A garden to remember
And a garden for all seasons
To celebrate a special birthday, arrangements were made to meet with my sister, four of my cousins and their partners, at the Potter’s Heron Hotel near Romsey. This has connections to my daughter’s partner.
From this lovely place, we explored Romsey, Mottisfont Abbey (NT) and nearby woods.
However, the highlight for us was a day spent at Sir Harold Hillier’s Arboretum and Gardens; 180 acres of delight with only 42,000 trees and shrubs!
The different planting scenarios are too many to mention and contain 14 national plant collections. Glowing with colour was the Millenium Walk, shown here. The Winter garden, the largest in Europe, has just featured on Gardener’s World. It is not shown here as it wasn’t winter. For other nature lovers, numerous birds and butterflies were all around.
If you come with children, there are trails and objects for them to experience and explore all the way round. We saw some enjoying playing the chimes in one valley. Water featured frequently with ponds and rills.
Etched on my memory are the fabulous paper bark maples and eucalyptus trees.
To complete the day, we found that Southampton Concert Orchestra was rehearsing for their evening ‘Last Night of the Proms’ concert; so, we all sat back to enjoy this bonus.
Young children danced but best of all was a very young boy who kept complete rhythm with the orchestra, even keeping time with his bottom wriggles as he got up from a fall. What a day to remember! If ever you get a chance to go, we highly recommend it. There are plenty of seats all around, with a great café and a shop.
To give some background to all this, the Hillier family started as gardeners in 1883. By 1921 they were running a garden nursery, until Sir Harold Hillier came to this site in 1951 and the family lived in Jermyn House there.
His ethos was ‘Inspiring green living spaces – for now and the future.’ Sir Harold Hillier’s Garden and Arboretum was given to Hampshire County Council and is run as a charity, with the fifth generation of Hilliers at the organisational helm and the 6th waiting in the wings. What a heritage to leave.