It was brilliant to go back to RHS Garden Wisley in Autumn,

it brought back happy memories of the first time I visited in Summer 2014

When you arrive at Wisely with the Tudor style Laboratory behind you, the formal lawn and gardens surrounding the canal and waterfall, you’re like, “oh that’s a real nice welcoming, it’s just very WOW you can tell it’s gonna be good and you think if this is just the entrance what’s the rest gonna be like!” It just gets you so excited for exploring the rest of the garden. Plus, I like standing on the bridge, looking at the fish in the water – there’s carp and we think rudd, but we’re not sure.

Trees

The autumn colours  of the trees are just something else,  especially at Wisley as they have a lot of trees that look particularly good in autumn. In autumn, you get this feeling that everything is dying, but here’s the thing, it looks beautiful and there’s still life beneath, as we know that everything comes back to life again next spring. I love the sounds too, like the crunch of the leaves beneath your feet and the fun you have when you kick them in the air or have a leaf fight.

There’s trees and there’s this tree – it is truly spectacular, with its miles of golden light exploding over the landscape. It’s a bit special, one that you want to climb and lay your head.

Bonsai Walk

Here’s my walk of fame, along The Bonsai Walk – I just love Bonsais, they are like these really crazy trees with detailed roots on the top and I think they look like someone’s shrunk a tree in a machine. They are really cool, so wise, yet so small and some of them were well old!

Kitchen Garden

One of Mum’s favourite places is the kitchen garden and I have to say it looked pretty healthy and in good shape. The gardener who looks after this knows their stuff as there was  plenty of winter veg coming along and with Hallowe’en around the corner (when we visited), there was plenty of pumpkins/squash

Fruit Collection

We had a look round the fruit collection, but didn’t make it to the larger orchard. where all these beauties had been grown. It was great to see the different varieties on sale at the front of the shop

Flowers

It was lovely to still see some flowers still in bloom, so late in the year, providing much needed food for any remaining butterflies and bees. The gardeners were busy planting some in the borders near the canal, which will look great next spring

Rock Garden

Now to my favourite area – the rock garden. I love the general style of it; the way tiny streams turn into a pond, how the water goes over the rock creating that lovely foaming pattern as it trickles down. I really like the planting choices with the Japanese maples and yew trees and when you stand back to admire, it’s just beautiful. It’s the first place I saw  pitcher plants grown outside, Colin Crosbie (ex Curator at Wisley) told us all about how they could survive – it influenced us to give a go at home. The thing with the rock garden is that it looks good from different positions and angles and it feels accessible and achievable to many gardeners.

I so want to do this to my garden it’s absolutely incredible

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Speaking of Colin Crosbie, when he showed us round Wisley in 2014, he said you should always, “hug a tree” as it would make you feel happy and I completely agree!

Glasshouse

Visiting the glasshouse, is just like ‘woohoo‘. I really like the rainforest style area, the humidity is incredible and creates this atmosphere for spectacular growth. There’s big plants, like banana plants, which is the same variety as mine, but like way bigger. The flowers in there are so beautiful, with such vivid colours. The temperate zone (desert) is fab, ‘cos I love cacti; they are just so strange and wacky; it’s good cos you can grow them in your bedroom

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The Herb, Country & Rose Garden still looked spectacular as did the wildflower area and I’m rocking this chair it was well #Groovy

If you go to Wisley in the next few months there will be lots of changes; you can read all about it here.  Some of the areas and paths were closed when I went, but there’s so much to see that it didn’t spoil my day. It is the beginning of an exciting programme of changes and improvements for Wisley, where they are growing the garden for the future

There was a bit of time for an essential, cheeky little purchase to join the other (3 million) plants in my bedroom! One day I might walk through this gate to go work – I think I would fit in perfectly! Finally, massive thanks to my RHS bestie, Alana – what a funky office she has

Hope you have enjoyed some wonderful autumn walks and leaf fights – ‘leaf’ me a comment below to let me know where you have visited!

My next blog will be all about The Beasts of Bushy Park!

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