Sir Harold Hillier Arboretum and Gardens

Last week Chris and I popped to the New Forest for a couple of days and on the way back we passed the Sir Harold Hillier Arboretum and Gardens. It would have been rude not to drop in. Without knowing what to expect we were blown away by its vast scale. Similar to RHS Wisley but with a focus on large trees and shrubs. Next time I’m planning a large landscape design, I’d certainly pop back here to research tree specimens. Thankfully we didn’t set foot in the enormous nursery on site otherwise we’d be much poorer. An interesting and exciting place, it has lots of perennials introduced, including the epic long border (see video below) but I felt it was strongest in large scale with views and trees, with its few minimalist buildings, its Pinetum and some of the sculpture. Around these I felt immersed and free from the outside world.

The epic border at Hillier Gardens

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4 thoughts on “Sir Harold Hillier Arboretum and Gardens

  1. Thank you for taking time and effort to shoot the video and photos, then more time to post them. I wouldn’t get to experience this place otherwise. Thank you.

  2. Fyi I am a Volunteer at Hillier Gardens and at the suggestion of botanist Allen Coombes “Allen J. Coombes – Workman Publishing” I set up a cloud project
    “hillier-gardens-wildlife-UK3760023864 · iNaturalist”.
    N.B.
    1) Google threw up your website by chance from the above data
    2) The characters between double quotations ” are web links in case you are interested
    3) Your website print colour is too pale for my eyes

    1. How funny, thank you for letting me know! Volunteering at Hillier Gardens must be lovely!

      Thanks for letting me know about the font, I have just made it a touch darker – is that any better?

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