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BACK TO THE FUTURE

Sheffield Park and Garden in East Sussex has opened its new Garden for the Future, designed by landscape architect and three-time Chelsea Gold medallist Joe Perkins. It marks the first significant planting update since the National Trust bought the Grade I-listed landscape in 1954, and adds more than 4,500 plants to the remodelled half-acre plot.

While the park's experimental former owner Arthur Gilstrap Soames enjoyed observing plant adaptation across different growing conditions back in the early 20th century, the new visitor experience will test plants' resistance to drought and extreme temperatures, and inform the National Trust's work into the future.

The space features snaking benches and curved 'pebble' seating made from UK-sourced sequoia, and is split into three planting zones. Dry Exotic features raised beds holding sub-alpine species from Tasmania, New Zealand and South America: Gondwanan Forest, inspired by the mid-altitude hillsides of Chile and Argentina, includes Antarctic beech, Araucaria and Tetrapanex, ginger lillies and striking red Lobelia tupa; while the Temperate Woodland combines ferns, grasses and forget-me-nots with mahonias and azaleas beneath the garden's existing tree canopy.

nationaltrust.org.uk

Read more in the September issue of Gardens Illustrated