🌺A Visit To Longstock Water Gardens in Hampshire For This Week’s #SixOnSaturday Post. #GardensToVisit #GardeningTwitter

Last Saturday I went on the long awaited trip to Longstock Water Gardens. These are situated on the River Test near Stockbridge and are the creation of retailer John Spedan Lewis of John Lewis and Waitrose fame. Keen to create the gardens he had a phone line put in to the thatched summer house so that he could still be on hand to run his empire while creating his gardens. There is a good article from Dan Copper about the gardens here (Opening times and prices are now different, as Dan visited in June 2013) See here for current rates and opening hours.

November 5th

Due to personal circumstances we visited on the last open weekend of the season and I would say that many of the floral displays were finished. A visit in Spring or Summer would be my suggestion.

Water Gardens

Lewis diverted the river and created islands within the gardens which can be reached by small bridges. There were dahlias and lilies, verbena and more still in flower. I’m afraid that some of the plants I didn’t know the names of and couldn’t find the relevant name tags.

I don’t know what these were, the label that I photographed beside them turned out to be for a yellow variety of tick weed, which wasn’t flowering at this time of the year. (Alison has identified these as Liriope muscari)

A pretty palm or banana with dahlias growing underneath. (Jim says this is an Ensete maurelii or Ethiopian false banana)

Cyclamen

There were plenty of cyclamen around the gardens.

Not sure what these were, but there were also some creamy ones.(And Jim knows what this one is too – an Astrantia)

Bamboo

A short drive or walk from the gardens is Longstock Park Nursery set in a walled garden, with tea rooms and a small farm shop, all worth a visit. Another good article about the gardens can be found here on The Garden Visitor Website.

November 5th

Thank you for joining me for this #SixOnSaturday post. I hope that you enjoyed it. Jim is now our host for this gardening meme and you can find his blog here where you will be able to catch up with links from all the other folks who take part.

Happy gardening

Rosie

Link to Jim’s post for this week is here https://gardenruminations.co.uk/2022/11/05/six-on-saturday-5-11-2022/