JENNY RAWORTH GARDEN DAYS 2012
Special visits
for small groups to private gardens
DAY 6
HAMPSHIRE GARDENS, NEAR ODIHAM
Monday, 25th June 2012
The Hunting Lodge, Odiham
I have always wanted to visit Nicky Haslam’s garden at the Hunting Lodge, so this will be a very special visit. Nicky Haslam, Interior designer, writer and cabaret singer, has lived at the Hunting Lodge for 33 years. This is such a romantic place as the site is believed to be on the hunting grounds where Prince Arthur, elder brother of Henry V111, met Catherine of Aragon, his future bride. The garden’s formal layout is inherited from John Fowler, co-founder of Colefax & Fowler, but Nicky has made great additions and alterations. There are ‘green rooms’ of beech hedges with geometric box borders full of flowers hidden behind the pleached hornbeam trees flanking the long lawn in front of the house. The conservatory and garden room at the side of the garden are inviting places to sit and admire the view. The very attractive pink bricked Jacobean-style house is covered in climbing roses with a wide terrace, with stylish Versailles pots painted to match the blue-grey garden furniture containing clipped formal shapes. The long vista from the terrace in front of the house takes the eye from the formal garden to a mown path into a meadow full of orchids, to the lake beyond.
Nicky will give us coffee and take us round the garden.
Lunch at The Anchor Inn, Lower Froyle
Bury Court, Bentley
John Coke has always been famous in the world of plants and horticulture, but when planning his new garden at Bury Court. John asked two contemporary masters of garden design to design two different areas at Bury Court. The walled garden has been designed by Piet Oudolf with his distinctive trademark of naturalism using large blocks of grasses mixed with perennials to give a rich and unusual texture. The other garden at the front of the house by Christopher Bradley-Hole has a modernist grid design of geometric raised beds with tall grasses planted with drifts of unusual varieties of perennials to give accents of colour. At the centre, there is a cubist pagoda centre piece sitting area with a reflective pool.
This promises to be a very special day visiting two very unusual gardens. Not to be missed!
Meet 10.30am The Hunting Lodge, Odiham
Finish: 4.00pm
Transport: Own cars – directions sent with confirmation
Cost: £105.00