West Dean, West Sussex.

[Giles]

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[Giles]

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[Giles]

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[Giles]

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[Giles]

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[Giles]

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[Maggi Young]

http://www.westdean.org.uk/gardens/index.html     and.....

http://www.westdean.org.uk/gardens/this_week.html   ....to learn about this super place 

[Giles]

.......well, actually it's the fantastic restaurant that makes it the ideal place to take an elderly doting mother to !

[Maggi Young]

..... the fantastic restaurant .....

....even better, even better....

[Gerry Webster]

I would recommend West Dean very strongly. The restored kitchen garden is simply wonderful & the  whole place is immaculately kept - mainly by volunteers I think.   We have never  been in Spring but in late summer/early autumn the fruit in the glasshouses - peaches, nectarines, grapes etc - has one salivating. And the range of tomato varieties.......!

[Maggi Young]

My first impression from the photos was of the amount of hard work it must be to keep that box hedging so neat.... folllowed shortly after by wondering how fiddly it must be to cut the grass round the trees, between the walls and the  mini hedges...... crikey, what a nightmare.... it looks fantastic but I'm glad I gave up that kind of horticultural slavery years ago!

[Giles]

Last year, I can't remember if it was Luc or Luit who talked of a Serpentine Wall, at an historic house in either Belgium or The Netherlands.
Picture 148 show the Serpentine/Crinkle Crankle wall was a feature of walled gardens in the UK too, for fruit growing.
They've made the path wiggly to follow the countour of the wall.

[Lvandelft]

Well Giles, when I saw the first batches, you showed here, my first thoughts were: here is such a
wel maintained oldfashioned garden, where wenn I am coming in almost forget to breathe.
These places are often so serene and this place is extraordinary.
The glasshouses, the cold frames and the wonderful fruit trees, all together it is beautiful.

And yes, I  showed the crinkled wall in Holland last year.

http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=1824.0

[Paddy Tobin]

Giles,

Obviously, a wonderful place; great structure and framework in the veg garden. Those zig zag box hedges are simply fantastic. I would love to have the metal framework on which to train fruit trees.

A great report, many thanks. Paddy

[Brian Ellis]

Thanks for posting these Giles, I too think it is a wonderful garden/place, we went in July 2005 and have been wanting to go back again since, we spent a great deal of time in the glasshouses and didn't manage all of the rest of the gardens in the time allocated