A new arena for veg
I’m usually in too much of a hurry, whizzing down the Portsmouth road en route to Hampshire, and miss the turning. The exit to get to Wisley comes soon after the M25. A little brown flower sign is the clue; fork left, then things get complicated. Several roundabouts and apparent back-tracks later you re-emerge onto the busy Portsmouth Road, heading the other way, before forking left again into the relative calm of woodland. Then you have only the vast carpark to deal with before you reach the entrance. But it’s worth it.
I went the other day to see the new Hilltop Science Centre, up the long lawn to Battleston Hill, then right, into an area I had never visited before. Going straight ahead over the hill, where the old Trials Ground used to be found, you are confronted by a nascent lake, currently a vast trench with an island, soon to be filled with water from the roof of the Science Centre. Will it ever attract enough ducks to quack out the noise from the A3? Beyond the Science Centre, and it’s not-very-ambitious restaurant, lies the new vegetable garden, a circle planted with everything edible and sprinkled with arches. How many Surrey gardens grow sugar cane?
Wisley today is all action; construction everywhere. No Entry signs divert you from customary routes. Was it £160 millions the RHS said it was spending? The dear old body I remember when gardening was new to me has almost disappeared in a frenzy of activism. Does it mean that members get more for their subs? Those who make the journey to Wisley certainly do.
