There have been so many highlights during this years cruising, its been hard to keep up with our adventures. Many years ago, we lived in Surrey and had membership to the Royal Horticultural Society, Wisley. So when we realised we could moor only 30 minutes walk away, we leapt at the chance to visit. And also to meet up with our family to relive some of the happy memories of mum and dad who used to come here most weekends. Wisley is full of iconic vistas which will be very familiar to people who visit often.
But its not a garden that stands still in time. So much had changed since our last visit. They are currently digging a huge new reservoir which will be disguised as a “lake” to help them manage that most precious of resources. And as Eric is from a family of engineers , this was worth a close inspection.
And despite the general current shortage of rain, the gardens have been maintained and the borders are spectacular.
And much to my amazement, the big glass house was pleasantly cool to walk around even though it looked like a dessert
and we spent some time chatting in there, and wondering what they had done with the old orchid house that we all remembered
Its not really orchid season, but still some in flower in their new tropical home
And it wasn’t all cactus
Once we left the glass houses we were treated to a walk through the South African velt
The Heather garden had only just been planted 30 years ago and at the time it looked, quite frankly, boring, but not any more, although there’s not too many family gardens that are big enough to copy this in its entirety.
One of the places Mum and Dad used to love spending time (besides the cafe) was the rockery
Which again is on such a scale that you couldn’t transplant it all into the average garden, but when Eric and I moved to Suffolk, and attempted a bit of landscaping in our new garden, we took a lot of inspiration from the Wisley rockery.
One of the things I miss in our boat home is not having a garden to grow vegetables so we were fascinated by the concepts being researched at Wisley in their “veg plot”. They are currently trialling a “no dig” policy for their veg, and these two comparison plots showed just how beneficial it can be to avoid digging. Mind you I think the benefit is enhanced by the amount of good quality mulch applied each year.
But as all the gardeners world presenters remind us gardens aren’t just for working in, relaxing with friends is just as important. Not only did we enjoy a day on our own, and a day with family. We were also treated to a surprise visit from our good friends from Suffolk
And a day with one of Eric’s work colleagues and his family
Wisley isnt the cheapest garden to visit as a one off, but it offers exceptionally good value membership deals, which give access to several other RHS gardens and partner gardens. And as Wisley covers such a huge site, its definitely worth breaking a visit into 2 or more days to be able to appreciate it all.
But as I frequently remind Eric, you can never see too many roses.
And what’s more the mooring is next to the Anchor pub who did very good wood fired pizza.
We werent the only ones who enjoyed visiting Wisley our friends and family did too, and we even got the youngsters to help out with the locks when we took them for a mini cruise
apologies for the number of photos today, this is only a fraction of what we took.
