A Visit to the Savill Garden

11 comments

The Savill Garden is a part of Windsor Great Park and only a few miles from Bracknell. It was started by Eric Savill (who was later knighted), a surveyor and manager of the Windsor Crown Estate in the 1930s. On her first visit to the fledgling garden, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother remarked it was “quite small” – Savill took this as a green light to expand, and the garden now covers 35 acres.

With its acid soil and woodlands, the garden is famous for its rhododendrons, magnolias, hydrangeas, and many rare plants. But there is also a rose garden, gravel garden, herbaceous borders, and a New Zealand Garden.

Coloured stems and early bulbs are much in evidence early in the season. These trees have been planted near the entrance but are one of the few plants not to bear a label

The stems of dogwoods and willows are much in evidence near the lake and bog garden

The New Zealand Garden always looks good, even when there are no flowers

In some places, bulbs have been planted under trees which have naturalised over the years. Here it’s narcissus cyclamineus

And here narcissus bulbocodium and crocus have mingled

Always on the look out for unusual plants, I came across lyonothamnus floribundus subsp aspleniifolius planted against a south facing wall

As it becomes a tree, it won’t fit in my garden, so I will have to go to the Savill Garden again to see how it develops.

• 6 Mar, 2016
• 11 likes

More blog posts by AndrewR