West Green House Gardens

About West Green House Gardens

West Green House is 1720s, brick-and-ashlar, with classical busts along its garden façade. It looks onto a plain lawn, whose sides are hedged in yew and hornbeam, running gently up to a woodland. This ‘theatre lawn’ is used for concerts and dramatic performances, with the house as a baroque backdrop. Marylyn Abbott purchased the 99 year lease of West Green House from the National Trust in 1993. Taming an inherited jungle was only a beginning for West Green House: what the garden needed was vision, knowledge, taste, energy, expertise and imagination. Marylyn Abbott had all those qualities. She learned her gardening in New South Wales, where her garden in Mittagong was the most visited in Australia. She found the quality of the light in England so different from Australia that she made a special study of its effects upon colour in the garden. Her book (Gardening with Light and Colour) is a modern classic. It is in the mellow, 18th century walled kitchen garden that Marylyn Abbott’s sense of design and colour finds its fullest expression. Here, with neat clipped box hedges, the borders overflow with plants in stunning colour combinations that change from year to year and throughout the seasons. Elegant trellis-work fruit cages draw you up to the potager where fruit and vegetables are grown in a decorative way – always ornamental but never chichi. A grand water staircase, created by Marylyn Abbott, provides the focal point to the Nymphaeum designed by Quinlan Terry. West Green House has many other features which are original and inspirational. By the house is a charming small topiary garden where water lilies flourish in small water tanks sunk in the ground. It runs up to a handsome aviary inhabited by unusual breeds of bantams and chickens. Beyond, are a dramatic new Persian water garden in a woodland glade, a newly restored lake, more follies and fancies, new walks and massive plantings of snowdrops, daffodils and fritillaries. Lavishness is a hallmark of the Abbott style -15000 tulip bulbs are planted every year – but she also emphasises the importance of drama, colour, innovation and humour in the garden. The lessons for the visitor are endless: you cannot fail to be inspired, cheered, amused and delighted by this extraordinary garden.

Written by Charles Quest Kitson for The Royal Horticultural Society Garden Finder 2007.

Follow the link and complete the simple mailing list subscription form to be kept up to date with events at West Green House.

Home Page • Events • Opera • Visiting the Garden • Marylyn Abbott

Website design by I to Eye Presentations