Sun glorious sun

What an amazing Bank Holiday weekend. The sun shone, the flowers bloomed and we welcomed a record amount of visitors. Sunday was our second busiest day ever - with just over 2,600 vistors enjoying the garden! It was amazing to see so many people here making the most of the glorious weather.

Our week long programme of Food Glorious Food events also got off to a great start with children discovering more about the art of gardening with our tomato plug planting workshops and seed giveaways. Let's hope we've inspired the next generation of Kitchen Gardeners.

Inspirational Hidcote

Congratulations Ulf Nordfjell on not only winning Gold at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show but also winning the prestigous Best in Show award. Ulf's garden successfully tied the knot between Swedish modernism and traditional English-cottage gardening. And his inspiration for this - Hidcote. Ulf said "This idea I had from Hidcote...The tall hedges and sense of enclosure are something the English love".

Hidcote can inspire you too!

The great tulip giveaway

No sooner have the tulips finished flowering than the garden team have been busy digging them up. To the surprise of visitors, the gardeners have been bagging them up and offering them as souvenirs of their visit. The tulips have quite literally been walking out of the garden! It's not too late to take home a piece of Hidcote, there are still some left but they're going fast. If you can't make, there's always next year.

Purple rain

Well it might have been a bit colder, windier and wetter than we're used to but it hasn't stopped the garden from turning purple. Yes, it seems that all things purple have started to flower. The wonderful wisterias were the first to start the trend, quickly followed by the amazing alliums in the Pillar Garden and more recently the unusual Foxglove Tree in the Orchard. Purple is certainly the colour of the month at Hidcote.

Vegetables rocket

Well it's only been a matter of weeks, but already Sarah has been harvesting the first crop from the Kitchen Garden. The rocket has quite literally rocketed! A very proud Sarah handed over the freshly picked rocket to another Sarah (our Chef) for inclusion into the restaurant's seasonal menu.

Visitors will be able to taste the fruits of her labour as a tasty Pea and Rocket Soup will soon be appearing on the menu.