Week 4. 22 March. The Gardens of Harewood House: past, present & future with Trevor Nicholson

There are over 100 acres of gardens and pleasure grounds at Harewood, set within an ornamental parkland of over 1,000 acres created during the 18th century. The Gardens comprise various horticultural areas, each different in style, and containing a significant plant collection throughout. Trevor will give a brief history of the gardens before talking about the work of the gardens team over the past three decades and provide a glimpse into the future.

The Terrace – a Victorian, Italianate formal garden, complete with C19 parterre by Sir Charles Barry, with fountains, clipped yew and box, prominent mixed flower borders and a large scale sub-tropical planting scheme.

The Himalayan Garden – a naturalistic sunken garden with waterfall and stream, rock and bog gardens containing a thematic plant collection, including trees and shrubs, rhododendrons, and herbaceous plants from Asia.

The Walled Garden – a traditional utilitarian garden, built in the 1750’s and divided into two parts, with a productive kitchen garden, flower borders, apple orchard and meadow.

Trevor Nicholson has been Head Gardener at Harewood for 28 years. His horticulture career began in 1980 at Houghall College, Durham, where he trained in Horticulture and Arboriculture. At Harewood Trevor has worked continuously on the revival, conservation and development of the gardens: introducing bold new planting schemes in the formal terrace gardens, tree & shrub planting in the park, as well as the re-development of the 1930’s rock garden as a Himalayan Garden with a significant collection of Sino-Himalayan plants. Trevor also brought the Walled Garden back into production in the 1990s and is working with the executive team on its restoration and development. With the help of grants from the RHS Bursaries Committee, and support from Harewood House Trust, Trevor undertook two botanical study tours to Nepal, China and Bhutan – informing the development of the Himalayan Garden at Harewood.

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Unforgettable Gardens - The Gardens of Harewood House