The Royal Horticultural Society

Royal Horticultural Society

The Royal Horticultural Society was founded in 1804 in London, England as the Horticultural Society of London, and gained its present name in a Royal Charter granted in 1861 by Prince Albert...

's garden at Wisley

Wisley

Wisley is a small village in Surrey, England. It lies between Cobham and Woking. It is the home of the Royal Horticultural Society's Wisley Garden. The River Wey runs through the village....

in the English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 county

County

A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain modern nations. Historically in mainland Europe, the original French term, comté, and its equivalents in other languages denoted a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain...

 of Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

 south of London, is one four public gardens run by the Society, the others being Harlow Carr

Harlow Carr Gardens

The Royal Horticultural Society's garden Harlow Carr is one of four public gardens run by the Society. It is located on the western edge of Harrogate in the English county of North Yorkshire...

, Hyde Hall

RHS Garden, Hyde Hall

The Royal Horticultural Society's garden at Hyde Hall in the English county of Essex east of London. It is one of four public gardens run by the Society, alongside Wisley, Harlow Carr, and Rosemoor. In the year ended 31 January 2010 it received 130,011 visitors....

 and Rosemoor

Rosemoor Garden

Rosemoor Garden is an internationally renowned collection of gardens in North Devon, England. The Lady Anne Palmer created the original garden of in 1959, and developed it over a 30 year period. The garden was first opened to the public in 1967, under the National Gardens Scheme...

. Wisley is the second most visited paid entry garden in the United Kingdom after the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to as Kew Gardens, is 121 hectares of gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. "The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew" and the brand name "Kew" are also used as umbrella terms for the institution that runs...

, with 959,434 visitors in the year to 31 January 2010.

Wisley was founded by Victorian

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

 businessman and RHS member George Ferguson Wilson, who purchased a 60 acre (243,000 m²) site in 1878. He established the "Oakwood Experimental Garden" on part of the site, where he attempted to "make difficult plants grow successfully". Wilson died in 1902 and Oakwood (which was also known as Glebe Farm) was purchased by Sir Thomas Hanbury, the creator of the celebrated garden La Mortola on the Italian Riviera. He gifted both sites to the RHS the following year. Since then Wisley has developed steadily and it is now is a large and diverse garden covering 240 acres (971,000 m²). In addition to numerous formal and informal decorative gardens, several glasshouses and an extensive arboretum

Arboretum

An arboretum in a narrow sense is a collection of trees only. Related collections include a fruticetum , and a viticetum, a collection of vines. More commonly, today, an arboretum is a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study...

, it includes small scale "model gardens" which are intended to show visitors what they can achieve in their own gardens, and a trials field where new cultivars are assessed.

The laboratory, for both scientific research and training, was originally opened in 1907, but proved inadequate. It was expanded and its exterior was rebuilt during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. It was made a Grade II Listed building in 1985.

Visitor numbers increased significantly from 5,250 in 1905, to 11,000 in 1908, 48,000 in the late 1920s, and 170,000 in 1957, and passed 400,000 in 1978, 500,000 in 1985, and 600,000 in 1987.

In April 2005 Alan Titchmarsh

Alan Titchmarsh

Alan Fred Titchmarsh, MBE DL is an English gardener, broadcaster and novelist. After working as a professional gardener and a garden journalist, he established himself as a media personality through appearances on gardening programmes...

 cut the turf to mark the start of construction of the Bicentenary Glasshouse. This major new feature covers three quarters of an acre (3,000 m²) and overlooks a new lake built at the same time. It is divided into three main planting zones representing desert, tropical and temperate climates. It was budgeted at £7.7 million and opened June 26, 2007.

Features

Wisley has a large number of features, including the following:

• Glasshouse with desert, tropical and temperate climates, and with special topical displays
• Clore Learning Centre
• Alpine houses
• Laboratory
• Plant information centre
• Trials field (where plants are submitted for trial, allowing some to be awarded the prestigious Award of Garden Merit
  Award of Garden Merit
  The Award of Garden Merit, or AGM, is an award made to garden plants by the British Royal Horticultural Society after a period of assessment by the appropriate committees of the Society...
  
  )
• Fruit field, featuring large numbers of apples, pears and other fruit grown in various forms.
• Model gardens, each of a size attainable in gardens attached to houses
• Vegetable garden
• Rock garden and alpine meadow on a sloping site
• Wild garden
• Walled garden
• Canal with water lilies in season
• Battleston Hill, which includes many rhododendrons and azaleas
• Rose borders and mixed borders
• Jubilee arboretum
• Pinetum
• National heather collection

Visitor facilities include cafés and restaurant, car parks, plant centre, etc.

Gallery