Autumn/Winter 2011/12 - Harcourt Arboretum - University of Oxford

12
Botanic Garden News | No. 79
Double visit to Iford Manor,
Lower Westwood, Bradfordon-Avon
and Derry Nursery
of Special Plants
Saturday 14th April 2012
Coach departing 9.00am from Redbridge
Park & Ride, Oxford; back at c. 4.30pm
Iford Manor by kind permission of
Mrs Elizabeth Cartwright Hignett
This Grade I Italianate garden was designed
between 1899 and the 1930s by the architect
and landscape gardener Harold Peto. It is a
unique romantic hillside garden characterised
by steps, terraces, sculptures, cloisters and
magnificent rural views. The current owners
have restored the layout and planting to
Peto’s original designs. Coffee will be served
on arrival. Picnic or pub lunch in Bradfordon-Avon.
In the afternoon we will visit Derry
Nursery of Special Plants to have a tour, buy
from the wide selection of unusual plants,
and have tea.
≠ Tickets £30, guests £35
(includes coach fare)
≠ Maximum 50 people
The University of Oxford
Harcourt Arboretum
Sunday 22nd April 2012, 2.30pm
Nuneham Courtenay, Oxon OX44 9PX
By kind permission of Mr Ben Jones, Curator
A chance to see the magnificent bluebells
and to meet Ben and hear about plans for the
Arboretum. The tour will be followed by tea.
≠ Tickets £8, guests £10
Ros Diamond
Friends’ seed
collection
We will have a limited number of
packets of seeds to give away in early
January. Each packet will contain a
mixture of annuals, biennials and
hardy perennials, collected from the
Botanic Garden. To receive your free
seeds, please send an SAE (at least
postcard-sized, and as soon as you
like) to: Friends’ Seed Collection,
Oxford Botanic Garden, Rose Lane,
Oxford OX1 4AZ.
Rousham House
and Garden
Thursday 3rd May, 2.00pm
Rousham House, near Steeple Aston,
Oxon OX25 4QU
By kind permission of Mr & Mrs Charles
Cottrell-Dormer
This is a great opportunity to visit this
wonderful house at Rousham and to
have a guided tour of the garden with
the landscape archaeologist James Bond,
whose interest is in the development of
the English landscape garden. The house
was built in 1635 and has remained in
the ownership of the same family ever
since. It was extended by William Kent
in the 1740s, who also designed the
garden. It is one of the finest examples
of the first stage of the evolution of the
English landscape garden and is the
best-preserved survivor of a William
Kent design. We will have a picnic tea
under the Seven Arches in the garden.
≠ Tickets £16, guests £21
≠ Maximum 40 people
Summer dates
for your diary
The Friends’ plant sale
Sunday 3rd June 2012
Harcourt Arboretum, Nuneham
Courtenay, Oxon OX44 9PX
Our planning for the 2012 plant sale is
well under way and with the completion
of the new car park at the Arboretum we
hope it will be another great success.
We will be selling an enormous range
and variety of plant stock from the very
rare to the more common, including trees,
perennials, annuals, exotics, grasses,
shrubs and kitchen garden plants. We will
also have a useful stall selling secondhand
gardening and cookery books, an
advice table, a great garden-themed raffle,
fabulous refreshments with homemade
cakes, jams and goodies and lots of parking.
Admission is free and you will be able to
explore the Arboretum and see the glorious
late spring displays of trees and flowers,
before or after buying plants (which can be
delivered by wheel-barrow to your car).
All the plants for the sale come from the
Botanic Garden, college gardens, private
collections and members of the Friends.
If you are dividing plants this autumn
please remember us and add a few extra
to be sold in June in support of the work
of the Garden and Arboretum. For this
sale we hope to increase our range of vegetables,
fruit and herbs, so we will particularly
welcome any donations of excess stock
which you may have. To make this event
a success we need many, many plant
donations so if you would like to help please
do contact me at any time. Thank you.
Maura Allen - 01865 311711,
0777 212 7029 or mea@armitstead.com
New College Opera
Wednesday 11th July 2012
Following the success of Salieri’s Falstaff
in 2011, we are delighted to announce that
New Chamber Opera will be performing
Mozart’s Il Re Pastore in July 2012. Attendees
described 2011’s event as: “a truly excellent
evening” and “a magical evening”. Further
details and ticket prices for 2012 will appear
in the next newsletter in early March.