Dorset Walled Garden

02/10/2025

It's a wonderful year for rose hips!
Such a bonus to have these sparkly red additions to our walls, gates etc all around the garden. I appreciate them more every year and particularly as we have to start cutting the remaining herbaceous colour back, already now. Cutting back before the first frosts allows us to lift, divide and reposition as we work through the borders and we can then be ready to start pruning our roses in November as we have close to 400 roses in the garden, so we need a good chunk of time for this big winter job!

11/09/2025

We are delighted to have Jenny Barnes - - coming to teach her unique and very attractive method of rose pruning here on Monday, 24th November (to book, click on link in bio or go directly to our website’s Events pages)

Jenny’s method has evolved since she first learnt this sculptural method of pruning at Asthall Manor, another Bannerman garden. She has further developed this method in her roles as Head Gardener at some of the finest gardens, and this method which has now become a phenomenon known as ‘niffing’ !

Come and learn the art of ‘niffing’ to then create these wonderful structures at home in your own borders, on walls or up trees! There will be plenty of material for Jenny to demonstrate on here in the garden, we have over 120 varieties of roses and close to 400 in number!

Places are limited so I would suggest you book asap to guarantee your place on this course! Link in bio.

11/09/2025

Now that our newsletter has been sent to our subscribers, I am able to announce that we have Jenny Barnes () coming to teach her unique method of rose pruning here in our garden. Jenny will demonstrate her very own method of pruning ramblers, climbers and shrub roses, setting this course apart from courses focussing purely on shrub roses. There will be plenty of material for Jenny to work with, given that we have over 120 varieties of roses and close to 400 in number!

Jenny’s method of pruning brings art to borders, or walls, or even to roses scrambling up trees! As you can see in these photographs, there are many different possibilities for using these methods, bringing sculpture to your garden during the rather bare months of winter in your garden.

Come and learn the techniques of ‘niffing’ - the method that has become a phenomenon in the world of horticulture. This is a wonderful day dedicated entirely to this method. The day will follow our usual routine of coffee on arrival with (still warm!) freshly baked cookies, a talk from Jenny, with demonstrations to follow. After the morning of demonstrations, we shall pause for a two course, seasonal lunch before heading out again for further demonstrations and coming in for tea and cake at the end of the day.

Limited places are now available to book at this link:
https://www.dorsetwalledgarden.co.uk/event-details/rose-pruning-with-jenny-barnes-the-art-of-niffing or at our link in bio taking you to our website

Further courses to increase and develop your horticultural skills are available on our website, at this link: https://www.dorsetwalledgarden.co.uk/floristryworkshopsandevents - or at our link in bio above

11/09/2025

29/08/2025

We are coming to the end of August and to the end of the season...earlier than usual, but it is evident that it has been a tough season for many plants. It is interesting to see which plants remain unphased by the lack of rain and which have suffered badly, or even died. Either way, it's soon going to be time to put the garden to bed, bit by bit! With yew balls, box balls, lavender mounds, hornbeam and yew hedges, and pleached lime trees all clipped and trimmed, it is time to focus on the smaller details in the garden now, not forgetting planning. Does anyone else wonder when it might be time to sit back and relax?

On that note, I think it could be time to plan our bulb order! Have you ordered yours?

04/08/2025

Rosa Perennial Blue - coming back into bloom now, a wonderful repeat-flowering rose. I love how it adorns the gate welcoming you into the walled garden. Thank you for this beautiful photograph, Eva x
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03/08/2025

Have you divided your iris? Troy is shown here, teaching the course group how to divide iris and this is the time to do it if you haven't already done so!

This is one of very many skills Troy teaches on the 'Gardening through the Seasons' course due to commence again in September.

Details of our courses are on the website, some are close to full now - however a couple of places remain on our Gardening through the Seasons course. This runs over 5 days between September 2025 and May 2026, plus an online session and gardening diaries will be shared during this time. Further details on the website.

19/05/2025

Time for the last of the tulips to come out and for the pellies to go in!

26/03/2025

As the bare root season comes to an end there is an inevitable panic, wondering whether we have made the right decisions in choosing new roses for problem areas and whether we have sufficiently edited any poor performing roses etc, but it’s not that easy, because some roses are just ‘history’ and have a place for that reason - I hold on to a few roses that have been in our garden since we first created the garden, (20 years ago now!) aswell as a ‘marmite’ rose which was given to me. But this year I have changed some roses which I hope will be final choices and become the new history. I can’t wait to see them grow.

Amongst the new roses planted are some species roses - wild roses that will not be tended but will add atmosphere to the meadows and I have planted some roses to cascade into the pond in a few years time! Not wanting to wish a few years away, but I cannot wait!

I have also planted some earlier flowering roses by the side of the stream, in the meadows and close to the house. Excited to extend the rose flowering season!

Next job is to edit our roses list on the website!
Which roses have you planted this year?

📷 - thank you Eva!

roses

08/03/2025

Introducing Lucinda on International Women's Day!

We are delighted to have Lucinda as our principle gardener here now (Ali sadly left us in September to have her baby Wilf). Lucinda has been working alongside Ali for 3 years and has had the garden in her care for the last 6 months. I am grateful to her for her courage (only just short of 400 roses to prune!) and her energy coupled with enthusiasm, especially so in a year where I have chosen to experiment with a few new ideas!

I found Lucinda sitting, pondering the garden in the late afternoon sun several months ago and felt it made a lovely shot.

Lucinda is helped by Denise who is new to the garden and I am very sorry not to have a photograph of Denise to add to this post on International Women's Day! Denise comes one day a week and brings a cheerful disposition with her which we are very grateful for!

Happy International Women's Day!

20/02/2025

Thinking ahead to rose-filled days in the garden. Tuesday’s sunny weather gave us a hint that it might just happen…today is challenging that thinking!

This beautiful photograph was taken by in June 2023

of an

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18/01/2025

It was a lovely surprise to see our garden courses featured over a few pages in this week’s To share a feature with such well-known horticultural names as and , amongst others, made us very proud of what we have been working at here at Dorset Walled Garden.

Huge thanks go to , Garden Editor of who made this article possible and for sending two such lovely people as to feature our courses so generously and to take such great photographs of in our garden on a particularly drab and grey day!

This issue of came out on Wednesday, 15th January, so don’t delay to get your copy (it is a weekly magazine!)

We are running our Rose Pruning Day on Monday and very much looking forward to meeting another gorgeous bunch of fellow rose pruners! This will soon be followed by our Natural Structures and Staking course later this month.