Garden of the Week
With 16 separate areas to explore, this amazing Shropshire garden is a shining example of superb design and ‘controlled exuberance’
Wollerton Old Hall Garden is a world-renowned, much loved and highly respected garden. It's a spellbinding garden that truly has the “Wow!” factor, and which entices you to go and explore more, and more, and more… and there’s plenty to see!
Garden designer and broadcaster Chris Beardshaw said of the garden: “I can show anyone, anywhere in the world, photos and they all agree that it is a world-class example of an English garden.” And Sir Roy Strong, famous landscape designer and broadcaster, says: “The test of a good garden is whether it fires you up to change your own; Wollerton Old Hall always does in spades.”
The garden has been designed and developed by Lesley and John Jenkins since 1984. It’s set around a 16th century hall house and has evolved into a modern garden, but in the English garden style. Lesley is principally involved with the design of the garden, whereas John’s main passions are propagation and new plant searches. Two experienced horticulturists, head gardener Phillip Smith and assistant gardener Belinda Howarth, plus a small team of enthusiastic and hardworking garden volunteers, ably assist them.
Lesley quickly realised that the age of the property demanded a formal garden design. There is something for every garden and plant lover. Everything is in perfect scale, no garden section dominates or overwhelms the others and the transition from each garden to the next is seamless.
“The gardens flow naturally into each other,” says John. “We don’t have a favourite one – that depends on the season and time of year.”
When you visit, the attractive overall layout and the individual and brilliant gems of garden design and planting strike you immediately. The planting is lush, sumptuous and colourful, with softer colours blending in, plus louder ones shouting out for your attention. “We call it controlled exuberance,” John says.
If you’re a plant lover, you’ll be bowled over by the wide range of plants, including collections of clematis, phlox, roses and salvias. The Jenkins see their garden as being multifunctional. “We use it to support charity, for providing employment and promoting tourism in Shropshire, but mainly as a family garden to be enjoyed!”
From June to September, the Lanhydrock Garden is the real showstopper, with its colour theme of hot reds, yellows and oranges, planted in large blocks. Spots of blue, coming mainly from agapanthus and veronicas, accentuate the reds.
Here you’ll find a variety of salvias, erysimums, heleniums, helianthus, hemerocallis and kniphofias.
Entering the Croft Garden from the Long Walk, the change from formal to semi-formal is abrupt, with two large Norwegian maples and a circular green path defining the garden where you'll discover numerous forms and types of hydrangeas, including fabulous
H. paniculata. Flowering shrubs dominate, with fine specimens of hoheria, styrax, stewartia, stachyurus, magnolia and Heptacodium miconioides, the seven son flower tree, with clusters of small, fragrant, white flowers from late summer to late autumn.
The Croft is completely informal and is the full stop at the end of the garden, where it merges into the Tern Valley. It was originally planted as a shelterbelt to help protect the rest of the garden, so this infertile stony slope now boasts Acer carpinifolium (hornbeam maple), Juglans regia 'Purpurea' (very rare, purple-leaved walnut) and Magnolia tripetala (umbrella magnolia).
If you need a spot for some quiet contemplation, head to the Front Garden, which is designed as a quiet interlude. There’s an ancient font in the centre, which sits in a rectangle of rough grass planted with fritillaries, small narcissi and moon daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare).
The only other planting in the Front Garden consists of a solitary medlar tree, a bed of white lilies and agapanthus, four enormous box ‘puddings’ and a garland of rambling rose ‘Francis E. Lester’.
In August, there’s a wealth of plants providing colour, form and structure. “We plan the planting so that the garden looks as good in September as it does in July.”
And like most gardeners across the country, this time of year is filled with time-consuming watering and deadheading, as well as forward planning of future new ideas.