Waterperry Gardens cover 8 acres in Wheatley, in the heart of Oxfordshire. I visited on the first of August, during one of the few hot and sunny periods of the summer. To start with, that was fine. The entrance to the gardens leads you down a long path, shaded by the garden wall on one side and trees and shrubs on the other. Lovely and shady, this is the Virgin's Walk – named after the statue at the end.
There's also a lovely walk down by the river, shady and tranquil and – when I arrived – only just reopened after the summer floods.
On the garden map, Yew Henge looked inviting, but turned out to be in the middle of an overgrown meadow. As I walked through it to the (as yet rather young) yews, I scared (and was scared in turn) but several game birds hiding in the long grass. I took this route because I was heading towards my main point of interest – the apple and pear orchards.
Waterperry is famous for its fruit trees – they sell apple juice made from apples grown on the premises and host one of the local Apple Day events in October (this year it's apple weekend on 13/14 th October). There are, indeed, numerous lines of fruit trees trained in different configurations and many were bearing heavy crops of fruit – but I was disappointed because almost none had labels showing their variety.
The rest of the display gardens are very formal, with long herbaceous borders and a very long Waterlilly canal that was stunning. But in the hot sun there was very little shade and not enough interest to cause me to linger. Everything at Waterperry seems to have been designed on a gigantic scale – there are enormous trees everywhere and the garden wall towers above you.
The walled garden, which used to be a productive garden in the old fashion, has largely been taken over to house the shop and private areas including the tool sheds and greenhouses. There's also a National Collection of Kabschia saxifrages, housed very attractively in a courtyard garden.
More interesting to me were the glimpses available of a thriving kitchen garden that is still in use by the house – but out of bounds to visitors, which seems a shame. The corn and pumpkins looked lovely, and there were fruit bushes growing against the walls, but it was difficult to see what else was growing.
Kitchen gardeners must therefore get their fix in the shop. Waterperry's nursery is large and diversely stocked and there should be something to catch everyone's eye. Mine was taken by the citrus plants blooming in a greenhouse, many of which were mature and fiendishly expensive.
Outside you can see a marvellous almond tree trained against the garden wall, which has clearly been there for many years and is in fine fettle. Luckily it has its home on a separate section of the wall to the other long term resident – a Brown Turkey fig that was the largest fig I have ever seen. They obviously use it to propagate from, as there were fig plants on sale in the nursery, and it is a very good advert as it is a vigorous plant.
There's also a vibrant herb bed, a vibrant mass of colour in the summer sunshine.
All in all I was, as a kitchen gardener, disappointed with Waterperry – although living as close as I do I would not be adverse to another visit to the nursery. It was fabulous, and I only just escaped with my credit rating intact. However, I am not a fan of formal gardens and I would not pay the garden entrance fee to see those again. Gardeners with a broader base of interest should enjoy a visit – there is a rural life museum that looked interesting from the outside (it opens during the afternoons only, Tuesday to Saturday), and visitor facilities such as toilets, a tearoom and plenty of parking.
For more information, visit the Waterperry website. The rest of my Waterperry photos are available on Flickr.