Things to see in the garden at Avebury Manor

The Monk’s Garden

The Monk's Garden is abundant with a wide variety of herbaceous perennials and annuals, including vegetables, to enhance the potager style we planned this year.

Horticulturally the Monk's Garden presents the greatest challenge to the gardening team because it has a challenging micro-climate. Our aim is to improve this important space in terms of its resilience to weather extremes.

The Church Garden

There are two key aspects to the Church Garden. One is the stunning flowering display in the hot border which includes plants such as Clematis ‘Ernest Markham’, Helenium ‘Moreheim beauty’, Achellia ‘Terracotta’ and Campsis radicans. The second is a reminder to those who visit Avebury that the Church Garden is the perfect place to rest and reflect, and for children to play (with garden games available in good weather).

The Topiary Garden

We've faced the challenge of the lattice shaped topiary being first of all stricken by box blight and its selected replacement (Lonicera nitida - shrubby honeysuckle) succumbed to extremes of temperature over the last year. However, we are very pleased to announce that later this year the topiary will be replaced with (Taxus baccata - yew) which will be much more resilient in the face of unpredictable climate.

Lavender Walk

We are equally pleased to announce our plans to restore the Lavender Walk in the East Garden. The old lavender will be replaced with a new variety understood to be more resilient to a changing climate.

In addition to the new lavender, we will plant a great number of snowdrops and winter iris. The Snowdrops will be Galanthus nivalis and the Winter Iris will be Iris reticulata to enhance our planned winter displays.

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Adapting to our changing climate

In recent years, one of the overriding challenges at Avebury Manor Garden is to find solutions for the climatic extremes which have been recorded here and obviously affect everybody.

Some of these are as follows:

• We’ve migrated towards a completely organic horticultural practice, which we are already seeing benefit the wildlife and pollinating activity in the gardens.
• We have deliberately allowed the height of the lawns to increase enough to allow clover to flower and attract bees, hoverflies, and other pollinators. Although, as part of the management of the lawns, we also ensure that they are well maintained.
• A significant preoccupation of the gardening team is to ensure that our garden compost is returned to the soil as an invaluable mulch to conserve moisture and sustain good soil health.

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Exploring the garden

Picnics and shelter

The South Lawn island beds are overlooked by the earlier entrance to the manor, while the Church Garden is sheltered from the wind and provides an opportunity for picnics, reading and relaxation.

Silent Space

The Orchard in Avebury Manor Garden is registered as a Silent Space. Here we encourage people to switch off and to take a few minutes to reflect silently and listen to nature.

Seasonal produce

As the season progresses the range of produce available will increase and will be available for visitors to take away and any modest contribution into the donation box is welcome and will be used specifically to look after the garden.

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Some of the other Avebury Manor Garden rooms

Lion Walk: On a stroll down the Lion Walk you’ll see colourful herbaceous borders, and some of the floral highlights are achillea, echinops and phlox.

The Orchard: Grass paths are cut through longer areas of grass in the Orchard to encourage wildflowers and attract beneficial wildlife. Seasonal plants include wild thyme, dropwort, corn marigolds, field daisies, lady's-bedstraw and cornflowers.

The East Garden: The highlight of the East Garden is the wonderful lavender walk which leads to the front door of the manor, flanked on either side by formal lawns. We’re currently developing a border which will provide additional winter interest.

South Lawn: The South Lawn was the original entrance way to the manor and was previously partly a cherry orchard. Now there are island beds and a formal lawn with an astrolabe in the centre. If you walk to the back of the garden, you’ll find a poignant reminder of earlier lives with the gravestones of pets long gone. Although some are hard to read others can be seen to say ‘Herbie my faithful friend’ and ‘Adorable Daisy’.

Italian Walk: Explore the furthest corner of the garden to find this double row of 58 clipped yew columns.

Half-Moon Garden: This has its name because of the curved brick wall which acts as a backdrop to climbers and provides additional warmth for herbs growing along its base. In front of this a yew hedge replicates the shape and is the perfect foil for an extensive pastel-hued herbaceous planting divided up by clipped yew and lonicera.

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Wildlife in the garden

As well as being home to hedgehogs, the garden is a haven for a huge variety of wonderful creatures, including grass snakes, great crested newts, stoats, numerous species of butterfly, ladybirds, dragonflies, mayflies, bees and other beneficial insects.

Among the more common garden birds, others such as goldfinches, woodpeckers, red kites, buzzards, owls, house martins, swifts and tree creepers visit or live in the garden. Take a seat on one of the benches and stop to watch for wildlife in this tranquil space.