Welcome to Hidcote. Hidcote was bought in 1907 by Lawrence Johnston and his mother.
From then Lawrence Johnston created a masterpiece of a garden, as you'll see today.
It's inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement and the White Garden is a good example of that.
All of the hedging around us is clipped, very tight, formal and then the actual plantings are
quite informal, so it's the White Garden, so a lot of the plants have white flowers but within that,
apart from the sort of height of the borders it's very much an informal style of planting.
Just looking around further, perhaps more of a Lawrence Johnston part of the design, is the
big cedar of Lebanon, which he designed so that it was in view of the garden but not directly
along the parallel that you can see looking up to it and the same is from the central axis.
Lawrence Johnston designed the view just to the side of the cedar so it didn't run to
the cedar it ran just to the side. The central axis is probably the most iconic view of Hidcote.
We're now in the Lilac Circle which is surrounded by the tapestry hedging
which was one of Lawrence Johnston's signature features of the garden. You can just see here the
holly, which is growing into the copper beach when Lawrence Johnston planted it, he planted individual
the holly and the beach and they've grown together to make the effect that you can see.
I'm now outside the Plant Shelter. The Plant Shelter was built by Lawrence Johnston
to house his tender and tropical plants some of which he'd collected
himself from the wild. We've opened some of the area for visitors this
summer but most of it hasn't been able to be open so we'll go and have a look .
The Plant Shelter is full of tender plants some of which are more exotic than others
one of my favorites is the Tibouchina which is full of purple flowers at this time of year.
There are a number of plants that flower throughout the year in the plant shelter, one of which at the moment is
the cestrum, which is a lovely, really cerise pink flower.
There's the cestrum and there's also ginger lilies which is hedychium, which are flowering now and actually are oft scene,
so most people can't see them but they are looking stunning.
They've kind of grown up through things like the clethra, which is the lily of the valley tree,
so you can just see them in the background from here.
We're now in the glass house, which is not open to visitors, so I thought I'd show you what we're up to.
There's a whole range of plants in here some that we're bringing on for the Plant Shelter
and others that we're propagating ready for next season, so if you look in here.
This is some of the cuttings that we've got going on, things like salvia royal bumble,
we've got cosmos the chocolate one. And then other salvias as well, as well as our argyranthemums at the back.
It's a process that we start early on in the season and bring on as we can, to then bring them into small plants and bring them over the winter,
so they're ready for potting up and planting out next year.
Thanks for joining me on the tour around Hidcote
and thank you for your support as we continue to reopen our places.