RHS Garden Wisley


RHS Garden Wisley is a garden run by the Royal Horticultural Society in Wisley, Surrey, southwest of London. It is one of five gardens run by the society, the others being Harlow Carr, Hyde Hall, Rosemoor, and Bridgewater. Wisley is the second most visited paid entry garden in the United Kingdom after the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, with 1,104,362 visitors in 2024. The gardens are Grade II* listed.

Location

The gardens are accessed from Wisley Lane which connects to the A3 just south of Junction 10 on the M25 motorway. The River Wey forms the north-western border of the site.

History

Wisley was founded by Victorian businessman and RHS member George Ferguson Wilson, who purchased Glebe Farm, a site, in 1878. There, with assistance from Gertrude Jekyll, he established the "Oakwood Experimental Garden" on part of the site, where he attempted to "make difficult plants grow successfully". Wilson died in 1902 and Oakwood was purchased by Sir Thomas Hanbury, the creator of the celebrated garden, La Mortola, on the Italian Riviera. He gave the Wisley site to the RHS in 1903. The society sold its lease on its gardens in Chiswick in March of that year and moved to Wisley in the April.
The storms of 1987 and 1990 reduced the original wooded area, leaving only a few mature oak trees.
In April 2005, Alan Titchmarsh cut the turf to mark the start of construction of the Bicentenary Glasshouse. This major new feature covers and overlooks a new lake built at the same time. It is divided into three main planting zones representing desert, tropical and temperate climates. It was budgeted at £7.7 million and opened on 26 June 2007. A £20 million Welcome Building including a larger restaurant, cafe and visitor facilities was opened by Alan Titchmarsh on 10 June 2019.
In 2024, the influential gardener Piet Oudolf redeveloped the two-acre space of his Glasshouse Landscape borders, first planned by him 20 years earlier, in a style more designed to mimic the natural world.
Directors have included;
Wisley is now a large and diverse garden covering. In addition to numerous formal and informal decorative gardens, several glasshouses and an extensive arboretum, it includes a trials field where new cultivars are assessed. The original laboratory, for both scientific research and training, was opened in 1907, but proved inadequate. It was expanded and its exterior was rebuilt during World War I. It was designated a Grade II Listed building in 1985. Visitor numbers increased significantly from 5,250 in 1905, to 11,000 in 1908, 48,000 in the late 1920s, and 170,000 in 1957, and passed 400,000 in 1978, 500,000 in 1985, and 600,000 in 1987.
The grounds contain the following features:
  • RHS Hilltop - The home of Gardening Science
  • Wildlife Garden, Wellbeing Garden & World Food Garden
  • Glasshouse with desert, tropical and temperate climates, and with special topical displays
  • Clore Learning Centre
  • Alpine houses
  • Laboratory
  • Library
  • Plant information centre
  • Trials field
  • Fruit field, featuring large numbers of apples, pears and other fruit grown in various forms.
  • Rock garden and alpine meadow on a sloping site
  • Wild garden
  • Walled garden
  • Jellicoe Canal with water lilies in season
  • Battleston Hill, which includes many rhododendrons and azaleas
  • Rose borders and mixed borders
  • Jubilee arboretum
  • Pinetum
  • National heather collection
  • Greener Skills Garden
Visitor facilities include cafés and restaurant, car parks, plant centre, etc.