It doesn’t happen enough but at the end of April I signed up for a guided walk of Knoll Gardens in Wimborne.
Knoll is one of my favourite places to visit (but please keep me away from the nursery- far too tempting). What makes Knoll special is it’s a showcase of ornamental grasses and Neil Lucas, winner of many, many RHS gold medals, is genuinely pleased to answer any question you have and highly entertaining along with it. Since its establsihment the style of the garden has evolved from something more formal with lawns and neat paths to what is now an altogether more relaxed landscape.
I’d visited the garden on a similar talk in the autumn when the grases are in their autumn finery and it’s all frothy seedheads and glowing colour. This time was very much in contrast to that. The grasses had all been cut back and there was alot of bare earth which allowed you to really see the bones of the planting.
Looking rather splendid though was a shady garden full of Matteuccia struthiopteris (shuttlecock fern) and Symplocarpus foetidus (skunk cabbage) which needs to be carefully managed as to not spread and become and invasive pest.
Neil has removed areas of formal lawn and is in the process of establishing meadow plantings. I was happy to see a lawn full of daisies and overheard some conversations between other attendees who were new to the concept of having more biodoiverse lawns. With the pressure on the environment and shortage of water in our ever hotter summers I am hopeful that it won’t be long before many turn to alternatives to the traditional lawn with meadow planting or just by letting some areas of their gardens run wild.
Knoll Gardens stock a wide range of flowering perennials that complement the ornamental grasses and I find their online catalogue a great source of inspiration. What really gets me going though is contrasting leaf form and my slight obsession with japanese planting. There were some gorgeous bamboo plantings to be seen around the garden and I loved the composition with the huge fallen eucalyptus which, despite it’s reclined position, continues to grow happily across the pond.
All of the the blossom has fallen, the wisteria is stealing the show and my mind turns to my own garden. I can suddenly no longer resist the magnetic pull of the nursery and buy three Hakonechloa macra Samurai to underplant the Fargesia robusta ‘Campbell’ alonside our pergola and a Calamagrostis Karl Foerster for the front garden. The Calamagrostis has been on the hit list for a long time but I will have to be patient before It will reach a size to grow the tall vertical stems which I would like to be able to see from my desk. Right now, just like the grasses at Knoll, it’s forming a little stubby mound and waiting for summer.