Wakehurst

 Wakehurst is very impressive, from the minute you arrive, everything is well organised and fascinating. It's a 'wild botanic garden in the heart of Sussex, home to the Millenium Seed Bank with over 500 acres of diverse landscape and plants.' It's a Kew in the countryside with the sort of standards you would expect there. The plant sales were superb and the shop has a fantastic range, including half price Seasalt clothes. It is owned by the National Trust and managed by Kew.

For the first photograph I've chosen this impressive sculpture by artist Walter Bailey. He was inspired by the management of prairie landscapes to create this latticework structure. In North America indigenous peoples used fire to create, shape and sustain prairie landscapes. At Wakehurst they mimic the management style by controlled burning in the winter to remove dead plant material and instead of bison, they use rare breed Hebridean sheep to copy the bison's reduction of green material. Walter Bailey has produced some other beautiful wood sculptures which you can see on his website.

Below you can see the magnificence of Wakehurst Place, an Elizabethan Mansion

One of the garden structures

and another view of Wakehurst Place

There are lots of different areas, the flower bed below was a mass of colour, I recognised the orange Cosmos I have grown this year for the first time with black spiky seeds.

The American Prairie planting is extensive and quite a bold experiment, in this year's very hot, dry conditions, Eryngium yuccifolium has succeeded really well. 

Its common name if Rattlesnake master because it was used by First Nation Peoples as an antidote to rattlesnake venom. I have got one in my garden, but it isn't growing like this.

You would expect Rudbeckia to grow well here and as you can see, it's thriving.

There was a bed of Lobelia tupa, also known as Devil's tobacco

There was also some 'normal' lobelia seen below

I love this Dahlia which may be one of the Bishop's Children

We returned again to Wakehurst after visiting nearby Standen the next day. It's magnificent.