Great West Way Travel Magazine | Issue 08

IMAGES © HISTORIC ROYAL PALACES
opened the gardens to the public in the 1820s, people would
come from miles around to see the palace’s splendid tulip
displays. It became a real destination for a day out, and we
want to celebrate that again. Last winter, the gardening team
worked tirelessly to plant a whopping 110,000 tulip bulbs
throughout the gardens, including some rare and historic
varieties, and in April this year Hampton Court Palace is
hosting a truly glorious tulip festival. We’ve planted the bulbs
in flowerbeds all around the gardens, and each area has a
different theme and story as to why we’ve chosen that bulb
and that colour scheme. We’ve got traditional mass planting
and I am also bringing more tulips into the courtyards as well,
much to the housekeeper’s disdain. I’ve been planting bulbs in
all sorts of things – wheelbarrows, pots, troughs. We want to
offer visitors something a bit different. For example, as part
of the event we will be giving the palace’s famous 14ft wine
fountain a fabulous floral makeover. We’re going to cover it
in tulips, and we’ve gone for deep red wine colours – maroons
and burgundies, even jet black. We’ve also got a tulip variety
called Merlot, and a few rosé colours too.
Are you a city, town or country person?
I think I’m a mixture of all three. I find it humorous that I had
to move away from leafy Hampshire and travel to central
London for my career as a gardener, but the fact remains that
some of the best gardens are in the middle of cities.
What do you think makes the Great West Way special?
The countryside, landscapes and of course the gardens make
the Great West Way special. The further west you travel the
better they get! For me, Stourhead is a particular favourite,
although Longleat is also very special – prior to its current
layout it was a formal Baroque Garden like Hampton Court
Palace. It is fascinating to see how the gardens have changed
if you find an old print. I’d recommend investigating which
private gardens on the Great West Way are open for free as
part of the National Garden Scheme each year.
Please describe your perfect adventure on the Great West
Way?
I think I have an in-built compass in my head that has been
passed down by my father. He used to say “West is always
best!” as we prepared for our camping holidays, and I’ll
always remember camping with Dad during a thunderstorm
at a little place near Marlborough.
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