Heligan Gardening Team Ventures to the Isles of Scilly…

Earlier in the month on the most beautiful weekend of weather, a handful of the Heligan Gardening Team left the Cornish mainland to head to the stunning archipelago of the Isles of Scilly to explore the islands and their crowning jewel, Tresco Abbey Gardens.

Tresco Abbey Gardens is a subtropical paradise, home to exotic plants from across the world that flourish in the ideal micro climate that the islands enjoy.  What better gardens to visit to inspire our Gardening Team, who themselves tend to many subtropical and hardy exotic plants in the gardens at Heligan.  Many of the exotic and subtropical species that we have in the Heligan Jungle and other areas also flourish on the Isles of Scilly. This visit will have given the gardeners the chance to swap tips as we learn of plants that we aren’t currently growing, that we possibly could. 

The visit to Scilly was for a specific and exciting reason. There’s a couple of new planting opportunities coming up in the near future at Heligan, in particular down in the Jungle!

“It's difficult to think of a better source of inspiration and general horticultural excitement than the Abbey Gardens. So, we were enormously grateful when Mike Nelhams, Curator of the Abbey Gardens and Head Gardener Andrew Lawson invited a few of the team over to experience the gardens first-hand. It was a fantastic trip and we owe a huge debt of thanks to Tresco. We were able to make the very best of Mike and Andy's expertise, with everyone learning new plants and thinking differently about our own plant palette at Heligan. We were also very fortunate to be given a number of rare and unusual plants to trial within the gardens, as well as lots of seeds too. Bring on the Spring and thank you Tresco!” Alasdair Moore, Head of Gardens and Estate.