Our work at Hidcote

Using Hidcote as a ‘blank canvas’, Lawrence Johnston designed the garden in phases from 1907 to 1938. He furnished borders with newly discovered plants and exotic rarities gathered during plant collecting expeditions from around the world. It takes a garden team of 13 gardeners and 35 volunteers to care for Johnston's garden today and Hidcote’s garden team is always busy, and no two weeks are the same as the seasons come and go.

The Plant Shelter

Despite several repairs over the years, our plant shelter is being partially dismantled as it is at risk of becoming unsafe.

Lawrence Johnston’s original Plant Shelter was built in two phases during the 1920s and 30s. When Hidcote was given to the National Trust in 1948, the building was already in poor condition, and had to be dismantled. In the early 2000s a replica Plant Shelter was built, following the original design as closely as possible.

Part of our work this year will entail creating a plan for this area of the garden which will continue to honour the spirit and designs of Lawrence Johnston while taking in to account sustainability, energy efficiency and accessibility. We’ll look at all the options to inform what happens next on this important project.

Where possible we will propagate from the most important plants, including our much-loved Mahonia napualensis. Pot contained plants will be moved to the glasshouse each winter for protection, ready to take their place outdoors again in the summer.

Our plan is to keep the space open and planted, with opportunities for visitors to sit and enjoy the area during this interim period. Check back here for updates on this exciting project as it progresses.

Spring and Summer maintenance

In Spring work revolves around the borders, keeping on top of weeds so that bulb displays can be the centre of everyone’s attention. East Court and the Maple Garden, as well as a series of large planters in the Garden Yard, are the result of perusing last Autumn’s bulb catalogues and the displays change each year. The parterres in East Court are edged with low variegated Euonymous hedges whilst the Maple Garden is edged with another green Euonymous to reflect the original box plantings.

Beyond the Old Garden, Scilla fill the beds in the Fuchsia Garden while the Fuchsias wait for the warmer weather and the Lower Stream is a carpet of snowdrops before the Magnolias open to applause across the garden and the Pillar Garden shows off an array of daffodils. Further still a carpet of bluebell flows through the Beech Allee and the trees become a vivid, almost luminous, green of new leaves and there are more daffodils in the Wilderness.

Hidcote’s cold clay soil, albeit cultivated over 100 years, often forces the team to lift and divide in the Spring, amongst the bulbs if necessary and as soon as the weather nods to warmer times plants propagated last Summer are hardened off ready to be planted in time for the Summer display. Similarly, some of the work to the formal grass areas like scarifying and overseeding must wait until Spring and avoid the lifting of tender perennials in the Winter when both jobs can’t be done at once.

The Old Garden is a firework display of Alliums by late Spring raising the beds from their Winter slumber before the true height and flower power of the herbaceous perennials take hold with Roses, Artemisia, Astrantia, Geranium, Nepeta and Phlomis among others, punctuated by tall Eremurus and Delphinium as well as annuals like Argyranthemum and Salvia when space allows.

Like other areas, the Pillar Garden has not been resting either and is now spilling over with Geranium, Campanula, Phlox, and Salvia, celebrating the heady scent of the Philadelphus on the top terrace alongside the blousy tree peonies and surrounded by the tall columns of Yew; recently restored to the scale once envisaged by Johnston.