Visiting RHS Garden Hyde Hall

It was a lovely summer’s day and so we set out to visit the garden that the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) have in Essex, Hyde Hall. It is some 20 minutes from the centre of Chelmsford between Rettendon and Woodham Ferrers. It is also the newest addition to the portfolio of gardens that belong to the RHS, being donated by the Robinson family in 1993.

We parked the car and then walked to the new entrance, which opened in August 2009. This is an attractive modern building that incorporates the shop, café and plant centre as well as the entrance. The building is heated by a ground source heat pump and the water harvested from it goes to a reservoir which provides the garden with all its irrigation needs. We entered the garden armed with a map and our first stop was to look along Millennium Avenue. This is an avenue of ash and oak trees planted in an ancient manner – swales and mounds - where the topsoil is dug out to form the swales which is then placed to form a mound into which the trees are planted. As the area here is poor clay soil, the young trees are held in the mounds of better topsoil until their roots are mature enough the cope with the heavy conditions. In between the two rows of trees is a green sweep of turf stretching to the distance on either side. We strolled through the meadows where some harvesting was taking place and gradually the path took us up the slope to the famous dry garden. This garden was begun in the winter of 2000. The gardeners have created a sandy free draining area that is home to some 400 or more species of  plants from areas with low summer rainfall such as South Africa, South America, Australia and of course, The Mediterranean. It was looking wonderful when we visited. The plants really enjoy the conditions and we will probably need to take advice from these gardeners when global warming means we cannot grow our English country garden plants any more.

At the top we came to the Hilltop Garden and walked under the pergola which is covered in wisteria in the spring. This brought us to the Hilltop Terrace with its lily pond, known as Upper Pond. The planting around it is lovely and led us on to explore the whole of the area with its sloping lawns and flower beds that extend down to Lower Pond with its moorhens; then following the Rose Rope Walk, we came back up to the terrace again.

Time for a short rest before further exploration, and we entered the farmhouse area where there is a café in one of the barns. Here there are some meals and sandwiches for sale as well as drinks and snacks. We had freshly made sandwiches and lemonade which we ate in the courtyard under sun umbrellas. 

Suitably refreshed, we then explored the rest of the garden which included a walk round a meadow where we found Constable’s hay wane resting by an old tree. At the entrance to the meadow there are several beehives that appear to be thriving. The meadow is being used to experiment with wildflower meadow planting. There are plenty of benches scattered across the whole garden, so if you’re feeling tired, or you just want to contemplate the lovely vistas, that’s not a problem. To make our way back to the entrance, we followed the path down into the Queen Mother’s Garden. I didn’t know, but each RHS Garden has a part dedicated to The Queen Mother who was a great supporter of the RHS. Here there are grassy avenues lined with mixed borders and trees giving dappled shade. Views across the countryside are lovely. Just through an archway in the yew hedge we found the Australia and New Zealand Garden full of plants from those areas including eucalyptus, bottle brush, phormium, tree ferns and kangaroo paw. 

At last we came to the sweeping borders of Clover Hill. Here the perennials are planted in drifts with grasses swaying gracefully between. You can take rest in the gazebo that overlooks this area and beyond, before making your way down to the Plant Centre. Here we found lots to tempt us, had we got a large garden, but lack of space prevented that. The Plant Centre has a great range of plants, many of those found at Hyde Hall itself. The shop is also full of beautiful gifts and the café beyond provided us with a welcome cup of tea before we set off back home. It was really a wonderful day spent in beautiful surroundings.

Hyde Hall is free to RHS Members, and costs £7 for adults and £2.50 for children 6 – 16 years. For more information go to http://www.rhs.org.uk/hydehall .