Early 2025: Head Gardener's Notes

During the closed season, we’re able to complete a lot of maintenance work in the Gardens that might otherwise interrupt your visit to Penshurst Place. Often this requires larger machinery used more frequently than we allow around visitors. In late 2024 to early 2025 this involved the removal of some older trees, cutting the hedge in hard-to-reach areas, trimming the lower branches on Lime Walk and some forestry work along the Woodland Trail.

What’s In Bloom

Winter and early spring flowers have now bloomed across the Gardens, including:

• Snowdrops: Seen in their highest concentration on Church Terrace but also found in small clusters throughout the garden rooms.
• Hellebores: These can be found throughout the Gardens and provide a lovely little pop of soft colour, especially on grey days.

Spring Blooms To Look Forward To

• Daffodils: The Gardens at Penshurst Place are home to a variety of daffodils which bloom in most areas, though in larger quantities along Lime Walk, the Orchard and the Nut Garden. In the Stable Yard you can enjoy the tallest of our varieties, the Carlton, which has a longer bloom than most varieties of daffodils.
• Bluebells: As we don’t purposefully plant the bluebells we hasten to call their bloom a “display” but the bluebells will soon be arriving in the Nut Garden along with many other meadow-style flowers such as poppies and smaller tulips. You can also find ample swathes of these fairy tale flowers across the parkland which is free to access and a well-recommended trip for the spring.

New Plantings For 2025

Visitors this year can enjoy some brand new plantings across the Gardens, including:

• Sakura cherry trees in picnic area.
• Roses “Congratulations” and “Macmillan nurse” (standards) in the Rose Garden.
• Roses “Bonica” and “Nevada” in the Long border.

Current and Forthcoming Work:

• The Union Flag Garden: We removed all of the lavender from the Union Flag Garden in 2024 as it had essentially reached the end of its life and wasn’t blooming well or supporting the wider eco-system. Since then, the beds have been dug and the soil prepared ready for new planting this spring.
• The Italian Garden: The smaller beds in the Italian Gardens are being dug over to help improve the soil ahead of a new installation of white cosmos planting later in the year.

Smaller, Plant Specific Work:

• Prune the wisteria (found in the Paved Garden and the Italian Garden).
• Plant bare root roses and trees and check existing varieties to see if they have been lifted by the frost and re-firm).
• Protect vulnerable plants from the frosts and winds.
• Sow sweet pea under cover.