by Annie Bullen

Knoll Gardens

If you thought grasses were not your style, a visit to Knoll might change your mind.
This four-acre garden displays perfectly how an interweaving of grasses, herbaceous plants, shrubs and trees can create plantings that look good throughout the year, combining shape and colour within a strong structure.

There are trees and water, good hedges and paths: the essential ingredients of a formal English garden. Within this framework, a mix of plantings create fantastic pictures. Many grasses hold their shape throughout autumn and winter, changing only their colour, swapping the greens, pinks, burgundies and orange of summer for bleached biscuit and silver, marking the seasons as they come and go.
Neil Lucas, Knoll’s owner, has fairly recently added a dry gravel garden, a small meadow garden and a Decennium border in a free-flowing naturalistic style.
Knoll, it is said, holds one of the largest collections of grasses in the country; a visit confirms this claim.

Location: Knoll Gardens and Nursery, Hampreston, Wimborne Minster BH21 7ND; between Wimborne and Ferndown off Ham Lane (B3073).
For admission prices and opening times, please check with the garden direct.
Telephone: 01202 873931

Edmonsham House and Garden

Here you’ll find not only an enormous walled garden, combining fruit, vegetables and flowers, but also a Victorian dairy and an ancient grass hollow, said to have been a medieval cockpit.
The whole garden, which surrounds the 16th century house, runs to six acres and, if you’ve time, it’s worth visiting the house before enjoying the walled garden, with its large herbaceous border planted to be full of interest at all times of the year.

This garden is managed organically and you’ll find beds of comfrey, asparagus, rhubarb, herbs and a good fruit cage. There’s a restored sunken greenhouse (The Pit House), a dell and a large pond. You may also visit the church in the grounds.
 
Location: Edmonsham House, Cranborne, Wimborne Minster BH21 5RE; one mile south of Cranborne. From A354 turn at Sixpenny Handley crossroads, following signs to Ringwood and Cranborne.
For admission prices and opening times, please check with the garden direct.
Website www.ngs.org.uk
Telephone: 01725 517207

Domineys Yard

This two and a half acre garden overlooking the Blackmore Vale was developed over almost 50 years. It must be one of the few in the country where the soil allows both acid- and alkaline-loving plants to grow happily, often close to each other.

Each patch of soil, which varies throughout the garden, is tested before planting and the result is a richly filled tapestry of bulbs, herbaceous plants, trees and shrubs. There’s also a vegetable garden and soft fruit beds.

Formal areas, plenty of pots and more informal plantings combine to make this feel a friendly and much-loved garden. In addition there’s a small arboretum just across the lane where visitors may picnic. This was first planted in 1995 as a retirement challenge.

Location: Domineys Yard, Buckland Newton DT2 7BS, 11 miles north of Dorchester. Take ‘no through road’ between the church and Gaggle of Geese pub and the entrance is 100 metres on the left.
For admission prices and opening times, please check with the garden direct.
Telephone: 01300 345295