Readers of this blog may have seen my previous post about my visit to Alnwick Castle. Due to having to book well in advance and not knowing how long I would need at either place, I decided to book the castle and the garden on different days. The Alnwick Garden consists of 12 acres of garden and is home to the world's largest Tai Haku Cherry Orchard, a grand cascade with 120 water jets, and the Treehouse Restaurant (which I covered in Lunch at The Treehouse in Alnwick). There is also a Poison Garden, crazy golf, a walled garden, and a rose garden. The garden was restored in 1997 and opened to the public in 2001.
The entrance to the gardens is at the atrium, and this is where the shop and cafe are located. As soon as you enter, you are greeted by the enormous fountain that cascades down the hill with "fountain shows" every half-hour. The focus point of the gardens is certainly this fountain.
Visitors can walk through a maze of bamboo. The bamboo grows, creating tunnels to walk through.
The rose garden was my favourite area of the gardens and smelled beautiful. I visited in mid-July, and the roses were having their last hurrah; some of them were brown, but others were in their prime. I think the dead ones should have been removed to enhance their appearance for longer. The centrepiece is a fox sculpture.
I was able to watch one of the fountain displays. There are jets at the top of the fountain, and these turn on before the bottom-most fountain is on. It is quite noisy if you're standing next to it.
There is also an area of smaller fountains to be seen hidden amongst hedges, each one a little private area to interact with the fountain. They were all unique.
On the wall up the hill to the walled garden, there was a bench that promised "magic" if you sit on it and hold the hand of the other person. It was meant to sing, but it actually did not work when I tried it. There was another sculpture as well, adding some interest to an otherwise empty area.
The grand cascade is flanked with large hedgerows that actually have walkways in the middle of them, leading from the bottom of the hill to the top on other side of the fountain. From the middle entrance of the walled garden, there is an amazing view over the gardens.
The walled garden is a nice area with fountains, sculptures, and different types of plants in different beds. Sometimes you do not know what to expect around the next corner. The dominating plant when I visited in mid-July were the blue Delphiniums, and wizard hats were hung around the ornamental garden to complement them.
I was able to watch the fountain show at the top of the cascade after wandering around the walled garden.
Then, I walked back down via the hedgerows on either side of the fountain. I wanted to go into the Posion Garden, but it closes for an hour or so over lunch, unforuntately. I decided to go to the cafe before it got busier. It was just coming up to mid-day, and I was just starting my way back from the Poison Garden when I spotted a large group of ducks and ducklings. They were making their way to the cafe.
The ducks obviously know that it's lunch time, and they walk up into the cafe area and beg for food or look for dropped crumbs. They are actually very noisy and get right under the chairs and look intentively at you to get food. They totally know what the deal is here, and they know what time they need to visit.
After lunch, I headed to the Poison Garden. The Poison Garden was opened in 2005 and is a gated garden because of the plants inside. The Poison Garden is the idea of the Duchess of Northumberland who wanted something a bit different at the gardens. There was some information on murderers who used plants to murder people, and there were a couple of guides in the gardens around to answer questions, but they were busy with other people. It was popular to visit after lunch.
After the garden, I went to play crazy golf. The Forgotten Garden Adventure Golf is a crazy golf course just outside The Alnwick Garden and next to the shop and an outdoor cafe. The holes all have a garden theme, such as a broken pot, bee hive, worm, and a large spider that moves and shoots water from its mouth.
That concludes my visit to The Alnwick Garden, but I have some tips. I would suggest arriving at the garden in the morning before it gets too busy. There are a lot of crowds later in the day. The cafe was another bit of a problem because I went to order lunch, but there was only one queue, and everyone was there to get a hot drink, and hot drinks take a long time to make per person. They really needed a separate queue for the food only, and it was not clear how to place the order as there are different stations serving different types of food but not enough staff for these stations. I would also visit the Poison Garden in the morning and not just after lunch as I assume that it's busiest then as it shuts for lunch.
The amount of time that you will spend at The Alnwick Garden will depend on how interested you are at gardens and gardening. For me, I do not have a great interest and do not know that much about gardens or plants, so a little over the morning (nearly four hours with lunch included) was sufficient for me to spend in the garden with additional time for the crazy golf and shop.
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