RHS Garden Wisley

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RHS Garden Wisley
Wisley Gardens laboratory 8 6 7-90.jpg
The laboratory at Wisley Garden with the canal in the foreground
Surrey UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location in Surrey
Type Garden
Location Wisley
Coordinates 51°18′47″N0°28′27″W / 51.3130°N 0.4742°W / 51.3130; -0.4742
Area240 acres (97 ha)
Created1878
Operated by Royal Horticultural Society
Visitors1,232,772 (2019) [1]
OpenAll year round

RHS Garden Wisley [2] is a garden run by the Royal Horticultural Society in Wisley, Surrey, south of London. It is one of five gardens run by the society, the others being Harlow Carr, Hyde Hall, Rosemoor, and Bridgewater (which opened on 18 May 2021). [3] Wisley is the second most visited paid entry garden in the United Kingdom after the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, with 1,232,772 visitors in 2019. [1]

Contents

History

Wisley was founded by Victorian businessman and RHS member George Ferguson Wilson, [4] who purchased a 60-acre (243,000 m²) site in 1878. [2] He established the "Oakwood Experimental Garden" [5] [6] on part of the site, where he attempted to "make difficult plants grow successfully". Wilson died in 1902 and Oakwood (which was also known as Glebe Farm [7] ) was purchased by Sir Thomas Hanbury, [8] the creator of the celebrated garden La Mortola on the Italian Riviera. He gave the Wisley site to the RHS in 1903.

Directors have included; [9]

Description

Wisley is now a large and diverse garden covering 240 acres (971,000 m²). In addition to numerous formal and informal decorative gardens, several glasshouses and an extensive arboretum, it includes a trials field where new cultivars are assessed. The original laboratory, for both scientific research and training, was originally opened in 1907, but proved inadequate. It was expanded and its exterior was rebuilt during World War I. It was designated a Grade II Listed building in 1985. [7] Visitor numbers increased significantly from 5,250 in 1905, to 11,000 in 1908, 48,000 in the late 1920s, and 170,000 in 1957, and passed 400,000 in 1978, 500,000 in 1985, and 600,000 in 1987. [7]

In April 2005, Alan Titchmarsh cut the turf to mark the start of construction of the Bicentenary Glasshouse. [10] This major new feature covers three quarters of an acre (3,000 m²) and overlooks a new lake built at the same time. It is divided into three main planting zones representing desert, tropical and temperate climates. It was budgeted at £7.7 million and opened on 26 June 2007. [11] A £20 million Welcome Building including a larger restaurant, cafe and visitor facilities was opened by Alan Titchmarsh on 10 June 2019. [12]

In 2024 influential gardener Piet Oudolf redeveloped the two-acre space of his Glasshouse Landscape borders, first planned by him 20 years earlier, in a style more designed to mimic the natural world. [13] [14]

Features

Pink rhododendron at RHS Wisley, 2013 Wisley Garden (9702443424).jpg
Pink rhododendron at RHS Wisley, 2013

Wisley has a large number of features, including the following: [15]

Visitor facilities include cafés and restaurant, car parks, plant centre, etc.


Wisley panorama 5381-86.JPG
Panorama from the top of the Rock Garden, Wisley

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References

  1. 1 2 "ALVA - Association of Leading Visitor Attractions". www.alva.org.uk. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
  2. 1 2 RHS 2017.
  3. ↑ Royal Horticultural Society, Carol Klein opens RHS Garden Bridgewater, accessed 21 July 2021
  4. ↑ RHS 2017, History of Wisley garden
  5. ↑ Elliott, Brent. "'Experimental Gardening: Wisley in the Nineteenth Century' in Occasional Papers from the RHS Lindley Library, volume 11, January 2014" (PDF). Retrieved 26 April 2021.
  6. ↑ "RHS Garden Wisley (Surrey) © Open Garden at Gardens-Guide.com" . Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  7. 1 2 3 Brent Elliott: The Royal Horticultural Society, A History 1804-2004. Published by Phillimore & Co. Ltd. ISBN   1-86077-272-2.
  8. ↑ "Hanbury, Sir Thomas (1832-1907) Knight, Shanghai merchant and botanist" . Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  9. ↑ Desmond 1994.
  10. ↑ First turf cut
  11. ↑ "Wisley Bicentennial Glass house opens for business". Landscape Juice. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  12. ↑ Morgan, Ben (7 June 2019). "Take a first look at RHS Garden Wisley's £20 million revamp". Evening Standard. Retrieved 12 June 2019.
  13. ↑ O'Carroll, Lisa (7 April 2024). "'It will blow people away': Dutch superstar gardener redesigns RHS flagship Wisley garden". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 April 2024.
  14. ↑ "Glasshouse Borders". RHS Garden Wisley. The Royal Horticultural Society. 2024. Retrieved 8 April 2024.
  15. ↑ Visitors' map
  16. ↑ "Explore our RHS Libraries in London and RHS Gardens".
  17. ↑ Elliott, Brent. "The British Rock Garden in the Twentieth Century in Occasional Papers from the RHS Lindley Library, volume 6, May 2011, pp 3-9" (PDF).

Bibliography

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