The stunning, privately owned garden is comparable to Sissinghurst in both size & splendour. It was originally laid out & planted in the 1940s and has since been lovingly maintained to a superb standard ever since. The original house has been demolished to make way for the grand design shown here and the adjacent areas are being re-landscaped.
The Control System. The vast scale and variety of watering needs of the garden meant we needed a very sophisticated control system to minimise water usage so the Nelson Pro Max with Acclima software is ideal. Aware that it was a new product to Europe I read up on the extensive research & testing that has been carried out in the USA, by independent universities and agricultural bodies. My conclusion was that at last we have a moisture sensing system that really does work!
Installing the moisture sensors in different areas of the garden gives us the versatility we need and reduces the water usage by about 40%
The Water Source is a new lake that has been constructed, fed by rainwater collection from the house & outbuildings. A borehole was not practical up here on the North Downs as the water table is too deep.
Zoning the Garden The garden comprises many differently themed areas which naturally break down the project into different zones. The mainline supply around the garden used nearly 2km of pipe with a further 3.5km of lateral lines. A total of 5 km of trenching was needed to complete the project
The Grass Tennis Court needed to be watered without trenching through the playing area so 6 Nelson 7015 gear-drive pop-ups with an 18m range were used.
The Rose Garden is watered by 78 MP Rotators carefully placed to cover the grass areas without throwing water over the flowers
The Main Lawn has many mature trees so we had to use 112 medium range Nelson 6005 gear drives on a 10m matrix to achieve an even watering pattern. For the many smaller lawns and awkward areas we used 84 MP Rotators enabling us to match precipitation with the gear-drives
Tall Trees Walk runs around the perimeter of the garden. General watering of the trees, shrubs and grass path was required here so 56 MP Rotators were installed on 12” risers.
The Miniature Maze and areas around the house are still to be created but will be watered using 700m of Techline dripper pipe under the planting.
