Glendurgan Garden: Details & Interesting Plants

 Last weekend I was fortunate enough to visit Glendurgan garden in Cornwall. This garden is run by the National Trust, and leads you on a wonderful journey passing beautiful hard landscape detailing, and interesting plants which you wouldn't expect in the UK such as kiwi trees; all before leading you to the beach at the mouth of the Helford river. Some interesting details included path-side drainage rills using pebbles set into mortar. This style of drainage is something which I may take into my detailing and designs in the future as it looks great, and slows the flow of water. Additionally, some of the newer National Trust entrance buildings strangely had no gutters. This was because they had large roof overhang and dripped directly into a stone drainage channel which then meandered to standard metal drain grate. 

In terms of interesting planting. I loved the grove of Myrtle (Luma apiculata) near the entrance to the garden which looked very effective with their orange trunks, dark green evergreen leaves. This example was coupled with grass/sedge planting on mass at the base which looked great with the sunlight shining through the canopies.

Welcome building with gutterless roof.

Pebble/mortar rill leading to metal grate.

Myrtle grove with grasses/sedges at base.

Interesting detail leading to drain at side of path.

This paving felt interesting underfoot, but not very accessible!


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