Historic Hydrangeas Reach Peak In The Valley Gardens, Windsor Great Park

3rd August 2011

The Royal Landscape’s extensive collection of hydrangeas in the Valley Gardens, Windsor Great Park, are now reaching their peak and will continue on for several weeks.

Graham Sanderson, Head of the Valley Gardens, comments:

“The Royal Landscape’s hydrangea collection is one of the most diverse in the country. The earliest plantings date from the time of Sir Eric Savill in the 1930s and planting has continued ever since. We now have over 200 cultivars. The hydrangeas’ late summer colour is always something to look forward to seeing in the Valley Gardens.”

The Valley Gardens’ Breakheart Hill provides the most extensive show of hydrangeas, with swathes of beautiful china-blue flowers from the old French cultivar ‘Generale Vicomtesse de Vibraye’. Below the Plunkett Memorial in the Main Valley, there are masses of cone-shaped white flowers called ‘Pink Diamond’.

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 Crown Estate manages a highly diverse property business valued at more than £7 billion.  We pay our surplus revenue (profit) to the Treasury for the benefit of the nation every year: in 2010/11 this was £230.9 million. Over the past ten years The Crown Estate has paid nearly £2 billion to the Treasury.

3.  Our objectives, which are laid down by Parliament under the Crown Estate Act 1961, include enhancing the value of the estate and the revenue it produces. The responsibilities of The Crown Estate are to maintain and enhance the value of the estate and its income over the long term and to do this having regard to good management.  In summary, The Crown Estate is a successful business organisation guided by our core values – commercialism, integrity and stewardship.

4.  The Crown Estate manages a diverse property portfolio which includes office, retail and industrial premises; housing; farmland; forestry and minerals; parkland; and around half the foreshore and almost all the seabed around the UK. The Crown Estate’s property comprises four estates: Urban, Marine, Rural and Windsor.

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