go or not,by reviews such as this...Pull your socks up,Wisley....

Maybe just Maybe they ordered their bedding plants form gardenbargains.com and like me they're still waiting for them (see my continuing blog to get my plants).
Loved all the pictures -thanks.

Dreadful disappointment for you, they should be ashamed of themselves there ! I've only been there twice, first time was a bit of a let-down, as you say, too many bare patches. The second time, with our daughter as she wanted to visit their Library as part of her degree course, was much, much better. Surely it should be consistently good ?

lovely blog & photos...love that dianthus..shame about the weeds you saw

Am sorry to hear that you and Louise were so disappointed in your Wisley visit, Spritz, it sounded such a let down, and a bit soul destroying too. The photos you have posted are lovely though, just a pity so much of this supposedly horticultural haven wasn't up to the same standard. :~(((

I visited Harlow Carr in Harrogate a couple of weeks ago and am sorry to say that parts of that were covered in weeds too! Maybe they`ve made staff cutbacks!

I think you're right Andrea and it's to the detriment of the gardens and the RHS reputation.

sorry you were dissapointed at Wisley.... havnt been there for years.... glad you found some lovely roses....

I`m so sorry you were disappointed in Wisley Spritz, but I can understand why, you expect more from the RHS. We went there last year in late July and it was good but perhaps not as good as I expected. I thought they have a lot of staff there but I must admit I didn`t see many of them. I do hope you decided to go back for another visit sometime and hopefully enjoy it far more.

Lovely photos by the way. :o)

Sorry you where both disapointed, but you took some lovely photos.

You can't put it down to staff shortages, Louise or staff cutbacks, Andrea! There are still just as many courses and students as there have ever been and they are the ones who do the 'donkey work' as part of their training. They also get free labour with their 'voluntary internships' and more than a thousand other volunteers. I had hoped things might have improved since I visited several years ago (in July) but obviously not. The famous Long Borders were full of weed and incredibly scruffy.

Well done for the photos you did get, Spritz - beautiful.

What a disgrace, this is certainly not what we expect of the RHS, did they take entry fee too? I was planning to go on 12th June but events got in the way, Im glad I didnt now.

What a shame to read about the poor state of the garden at Wisley. :-(

Lovely photos, btw! :-0

Wagger, what do you think the problem is then ?
Bad organisation and/or leadership, maybe ?
It needs addressing quicksmart because their reputation's sliding, fast.

What a shame Barbara , quite spoilt your day , it would have mine as well ,
It sounds as though the Norfolk NGS garden we went to on Sunday was far better value , I have put a few photo's on a blog if you would like to see it ....
I loved the little puss ! and good photo's of the roses .... :o)

I loved the photos of the lovely sleeping pussy cat and the beautiful flowers. Maybe those huge borders are a bit too much to be kept crammed with plants, so that the weeds don't show. They could be in colour and style sections. However what I said earlier still stands. If their heart is not in it, as there are so many fads and fashions in 'high' horticulture now; the state of the borders are, perhaps, a reflection of hesitancy over presentation. At other more private places, but open to the public.....one or two people call the shots with fabulous results.

The roses are beautiful... the first one reminds me of my peace rose. I just love the muted colors in the fourth rose & my favorite one is the last pink one =)

Perhaps they have put it down as next weeks working project. Here in Surrey less than 10 miles from Wisley the drought is affecting us all, desperate for water, only half an inch of rainfall this month, still under 9 inches for this year, but that's no excuse for untidyness.

Perhaps it's an example of 'organisation by committee' Louise. To paraphrase Dorjac you need one person in the driving seat.

Whatever it 'is' it's spoilt the place.

when this sort of thing happens it always makes you feel gutted , because you wonder why have you travelled all that way to find empty borders.

but otherwise you have some lovely photos of other plants etc

don't wait for them to contact you, send you complaints directly to them. You might get a consolation prize to boot.

I seem to remember there was this hooha last year about a plan to cut staff across the board at 10%? Haven't they got new director too?
I think the chill wind of cuts is blowing here..
I have been about half a dozen times over the last two years and not been disappointed so maybe it depends when you go?

The workers in our city went on strike last summer & our parks were overrun with weeds & they didn't plant the flowers either....wedding parties had to drive out to the county if they wanted outdoor pictures taken.
Some people who use or lived close to park areas tried to do the job themselves (so the kids could play) but were met with great resistance & violence by the striking workers. One girl even got a bunch of people out to braid the long grass so they could have whatever event it was they were having there. That way she didn't get in trouble for cutting it =)

How very disappointing for you both Spritz....yes we did have a severe winter and very late frosts down this way so some allowances may be reasonable but it sounds like there is general neglect at Wisley. Although it's relatively near me I haven't been for several years (can't face navigating the M3 and M25!) but certainly I have never seen it other than very well tended - as is to be expected of a 'flagship' garden. I have to say my garden is not very colourful yet due to bedding plants going in late and perennials only just getting going....but at least I have no weeds!!

How sad for you both, I always think the most exciting part of any garden is the herbaceous borders:-( You really ought to complain, if enough people do, they may pull their fingers out. Maybe we could summon up a monstrous regiment of Goyers to march on head office, that would make them buck up their ideas. You still got some lovely pictures though:-)

Thanks everyone for your comments - I do intend to write to the RHS still, but as you can imagine, my mind has been on other things since I wrote this blog.