Garden Tour 2026 in Dorset

 Last week Lyn and I spent 4 nights at one of the lodges at West Farm near Verwood in Dorset and visited gardens in the vicinity. The reason behind these annual trips is to learn more about gardens and gardening and along the way we often find 'must have' plants which is always a bonus. Fortunately the weather was pleasant but we didn't have heatwave conditions which we're experiencing now and enable writing up of the trip as opposed to preparing my garden for Open Gardens 2026. As I write this, the outside temperature is 31 degrees.

The first garden we visited was the 7 acre garden around Edmondsham House which was an inspirational garden where we learnt a lot. We arrived on a Wednesday afternoon which coincided with one of their opening times, the other one is Sunday afternoons and we counted ourselves lucky to have arrived on a Wednesday.

The Tudor Manor house was built in 1589 and is a very attractive looking building. It wasn't open when we visited; it was the garden we wanted to see, specifically the one acre walled garden which is beautifully tended. We were very interested in the plant supports which enabled all plants to be seen at their best. I realise I need to pay a lot more attention to staking and supporting plants, I know this but it was so good to see this put into practice.

Here's a photo of the entrance to the walled garden:

The climate resilient area was fascinating and it was good to see an explanation and a list of key plants used:

 

I took two photos of the area:

and

After the walled garden, we looked round the rest of the garden including the Exotic Border seen below:

Plants in this border included:

Other things worth noting were the roots of the old beech tree

The stable block building with 'eyes' where the plant sales were. We bought a Begonia sutherlandii

Here's a photo of the outside of the house. They were setting up for a wedding party and there was unfortunately a van parked outside

I liked this planter

and the remembering of the diary was rather nice

We also looked at the adjacent church where there was so lovely stained glass:

I'd thoroughly recommend a visit to Edmondsham House. It was a great start to our garden tour.