South Wales Tour « Cumnor Gardening Club

South Wales Tour

At last! After 12 months of Covid related restrictions 34 members of the Club boarded the coach for their long-postponed tour of gardens in South Wales. We were based at the Beggars Reach Hotel in Pembrokeshire set in tranquil countryside on the upper reaches of Milford Sound. Led by Tony Russell who was as usual a superb guide and excellent companion we visited 9 gardens in pleasant warm and often sunny weather. Six of the gardens were privately owned and we were often greeted and guided round by the owners who warmly welcomed us as their first group visit of 2021.

We enjoyed a variety of different gardens starting with Dewstow gardens and grottos just the other side of the Severn Bridge. Built in the 1890’s with artificial stone, the grottos were buried in the 1950’s and only rediscovered and excavated in 2000. They are now the centrepiece of 7 acres of surrounding gardens overlooking the Severn Estuary.

Set in a remote valley under the Preseli Hills the 6 acres of gardens at Dyffryn Ferrant were created from scratch over the last 25 years by the owner Christina Shand. Tumbling down the hillside the gardens include more formal and richly planted areas around the red painted house down through a grass garden, and bog garden to a lake. This was a glorious morning visit to a magical garden cradled in its bowl of surrounding hills.

The afternoon saw us at Picton Castle a C13th castle set in 40 acres of woodland gardens and now run by a Trust. A guided tour by the head gardener through some of the woodland brought us to the walled garden that has recently undergone a £1.2M restoration. Brought back to its former glory it includes newly created and restored flower beds, a Heritage Greenhouse for exotics, exhibition space and a Heritage Centre.

The gardens at Aberglasney, also now run by a Trust, were one of the restoration projects featured in the BBC television series “A Garden Lost in Time”. The oldest and rarest feature to survive is the part-walled C16th cloister garden. The upper walled garden was restored to a plan based on a Celtic Cross with richly planted borders set within curving grass paths. Other gardens include 10 acres of woodland glowing with swathes of primulas, a modern sunken garden and within the restored house, a Ninfarium filled with subtropical plants.

The National Botanic Gardens of Wales were only created some 20 years ago. Set within the grounds of a former country house, now demolished, it contains the world’s largest single span glasshouse full of plants from Mediterranean type climates around the world. Other features include a tropical glasshouse and an unusual double walled garden that has been restored and laid out to display the classification and evolution of all flowering plant families. The wider landscape is also being restored to a Regency layout.

Our Thursday morning visit was to Upton Castle another C13th castle surrounded by 35 acres of listed historic gardens with a collection of rare trees and shrubs. Still a family home, the owner guided us through part of the woodlands past herbaceous borders into the rose garden and through the C19th traditional walled vegetable garden, finishing with coffee under the castle walls. Lunch was at Laugharne where Dylan Thomas lived and wrote for 5 years.

Then onto Llwyngarreg Gardens, another private garden developed by Liz and Paul O’Neill since 2000. Paul, a former teacher, was a lively amusing, even outrageous guide, and Liz provided teas and cakes on the lawn. The 2-acre garden is full of plants set within small woodlands, open glades, streams, mixed borders and beds of grasses and agapanthus.

Our journey home was broken by a visit to the Botanical Gardens at Singleton Park in Swansea. Maintained by the Borough Council this includes a display of vibrant bedding, a range of glasshouses and long colourful herbaceous borders. Having specially opened the plant sales area for our visit, the coach returned home looking like a travelling greenhouse!
The whole week was a wonderful escape from the lockdowns and restrictions of the past year. (Christopher Impey)

Dewstone Gardens