Lullingstone Castle and the World Garden of Plants

[Brian Ellis]

The weather is getting autumnal and our break a couple of weeks ago, in beautiful sunny weather, seems like months.  The second garden we visited was at Lullingstone Castle, Kent one of the oldest family estates in England.  The Hart Dyke family opened their house and garden to us on a super day and here are just a few impressions.  You may have heard of Tom from two television programmes about saving the Castle, or from his writing such as "The Cloud Garden".  There are links on the site to videos of his trips too..http://www.lullingstonecastle.co.uk/media-videonation.html

The entrance to the World Garden of Plants is through a Moon Gate into the 18th century Walled Garden, the first picture is of the loquacious Tom telling how the idea first came to him in 2000 in the middle of the Colombian jungle after three months of his being kidnapped!  The garden first opened to the public in 2005 and is starting to look really quite good.

The idea is that the plants are situated in their land of origin surrounded by stone which would be found in that area.  Th picture of Mexico gives an impression of this.  The garden is set our vaguely geographically, with British areas by the entrance and use is made of the south facing wall as home to Australasian species, quite clever really.

The beds are very full but well labelled here are South American plants including the red Zinnia tenuifolia and Verbena bonariensis.  I should have taken more note of what was in the planting, I think pic LWOP6 is of the Canaries.

There are a couple of polytunnels allowing protection from the winter wet.There is a good display of Cacti and succulents in the Hot and Spikey house from South America, South Africa, Mexico, South West USA & the Canary Islands - again arranged in areas. The painted background to the South American Bed is very effective in real life, and I particularly liked the 'planting' of the air plants

[Brian Ellis]

I really like these Kalanchoe buhariensis in Kalanchoe corner!
The garden has one or two unusual sculptures including this Baobob made from 51km of wire.
A young Tetrapanax and Equisetum in 'Asia'
and lastly one for John Weagle, Chris sends her best wishes, tiptoeing through the Gaura.

The Church and House are well worth a visit - the Church in particular was quite unspoilt.  There is also a flavour of Tom's enthusiasm on the website through his Blog
http://www.lullingstonecastle.co.uk/tom-hart-dykes-blog.html

[Maggi Young]

If I remember correctly, T H-D was the chap who wrote a book and had a TV series about his travels to find a new species of orchid which he wanted to be able to name for his inspirational Grandmother........


Yup, I think that's right... he was kidnapped and held for 9 months with a companion on one orchid hunting trip as well, it seems!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/orchid/about.html

[Brian Ellis]

Yes you are absolutely right Maggi, sadly Granny died the week before our visit and the funeral service was in the beautiful, unspoilt church.  He will miss her inspiration I am sure, she was 90+ and maintained her own bit of the gardens, lived in the other half of the Gatehouse to Tom.

[Paul T]

Brian,

Great garden.  I love the Baobab tree sculpture.

[Brian Ellis]

Cheers Paul, there were some interesting modern sculptures dotted about.  Tom Hart Dyke is a really good plantsman.