GOLF


The family use the gardens for their own pleasure and to entertain guests, so they must always look good. The same goes for the public areas. For example, we plant a large border at the side of the house to offer interest through the season


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The Woodland Garden features several rare hybrid rhododendrons and is open during its short flowering season


attraction for younger visitors - is the extensive adventure playground featuring a full-size timber pirate ship. Realising that some of the equipment may be a bit ambitious for tiny tots, the designer also built a scaled down version for under-sevens. “The playground has been built to RoSPA spec, and is inspected by RoSPA annually, although our use of natural estate timber for its construction is unusual,” explains Geoff. “We have over-engineered every part for safety, and we check the equipment every day. Different members of the team check it so that they don’t overlook a problem. It’s extremely popular and brings a new generation to Bowood.”


Head Gardener David Glass


Gardens include formal terraces with views over the parkland, private walled gardens open for tours on specific dates, and the thirty acre Woodland Gardens open in the spring to showcase azaleas, rhododendrons - including thirty rare hardy hybrids - bluebells and magnolias. Originally, the kitchen gardens for Bowood House, the private gardens were extensively redeveloped, to a plan by


Those lawns are more challenging as the hotel is built on made up ground from a former farm. It’s


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hard work to prevent them from drying out and keep them green all year


26 PC October/November 2019


Bowood’s private walled garden is open on selected dates for tours, with features including spectacular Wisteria


consultant Rosie Abel Smith, thirteen years ago. The walled gardens are made up of four one acre squares, home to tulips, roses, lavender, peonies, hydrangeas, honeysuckle and many other plants. The layout includes a 250 metre formal border, a picking garden, working greenhouses and retains a kitchen garden full of fruits and vegetables. Arched arbours covered with trailing wisteria flowers over the pathways are the focal point in the spring, but as Head Gardener David Glass points out, the gardens have to perform throughout the year.


“The family use the gardens for their own pleasure and to entertain guests, so they must always look good. The same goes for the public areas. For example, we plant a large border at the side of the house to offer interest through the season, not just when plants are flowering, but also before and after. Tulips provide colour in the spring and there are shrubs for structure, herbaceous plants and some annuals which can be relied upon to keep flowering.”


The terraces were planted with annuals in Victorian times, but have since been


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