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We had visited Wakehurst Place several times. Our happy memories brought us back to Wakehurst Place, near Haywards Heath, on 12 May.
Upon the arrival at Wakehurst Place, we decided to have a picnic lunch. I found it quite breezy while having lunch, but believed that it would get warmer in the afternoon.
After the lunch, we started exploring the garden. We remembered the Jacobean style mansion. We noted a brand new restaurant built near the mansion.
The wonderful garden was largely created by Gerald Loder (later Lord Wakehurst). The garden was passed on to Sir Henry Price in the 1960s. The property including the garden was given away to the National Trust in 1965. Wakehurst Place is home to the National Collections of birches and beeches and evergreen shrubs. Many of those trees and shrubs were largely gutted by the Great Storm in 1987, but Kew has restored the parklands and the temperate woodlands of the world, and former gardens by planting a wide variety of flowers, pine trees, conifers, evergreen shrubs. An award-winning garden is managed by the
Kew and Wakehurst Place is known as the Kew Gardens of Sussex.
There were a huge variety of bedding flowers, shrubs and rock plants thriving and they were classified by the country. As well as bluebells, rhododendrons, magnolias and azaleas were out in the middle of May, and warm-coloured flowers decorated the lush parklands and the temperate woodlands. Aquatic plants were not quite growing or flowering, but we could see the shoots were coming up to the ground.
We walked through the Himalayan Glade and walked to the lake, conservation area. The boarded footpaths were built up across the lake – it allowed us to reach the hide in the middle of the woodland and walk diagonally through the lake. We saw a wide variety of waterfowls – ducks, geese, goslings, and so on. We saw colourful pheasants, either stopping in front of us or running across the bluebell field.
Wakehurst Place is also the home to the National Collections of pine trees. Tall trees such as red wood and sequoias were thriving. The winding path from the lake led us to the rock walk. As always, we marvelled at the
roots of aging trees were growing on the surface of the rocks. We also noted myriads of moss and lichen thriving on the surface of the rocks – and believed that the carpet of moss and lichen give plenty of moisture and nutrition to the roots of the ancient trees.
We then walked through Bethlehem Wood via the winding path. In contrast to the aging trees, we found a number of young trees. Looking at the whitish or reddish brown trunks, they reminded me of my grandfather, who used to collect those trunks in the mountains and used them for his carvings.
The Millennium Seedbank is one of the main features of Wakehurst Place. As well as the botanical reports on the panels, we were able to see the laboratory rooms where botanists were searching for the information of the rare species and looking through the details of the seeds and leaves with the microscope and freezers where botanists keep specimens.
As we started exploring in the afternoon, we decided to stay till the end of the closing time and catch the late bus. We decided to have tea and cake
at the Stable’s Café near the mansion.
We strolled through the Henry Price walled garden behind the mansion. We saw pale pink and dark purple tulips, blue geraniums, irises lavenders and scented flowers blooming. Surrounded by the brick wall and with old-fashioned ornaments, urns and fonts and obelisks, the walled garden was the only place that could tell that the property with garden is owned by the National Trust, and we could feel that we were strolling through the historic garden.
Once we left the walled garden, we were out to the botanical garden – we could see a wide variety of shrubs, conifers, trees and exotic plants, which had been collected from all over the world. I remembered visiting there in the late autumn – there was still lots to see in the garden. We walked through the Southern Hemisphere Garden, Pollination Garden and Water Garden in the late afternoon.
As with the Kew Garden in London, there have been a number of new attractions added to the site. We headed for “brick and turf labyrinth” near Westwood Valley. As the name suggests, the brick winding paths were built with
the structure of the circular maze on the lawn field. We also looked out for the compost corner. There were a huge variety of plants growing in the Wakehurst Place. We guessed it is important to gain a large amount of healthy compost throughout the year for the gardeners.
We caught the 18:08 bus for Haywards Heath, and came back home just before 8 o’clock on 12 May.
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