Tags
Abbot of Glastonbury, blueberry, Knoll, Knoll Gardens, Neil Lucas, pickerel weed, pontederia, St Dunstan, Trehane nursery
Still with bruises all over, and my arm still bandaged, I went with three friends to Knoll Gardens, near Wimborne in Dorset a few days ago. To quote from their leaflet, In just 40 years, Knoll has progressed from being a market garden to being a private botanic, specialising in Australasian plants, to today’s naturalistic display garden. Many of the rare and unusual trees and shrubs you’ll see in the garden are a legacy of the original plantings. Now under the stewardship of Neil Lucas, Knoll is internationally acclaimed showing Neil’s fabulous collection of ornamental grasses through a series of horticultural galleries.
Having lost a lovely, but old, crab apple tree to honey fungus last year, I had converted that area to a gravel garden, and had already furnished it with a few ornamental grasses a couple of weeks previously. But I just had space for two more. So I was delighted that they had an excellent selection on sale, and found just what I wanted as we left. With four of us in the car all buying, it was a good job that I hadn’t decided to buy my entire stock from Knoll!
But I’m jumping ahead. Come round with us to see the trees, grasses, lawns, shrubs and other plants – and then we’ll go blueberrying…
























Tipped off by a neighbour that there was an organic pick-your-own blueberry place next door to the Gardens, I had suggested that we take containers. So, having bought our plants, we left the car in the car park and walked to the nursery.



I was so busy picking – or rather catching – that I failed to take pictures of either the dripping bushes, or the full container of more than one kilo that I picked. I’m now enjoying the latter in smoothies, with ice cream, and on their own, and there are many more in the freezer. I may even try one of the recipes on their website.
There is talk of this becoming an annual expedition.