Head Gardener Neil Miller shares his June garden highlights and where to go this month at Hever Castle & Gardens – a riot of colour.
Over 5,000 Roses in Bloom: The Rose Garden
With over 5,000 roses in the Italian Garden and Rose Garden, this formal area of the Gardens is a prime spot to see the June garden highlights. The scent is incredible as you enter from either the rotunda on Pergola Walk or from Blue Corner. The scene, for me, rivals anything painted by the old masters as the roses stretch before you as far as the eye can see with Timeless Cream, vying for attention with its sister rose Timeless Purple, and the white Rambling Rectors versus the vigorous red of American Pillar climbing the columns that lend themselves to the roses at this time of the year, as they spread and bloom in proliferation.
Among the June garden highlights are Lucky, a gorgeous pale pink floribunda rose, that blooms with proliferation, backed by the bright yellow of Absolutely Fabulous. The blooms of Twice in A Blue Moon are something to behold with their huge petals. The Rose Garden is also home to perfectly white Iceberg roses that border the garden. From the orange of Super Trouper, coral-pinks of Rachel and the beautiful scarlet-red Hever Rose bred by the late Colin Horner, every colour is involved.
There are far too many roses on the Estate to list by name, but we need to give honourable mention is to Rosa Ballerina in the Tudor Garden. Visitors will also stop in their tracks this year when they see clouds of bright red Lovestruck, newly planted by Half Moon Pond.
Discover Flaming June in the Italian Garden
Flaming June is a festival of colour with bedding competing for visitors’ attention. Multiple varieties of bedding favourites, including salvias, begonias, angelica, calibrachoa, and deep purple verbena proliferate in the garden-rooms planted along the 1/8th of a mile of the Pompeiian Wall. Each room holds a different horticultural secret to inspire the garden visitor with innovative use of bedding that keeps the art alive. Roses also feature in the rooms of the Italian Garden, with the pale pink of New Dawn a romantic highlight framed against the formal structure of the garden archway.
Pergola Walk’s Lush Summer Foliage
Down on Pergola Walk, as the shadows cast by the grottoes protect the plants from June’s sunbeams, the hostas and ferns are thriving and are among the June garden highlights. The attractive foliage on these plants provide a great talking point for visitors who often wonder how we keep the snails from finding our hostas! And while the leaves are scrummy, the flower spikes of the hostas can stop you in your tracks. In white or the palest lilac these flower spikes often have a wonderful scent.
Our collection of ferns are beginning to unfurl their fronds as the air warms even further this month. These beautiful plants, who love the shade of Pergola Walk, have a pre-historic quality too but unlike the gunnera over on Two Sisters’ (more of which later), there’s a delicate softness and unique frilliness to the fronds of the ferns as they uncurl and stretch in the shade.
An Oasis of Calm: Blue Corner
Over in The Blue Corner, salvias and geraniums complement the colour and form of the acers and the softness of the flowers throws into relief the contours of the rock formation, making this an oasis of calm in the summer months. From here, you can find some of the best ‘Instagrammable garden views’ of the Rose Garden, framed by the brick archways.
Inspired by Gertrude Jekyll: The Long Border
Where art meets nature – the Long Border at Hever Castle can be found as you climb the steps from Blue Corner. Loosely inspired by Gertrude Jekyll, the Long Border transitions from hot to cool colours. You may even hear it before you see it because this floriferous part of the garden is a haven for bees and buzzing pollinators like hover flies and butterflies in June.
Alchemilla mollis – more commonly referred to as Lady’s Mantle, peonies, alliums, eringyum (South American sea holly) and the elegant scabiosa attract the pollinators here in June.
Polemonium, or ‘Jacob’s Ladder’, is one to look our for this month too with its delicate slender leaves arranged by Mother Nature on the stems to look like the rungs of a ladder. This plant, from the phlox family, has delicate purple bell-shaped flowers, with protruding stamens loaded with pollen in June, which literally call to the bees. Hummingbirds also like to pollinate this flower. Iris’ are finishing but their colour and shape still invoke admiring sighs of appreciation!
Named after the ‘Two Sisters’ Mary and Anne Boleyn
Over on Two Sisters, the red, pink and white water lilies in the pond are promising to flower. Our collection of impressive pre-historic looking gunnera, that hug the water here, continue to grow their gigantic umbrella-shaped leaves throughout June. Gunnera manicata, has enormous leaves (among the biggest of any plant we can grow in the UK) that can reach 2m wide. Gunnera enjoy a very moist and humus-rich soil, so this spot by the water at Two Sisters is perfect for them.
Drama in the Shrub Rose Border Beside Festival Theatre
If you’ve come to Hever in Bloom in June then please make your way to the newly planted nostalgia rose bed beside Festival Theatre. Allow yourself to be wowed by these beautiful large headed specimens including Pink Martini by Rumwood Nurseries of Maidstone. Then stop awhile in our shrub rose border inspired by American poet Emily Dickinson’s New England garden. Emily was known for wafting around her rose garden in her nightgown, enjoying the early morning or late morning sunshine. I can see why she did this, although I prefer to do it in my day clothes!!
Book your visit to Hever Castle & Gardens.
Within the grounds of the Hever Castle Estate, there are two opportunities for you to stay the night with us.
Hever Castle has played host to many important events and celebrations for over 600 years. In 1903 when William Waldorf Astor set about restoring Hever Castle to its former glory, he added the Astor Wing, to accommodate his family and guests, before creating a lake and the spectacular Italian Garden to house his impressive collection of ancient Greek and Roman statuary.
There are multiple places to eat & drink across the Hever Castle Estate. Select between the Castle & Gardens and Golf Club below to discover more.
Set in the mature grounds of the Hever Castle Estate, Hever Castle Golf Club is a 27 hole Kent golf course that will encourage and inspire all golf enthusiasts.
Set in the mature grounds of the Hever Castle Estate, the Wellbeing Centre consists of five smart treatment rooms.
