Mediterranean Climate Garden

The area is protected from the north and has a warm, sheltered excellent micro climate with a south facing slope, sheltered from the prevailing wind.

 

In 2012 the Garden was fully renovated. The  former flat lawn was re-moulded into an undulating gravelled surface, the soil  heavily modified by working in gravel and the steep back slope terraced using dry stone walling.

The plants were laid out geographically into the five areas of the world that have a Mediterranean climate of cool, wet winters and hot dry summers: coastal California, coastal Chile, Cape of  South Africa, SW Australia and the Mediterranean Basin.

These sun-loving collections contain many border-line hardy plants which have established and survived remarkably well. Notable successes have been Banksia marginata from S.E Australia and Tasmania and Correa ‘Marian’s Marvel’ (Australian Fuchsia) which is a garden hybrid. Aloiampelos striatula, is one of the very few hardy Aloes which produces many flower spikes throughout the summer,

  • Banksia marginata Dec 2016

  • Echium pininana May 2015

  • Correa ‘Marian's Marvel’ Dec 2015

  • Judas Tree May 2022

  • Judas Tree May 2022

  • Jovellana violacea

There are three types of eryngium or sea holly and three Judas trees, cercis siliquestrum, along with Olea Europea, olive trees.

Echium pininana is a native of La Palma, in the Canary Islands, where it grows in laurel forests, flowering from April to July, and then dies. A number of ornamental pomegranate shrubs can also be seen.

Encroaching over the central path is a vigorous Querus suber cork oak tree. This is a native of the Mediterranean and grown commercially in Spain and Portugal where the bark is regularly stripped to supply cork for wine bottles.