The Lost Gardens of Heligan

[purplecat]

The Mud Maiden of Heligan is apparently the first of a sequence of Green Lady sculptures in Cornwall. We met another at the Eden Project.


I've always wanted to go to the Lost Gardens of Heligan. This is 90% marketing - I would have been a lot less interested to go to Heligan Gardens. However, it still sounded like an interesting garden to go to. We didn't go last time we were in Cornwall since it wasn't necessarily terribly friendly for a 5 year old, but it was the one thing I was determined to get to this year.

Despite the fact the 5 year old is just about to go to university, she sulked round the first part of the garden then revealed she hadn't had breakfast (a trick we had foolishly forgotten from Snowdonia) and then looked disappointed at the, frankly disappointing, food options available. However fortunately the gardens had a infinite re-entry the same day policy and the cottage was only 25 minutes away, so we took the offspring back the cottage and then returned.




An old tree root converted into a Giant. Apparently there was a picture book available in the shop recounting its adventures.


Charcoal Scuplture


There are pineapples growing in a traditional pineapple pit in there.

Apparently the well wasn't that deep.


Our favourite bit was the Jungle Valley. Despite the fact the Gardens were "lost" for 20 to 70 years, much of the "jungle" planting clearly pre-dated that.











I'm glad we went, as posh gardens go (and frankly the UK has a lot of such things), its a good'un with several imaginative bits, including a wildlife only area with a hide overlooking it (I'm not a big bird watcher but in the 5 or so minutes we were there I saw blue tits at a feeder, dragonflies and a pheasant).

Comments

[isis]

That looks ridiculously tropical for your latitude! And I love the giant emerging from (or disappearing into) the ground.

[purplecat]

Because of the Gulf Stream, if you get the right micro-climate in the UK, you can easily grow moderately hardy tropical plants. Inverewe Gardens in Scotland is on the same latitude as Hudson Bay and they grow palm trees there. The trick is always having sufficient shelter from the wind. At Heligan it's a narrow valley with a stream flowing through it and I'm guessing that provides most of the necessary micro-climate even without the shelter trees which were apparently cut down in during the period the gardens were neglected lost.

Obviously helped that it was one of those glorious early September days we sometimes get in the UK.

[senmut]

lovely!

[a_cubed]

As $DAUGHTER gets older, I'll have to pay attention to the breakfast issue when we're travelling, I suspect.
Looks like a nice place to visit.

[purplecat]

It's very annoying. I feel adults ought to be able to get up and feed themselves, particularly if they know they are going to be going out walking, but apparently not.

[thisbluespirit]

I've always wanted to go to the Lost Gardens of Heligan. This is 90% marketing - I would have been a lot less interested to go to Heligan Gardens.

This made me laugh, because fair. It does have more appeal that way! Lovely pics!

[purplecat]

The name sounds terribly romantic! They obviously were a little bit lost, as in they had been allowed to run wild for several decades so it was a big restoration project to get them back into shape, but I don't think anyone had actually forgotten there was a nice garden there.

[cordeliadelayne]

Lovely photos! I'll have to add it to my ever growing list of places I want to visit.

[purplecat]

It was a beautiful day, which helped, but definitely a place that would be rewarding to visit if you're a keen photographer.

[clea2011]

Ooh this looks good. I've done a few of the Cornwall gardens but not Heligan (and like you, thought the 'lost' part makes it sound exciting!). A few years back (maybe 10 now) the gardens were all advertising some sort of 'Grand Tour' where you had to tick off which ones you'd been to, bit like a bingo card. We didn't manage many.

[purplecat]

We've eyed up a couple of other gardens around here, and visited the Eden Project, but there are lots of other things we wanted to do, as well as not exhausting ourselves...