Press Release
HYDRATED HYDRANGEAS AT THE ROYAL LANDSCAPE, WINDSOR
3 August 2007
High rainfall this summer has been good news for trees and plants at The Royal Landscape, producing spectacular shows of colour, including the best hydrangeas in recent years in the Valley Gardens and The Savill Garden. The plants are now reaching their peak and will continue on for several more weeks.
Keeper of the Gardens Mark Flanagan explained: “The weather conditions have been a tremendous benefit to the gardens which are looking lush and vibrant. The hydrangeas have thrived in the moist conditions, creating a spectacular show of strong colours and large blooms. Originally from Japan and China, where they enjoy summer rainfall, the hydrangeas have been well suited to the conditions over these past two to three months. The absence of early frosts this spring has also helped the plants.
“Hydrangeas provide late colour in a summer garden and we have continuously added to the planting schemes devised by Sir Eric Savill in the early 1930s and have over 200 cultivars. The most extensive show of hydrangeas is on Breakheart Hill, in the Valley Gardens, and includes swathes of the beautiful china-blue flowers of the old French cultivar ‘Generale Vicomtesse de Vibraye’. Below the Plunkett Memorial in the Main Valley, visitors will see masses of the cone-shaped white flowers of Hydrangea paniculata. In the Savill Garden, Summer Wood is host to a wide range of mop-head and lacecap hydrangeas in a variety of colours.”
The rain has also benefited the Savill Garden’s newly replanted herbaceous borders which will be in their full glory through August and September with stunning colours of yellow, orange, red and purple. Paradoxically the Dry Garden, planted after the 1976 drought, is also looking spectacular at the moment and seems to have taken the wet conditions in its stride.
The hydrangeas in the Valley Gardens are a fifteen minute walk from the Virginia Water, Blacknest and Wick Road car parks. The Savill Garden hydrangeas are situated in Summer Wood which is signposted within the garden.
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