& shades of green in-between
Blazing dogwood brings to mind the fate of the manor house on the night of the disastrous fire in February 1947. Owner Leonard Messel, awakened at 3 a.m. by the smell of burning, roused his wife Maud and eight other occupants. With no time to dress, all escaped unhurt into the snow-laden grounds.
Perfume prima donna Daphne bholua loads the air with heavenly scent.
Hydrangeas add tapestries of texture and colour.
Hellebores, sweet box, and witch hazels line the Winter Walk, where emergent leaf-tips promise a colourful carpet of bulbs in the weeks to come.
Drifts of softly textural restio grasses in the South African meadow catch the light and lead the eye around the space. The evergreen small Cape rush (Chondropetalum tectorum) gracefully explodes in a slow motion firework of mahogany seeds.
Swathes of winter-flowering heathers fill the heath garden, which was created from 1902 under head gardener James Comber. The use of heathers in garden design was an innovative feature for the time.
The rock garden has undergone modern restoration but was originally constructed by landscape gardeners James Pulham and Son between 1898 and 1902, using locally quarried sandstone.
Evergreen avenues lead from one enchanting set design to another.
As well as a composting bay, the garden is blessed with a fertile soil, good drainage, and walls to shelter tender plants from frost.
Dramatic silhouettes and shadows highlight the structural interest of characterful plants and trees.
Encircled by awakening spring life, Magnolia sargentiana var robusta is thought to have grown from the first batch of seeds sent by plant hunter Ernest Wilson from the western Sichuan province of China.
Around the Prospect, wisteria seed pods hang like icicles: fitting on a day that left the Arboretum ponds frozen.
When Ludwig Messel acquired Nymans in 1890, a monkey puzzle tree stood directly in front of the house. It was brutally brought down in the Great Storm of 1987, along with some 80 percent of trees at Nymans, including rare and important specimens. Thirty years later, a youthful Chilean pine was planted to commemorate the storm.
With gothic cacophony, crows fly from the ruined facade.
A cottage bordering the Top Garden has a distinctly tropical feel. Traditional weatherboards are painted in Messel Green, a shade Oliver Messel produced during his architectural and interior design career in Barbados during the 1960s. The colour still adorns many properties on the island today.
The wooded Wild Garden, across the lane from South Lodge, fills with birdsong chorus at sundown.
Highly stylised topiary birds have been roosting in front of the house for over 100 years.
