Kaleidoscope of colours celebrated in the Royal Landscape, Windsor Great Park with Spring Gardens Week 23-30 May 2011

18th April 2011

May provides internationally famous spring displays in the gardens of Windsor Great Park and, to celebrate this magnificent time of year, The Royal Landscape is holding Spring Gardens Week 23-30 May, with free guided tours of The Valley and Savill Gardens, and carriage rides through The Royal Landscape.

In May, the Valley Gardens are at their most magnificent when the Japanese Kurume Azaleas, first collected by the English plant hunter Ernest Henry Wilson in 1918, are in full blaze in the famous Punch Bowl, reaching their peak in the middle two weeks of May. The spectacle is incredible with the many tens of thousands of plants in flower together, ranging from white, to the softest pink, to rose pink and ruby.  The dramatic wooded landscape offers fresh spectacles at every turn. In addition, the adjoining Azalea Valley is home to huge numbers of deciduous azaleas which in late May and June provide a kaleidoscope of colour, with reds, oranges, yellows and purples.

Graham Sanderson, Head of The Valley Gardens, comments:

“The views are fantastic in the Valley Gardens and we have built a viewing platform for the Punch Bowl which has been a big success with visitors including those with buggies and people who are less able”.

Visitors to the Valley Gardens will also be able to enjoy the wide range of other spring flowers including magnolias, Japanese cherries and spring heathers in the Heather Garden. The whole area has a verdant appearance with the new leaves on the outstanding range of trees and shrubs.

Mark Flanagan, Keeper of the Gardens, adds:

“Spring is a glorious time of year at The Royal Landscape. The Savill Garden boasts a range of spring plants for which the Garden is rightly famed, including many small woodland gems in the Hidden Gardens. The Valley Gardens provide a larger canvas for the many spectacular spring plants in an extensive landscape setting.”

The Savill Garden is offering free daily guided walks from 23-30 May at 11am (normal admission charges apply to the Garden). Highlights will include Spring Wood, where the mature trees spread their leaves over a stunning spectacle of rhododendrons, azaleas, the later magnolias and other flowering woodland plants. In the Bog Garden the first of the candelabra primulas will come into flower closely followed by Siberian irises and other moisture–loving plants.

As part of Spring Gardens Week, there will also be horse drawn carriage rides every day from Virginia Water car park to the Totem pole - the gateway to The Valley Gardens (weather dependent). There will also be an expert tour of The Valley Gardens on 26 May at 11am with Graham Sanderson, Head of The Valley Gardens.

Ends

Notes to Editors:

1.  The Royal Landscape is an area of a thousand acres of lakes, gardens and parkland, accessible to the public, at the southern end of Windsor Great Park. It includes The Savill Garden, the Valley Gardens and Virginia Water Lake. It is a man-made landscape, which has been shaped and planted over a period of 400 years. For more information call 01784 435544 or visit  www.theroyallandscape.co.uk.

2.  The Savill Garden is part of The Royal Landscape, which also includes the Valley Gardens and Virginia Water. It is one of England’s finest woodland and ornamental gardens with 35 acres of trees, shrubbery, ponds and streams, lawns, meadows and formal beds which are home to some of the world’s most decorative plants.

3.  The Savill Garden is open all year (except Christmas Eve and Christmas Day). Admission prices to The Savill Garden Summer 2011 (March-October): Adults £8.50; Seniors £7.95; Groups (10+) £6.95; Children (6-16) £3.75; Coach Driver Free; Carers Free; Blue Badge Guides Free; Group organiser/leader Free (1 per group and Garden admission only).

4.  The Crown Estate is valued at £6.6 billion, including over 400 commercial properties in London and elsewhere, almost 146,000 hectares of agricultural land, forests, residential and commercial property in England, Scotland and Wales, over half of the UK’s foreshore, together with the seabed out to the 12-nautical-mile territorial limit. All of The Crown Estate’s revenue surplus is paid directly to the Exchequer for the benefit of all UK taxpayers, and in 2009/10 this amounted to £210.7 million.

For more press information call Sarah Halstead, Marketing Dept, The Crown Estate, on 07918 121905 or email Sarah.Halstead@thecrownestate.co.uk