Maintaining the Japanese Garden at Gatton Park

In late October 2024, I joined the Japanese Garden Society, as part of a team of volunteers, to spend the day working in the Japanese Garden at Gatton Park in Surrey.  Gatton Park is home to a Japanese garden built in circa 1910 by Sir Jeremiah Colman and designed by Edward White.  It is an artefact of a craze of the time amongst wealthy landowners to build gardens, thematically inspired by gardens of Japan.  These gardens are more accurately described as Japanese inspired gardens of the Edwardian era.  They demonstrate an excitement and enthusiasm amongst those of the time that had the luxury to be inspired by Japanese culture and to attempt to interpret that in their gardens at home.  The garden has been restored in this spirit, to be a true representation of the vision of the time of its inception.

Thanks to the enthusiasm of the Gatton Trust and volunteer Pat Pay, Gatton Park’s Japanese Garden was the subject of an episode of the TV programme Lost Gardens, a Channel 4 reality TV garden restoration series, presented by Monty Don in 1999.  This project kickstarted the restoration of this garden that has been taking place since then.

Here find Horticultural magazine’s feature on the garden’s 25th anniversary from restoration, which coincided with the planting of 100 flowering cherry trees as the garden participated in the Japanese Sakuro project in the UK.  Interviewed in this feature is Dan Ryan, Park and Gardens Manager at Gatton Park, who we also had the pleasure of working with.

On this visit we dedicated our time to two major tasks.  The thinning of two beds of bamboo and the planting of a mature Ginkgo biloba tree, to act as a companion to the original tree of the garden.  The following photos give a sense of the garden at this time of the year.  The larger Ginkgo tree, now thriving, is featured in the Monty Don TV episode and 25 years ago, its fate was up in the air, having been almost strangled by ivy. 

For garden opening times, visit the park website here.