Visiting Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, Hampshire

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Hello friends. This week we had an overnight stay in Winchester and on the way home we visited the Hillier Gardens. This place has been on my wish list for many years.

Mid May is perhaps not the best time for gardens. The spring show is mostly over, but the herbaceous aren’t yet performing. However, the Azaleas were stupendous, and the trees (and there are many trees) were looking wonderfully fresh in their new foliage.

The garden stretches over a whopping 180 acres. We were there for 2 hours (Mr F was at his limit by then;) ), and we probably saw half of what is planted. Sir Harold Hillier planted the gardens from the early 1950s onwards. It is a relatively young garden. However, it has been developing ever since. The double mixed borders are some of the longest in Europe and they are 10 years old now.

Hilliers, for me is all about woody plants. There displays in the pavilion at Chelsea are always my favourite, which is why I was so excited to visit. You would need a whole day to see all the trees and shrubs though.

Enjoy my photos!

Iris

Paeonia Berry Garcia

Geum

Wisteria being trained on poles to show how to grow them in a limited space.

Not a good photo, but this is Wollemi pine, the ‘Dinosaur’ pine found in New South Wales and previously thought extinct. If you look closely it is flowering! There are pom-pom like structures at the top of the upper foliage, which I assume are the female parts, and if you look to the edges of the lower foliage, you can see reddish drooping parts (easiest to spot on the left about 1/3 way up the photo) which I assume are the pollen-bearing male flowers. Fascinating!

In the Rhododendron woodland there are quite a few mature Scots Pines. Just look at the height of this one! Doing what they do best…reaching for the stars!