Gallery: Impressions of Three West Midlands Orchards
Jo and I have been on our travels again, this time spending a couple of days in the Warwickshire and Worcestershire area, around Droitwich, Banbury and Solihull. Whilst we were there we took the opportunity to visit three National Trust gardens: Hanbury Hall, Upton House and Packwood House, all of which are graced with quite lovely orchards and fruit-growing spaces.
One of my Orchard Visits posts for each will follow in due course, once I’ve found time to process the photos and type up my mental notes, but in the meantime, here’s a quick taster to give you the flavour of the three:
Hanbury Hall
As well as a large and well-maintained mature orchard, Hanbury Hall has a wealth of fruit all over the place, from the formal fruit garden to its inclusion in various other planting schemes dotted around the garden.
Upton House
Another veteran orchard, designated as a Silent Space, is an absolutely delightful place to walk, breathe, and just be for a while, whilst soft fruit bushes and heavily pruned fruit trees cling to the steep slopes of Upton House’s sun-baked kitchen garden.
Packwood House
The walled kitchen garden at Packwood House has fruit trees galore, from mature standards and wall-trained fans and espaliers to the artfully shaped, pleached and espaliered crab apples. And behind the yew garden, leading down to the lake, a rather beautiful veteran orchard looks like it’s being managed for wildlife.
More to come!
Sadly I have found that some NT orchards are not very well labeled, in fact I went to one a while back and the head gardener said they had a list of trees were but were not sure which was which
Hi George – Yes, signage does tend to be variable. I confess I’m guilty of it myself at work – I’ve been meaning to sort out a new set of tree labels for Quarry Bank’s orchards but it’s hard to find the time with everything else that’s on the job list. I really must pull my finger out and get that sorted.
And sometimes orchard records do go astray, sadly. We do have a centralised database at the NT which records the locations and varieties of planted perennials – trees included – but of course that relies on folks having the time to keep everything up to date. We do what we can, when we can, but we can’t always get everything we want, or ought, to do done.