Feature Gardens at RHS Wentworth Woodhouse
Four Feature Gardens bring Yorkshire culture and history to life. Find out more about the designs featuring at this exciting new show
RHS Wentworth Woodhouse in South Yorkshire is the perfect setting for showcasing gardens that reflect its rich horticultural history. They include gardens which focus on the mining community in and around Wentworth, the famous Rhubarb Triangle, community gardening and how to work with what you have in your garden.
RHS Miners Garden designed by Chris Myers
Through the necessity of feeding their families and sheer survival, miners found huge enjoyment in gardening, it was one of the biggest things in almost every miner’s life. This garden aims to take you back to a time and place where miners cohabited in tiny adjoining cottages and worked alongside each other both down the pit and above ground, tending to the land around their home.
An allotment style scenario demonstrates the methodical and productive way in which miners gardened with lots of produce, growing crops to feed their family alongside different types of flowers for cutting to brighten the family home. This eye-catching combination of everyday life fused with gardening provides the focal point of this feature garden, with the facacde of two cottages providing the backdrop.
The cottages and the productive garden environment will be nestled within a more natural fringe of wild
RHS Teenage Dirt Park designed by Rachel Platt
RHS Work With Your Garden designed by Matt Biggins and Richard Hill
RHS Rhubarb By Candlelight created by Olivia Copley
The Installation explores the rich and mysterious history of Yorkshire’s Rhubarb Triangle, using colour, texture, light and shadow to recreate the otherworldly experience of rhubarb growing by candlelight, transforming the Chapel into an immersive experience that emulates the dark interiors of Rhubarb Forcing Sheds.
The method of forcing rhubarb is said to originate from the early 1800s when gardeners at Chelsea Physic Garden discovered sweet pink stems growing underneath some discarded upturned buckets. Before long, the ingenious Victorians had developed terracotta rhubarb forcing jars to replace the humble bucket so that gardeners could enjoy an early crop, while maintaining the aesthetic values of their plot.
Yorkshire forced rhubarb (Rheum rhaponticum) is grown outside for two years before being lifted and placed into vast pitch-black huts where heat and the lack of light forces them to surge upwards at such a rate you can hear the cracking sounds as they grow. In February they are handpicked by candlelight and packed in boxes to be dispatched to markets, shops and restaurants around the world.
The Rhubarb Triangle
Joeseph Whitwell of Leeds is credited with pioneering the production of forced rhubarb in Yorkshire. With the ideal soil, winter frost and access to cheap coal to warm the sheds, production quickly expanded and by the late 1870s the area between Leeds, Wakefield and Bradford became known as the ‘Rhubarb Triangle’ exporting stems around the world. With its health properties and availability at a time of the year when other fruit is scarce, rhubarb soared in popularity hitting a peak in the post-war period.
However, as imported food became more readily available, added to high land and labour costs, the industry saw a rapid decline. At its peak there were over 200 forced rhubarb growers in the area, now there are barely a dozen. Forced Yorkshire rhubarb is still farmed in much the same way it was 100 years ago, and now it is seen as a regional delicacy with Protected Designation of Origin status, much like Champagne, Prosciutto di Parma and Roquefort cheese.
Urban Pollinators designed by Richard Browning
Off centre, a circle of lavender provides a buffet for some of the 260-plus species of bees found in the UK. From here, a path weaves through the space, which is punctuated by a natural bamboo fence, its hollow stems providing vital habitat for invertebrates. At ground level, several holes have been carved into the fence to create a ‘hedgehog highway’ through to adjacent gardens, while water features have been mounded up with stones to allow winged pollinators a safe, thirst-quenching perch.
