Nick Hamilton always had a passion for gardening and helped his father Geoff in the garden at weekends and school holidays from an early age. He studied at Writtle College in Commercial Horticulture and worked for Darby Nursery Stock in Norfolk after completing a year’s sandwich placement there. After working at other various nurseries, in 1989 he went to work with his father at Barnsdale who had just bought a piece of land adjacent to the gardens which formed the nursery. Nick took on Barnsdale after his father’s untimely death in August 1996. He has turned the gardens into the wonderfully run, peat free and organic place that visitors can enjoy every day from March to October. They can also enjoy the various courses run at Barnsdale.
Nick has had appearances on Gardener’s World, has written two books, The Right Genes and The Right Jeans. He regularly contributes to gardening magazines and gives talks to various groups. He has won gold medals at Chelsea and has been the president of The Cottage Garden Society since 2007.
On 9 April, The Grayshott Gardeners were treated to a most enjoyable talk and slide show tour of Barnsdale Gardens which was voted Best National Winner of #Best 100 Gardens 2018/19.
The gardens are planned to be like everyone’s gardens and visitors always go home with ideas. There is a wildlife garden, with an array of birds in a variety of trees and shrubs and frogs in ponds. A Japanese Garden, a Mediterranean Garden with plants that grow well in shingle, a Formal Garden which is beautifully laid with a formal pond with roses and different lavender as low hedging. There is a Courtyard Garden which is full of plants for all year-round scent and even a Seaside Garden. He took pleasure in showing us the cordons of apples and pears growing over arches to walk through and the allotment where a variety of vegetables are grown for the café, him and his staff.
Nick ran a competition for children at local schools to design a garden. There were 800 designs of which 97% included wildlife and he said it was a very difficult decision to choose a winner.
The entertaining evening ended with questions and Grayshott Gardeners were invited to buy some of Nick’s plants and books.
Report by Eda Hughes