Mark McNee

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  • The Eden Project

    The Eden Project

    The best way I can describe this is a plant zoo, as it falls in to a category of its own. It’s not a garden, though it does in some ways actually resemble a Victorian Municipal garden, but nor is it a botanical or physic garden. What it is, is a plant centred visitor attraction…

  • The Lost Garden of Heligan

    The Lost Garden of Heligan

    This garden has received great praise but I’m not really sure why. My first reaction on visiting it, and one I haven’t change was “they dug up the body but they haven’t brought it back to life”. I think the problem is Tim Smit is extremely good at visitor attractions, and for that he should…

  • The Master’s Garden at Lord Leycester Hospital in Warwick

    The Master’s Garden at Lord Leycester Hospital in Warwick

    This is another one of those gardens that take a little finding, I only found it by serendipity, but it is worth the effort. Set in the middle of the Lord Leycester Hospital in Warwick; it’s enclosure by medieval timber frame buildings gives it a sense of being old but no one seems clear about…

  • Trevarno gardens

    Trevarno gardens

    This garden is sadly no longer open to the public following its sale in 2011, but as I visited it in 2010 and it is a very attractive garden I’ve chosen to include it in any case. You never know it may reopen in the future, but that is purely speculation. There has been a…

  • Wakehurst Place

    Wakehurst Place

    Though the house dates from the 16th century this is a 20th century garden dating from 1903 when Gerald Loder (later Lord Wakehurst) purchased the property until 1963 when Sir Henry Price bequeathed it to the nation. Two years later Kew Gardens leased if from the National Trust and they still run it. Covering an…

  • Alnwick Garden

    Alnwick Garden

    This is not a garden; but a visitor attraction, not that there is anything fundamentally wrong with visitor attractions per se. A garden though is created as a personal folly in purely personal search for pleasure through the manipulation of nature, l can’t help but feel the motivation for Alnwick Garden was of a far…

  • Viscum album

    Viscum album

    Mistletoe has fascinated humans for millennium, many plants have superstitions attached to them but mistletoe seems to have attracted more than most. It’s not hard to understand that a clump of evergreen leaves growing out of dormant tree in midwinter would grab the imagination. The druids are said to particularly venerate mistletoe growing on an…

  • Strawberry Hill

    Strawberry Hill

    Horace Walpole first found Strawberry Hill in 1747 and having purchased the house in 1749 set about rebuilding it in the Gothic style with a garden that developed as the house did.  A very well connected and influential man of letters he was an important character in the development of gardens in the 19th century.…

  • How to clean mortar stains off paving

    This involves using a concentrated acid from a builder’s merchant and so all the manufacture’s safety advice must be carefully followed. Equipment: Brick acid Hose pipe Cheap plastic watering can with a rose Stiff broom Wellington boots Safety equipment (read and follow the safety recommendations that come with the brick acid). Summary:   Check the…

  • How to prune a rose bush

    Equipment: Secateurs Long armed pruners (parrot bills) Strong gloves Before you start: You are going to get scratched even with gloves on. Use good quality tools which will give a clean cut and are safer to use. Cut the stems just above an outward pointing bud. You will see these if you look carefully just…