Bridport Gardening Club

Set within the Isle of Purbeck, Holme was originally a fruit and dairy farm: now 15-acres are laid out to formal and informal landscaped gardens of great variety and complete with surprise and charm, as well as birdsong, a haven for relaxation.   Having written about the gardens in April 2025 I was surprised at how delightful this return visit was to be: Simon Goldsack’s gardening passion, as is his eye for detail and an intuitive sense of design, is[…]

Once a carrot field, Knoll Gardens have existed under different names and owners since the 1970’s.  In 1994, Neil Lucas took over the creative care of the current gardens and winning ten Chelsea gold medals.  With an ethos for matching ‘plant to the place’ the ornamental grasses combine with perennials, mature trees and shrubs in a naturalistic design, suiting sustainability and biodiversity.  Hence there are damp, dry, shaded and gravel areas to suit the changeable climate. A low maintenance and[…]

The dark green of trees and hedges contrast the pale dun of burnt land as July’s heat sets in. Rambling Cornish Cotehele, a Tudor manor house with cobbled courtyards and slabs of granite under slate, where volunteers care for 14 acres of garden and 12 acres of orchards.  Besides a medieval stew pond and dovecote, providing fish and fowl, there is a water mill and quay.  This bustled with vessels in 19th century, local industries having boomed on the banks of[…]

The weather and rhododendrons are ahead of 2025 by a couple of weeks, significant at Exbury, which has 200 acres of mixed herbaceous, contemporary, formal and woodland gardens bordering the Beaulieu River.  There is narrow-gauge steam railway finalised in 2001 by enthusiast Leopold de Rothschild and inspired by Aviemore Station in Scotland. The Rothschild dynasty started with a coin dealer in the Frankfurt ghetto with five sons, who spread throughout Europe in the 1800’s. Exbury House, a neoclassical mansion was[…]