Firestyle Magazine: Issue 6 - Winter 2016

GENERAL INTEREST
32
South East
Mottisfont, Hampshire
Mottisfont’s winter garden has matured into a beautiful and unique
landscape, full of horticultural treasures. Stroll along paths through winterflowering
shrubs and both late- and early flowering perennials, rich in colour
and scent. Brilliantly coloured dogwood bark and silvery ornamental bramble
provide splashes of colour alongside berries and fruit even on the shortest days
of the year. Gullies of foliage appear to wind through the banks of willow like
water and spill into the stream. As winter continues, the garden becomes a
refuge for other late flowering shrubs such as mahonia, sweet-smelling winter
honeysuckle and daphne.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/mottisfont
Ham House, Surrey
Discover frosty topiary in the formal Cherry Garden glistening in the winter
sun. Then take a crisp winter walk across the Ham House estate to the mazelike
Wilderness. Part of the original 17th-century garden, the Wilderness has
16 compartments to explore and is transformed into a winter wonderland
during the cold months. Finish your tour with a stop at the Kitchen Garden and
discover the vegetables and herbs still available at this time of year.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/ham-house-and-garden
Osterley Park and House, Middlesex
Meander through the ever-evolving Winter Garden at Osterley which provides
bursts of coloured bark, fabulous leaf shapes and seed heads in abundance
during the winter months. Covered in a thick haw frost, every branch and
berry is defined. A highlight at this time of year is the Clematis Urophylla ‘Winter
Beauty’. Its delicately fragrant, waxy, white bell-shaped flowers shoot through
lush green foliage even in the depths of winter.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/osterley-park-and-house
Midlands
Biddulph
Grange Garden,
Staffordshire
Biddulph Grange is one of
the most exciting survivals of
the great age of Victorian
gardening. The garden was
the vision of one man, James
Bateman, who from 1841
spent more than twenty years
collecting plants from all over
the world. The plants and
trees were brought together
at Biddulph amid rock-work,
topiary, tree-stumps and an
extraordinary collection of
eclectic garden buildings
designed by Bateman and
Edward Cooke. Take a stroll
through the Pinetum during
the winter months where the
path weaves its way between
conifers, hollies, yews and
monkey puzzle trees, which look
especially enchanting with a
frosting of snow.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/
biddulph-grange-garden