Tresco Abbey Gardens
A Subtropical Gem on the Isles of Scilly
This 19th-century garden is immersed in history and yet has a botanic twist, holding more than 20,000 plants from over 80 countries.
Tresco, one of the Scilly Isles, lies 28 miles off the Cornish coast of England. A subtropical island, blessed with white sand and turquoise sea, it is home to just 150 people. Thanks to the Gulf Stream, the climate is unique in the UK and makes it possible to grow rare and exotic species out in the open air. Described as ‘a perennial Kew without the glass’, the gardens are considered of such importance they have been designated Grade I in the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Last June (2023), I had the pleasure of leading Academy Travel’s tour of Cornwall & Devon. It was a wonderful trip, with a great small group of friendly and interesting people from Australia, Corfu, England and America.
We stayed in some gorgeous hotels with views of countryside and beaches, ate great food and had amazingly good weather. We visited some of the world's most beautiful gardens and met some Head Gardeners, garden owners and were also joined for a couple of days, by plant expert and gold medal winning gardener, Philippa. I think everyone enjoyed the input from the different voices with all their knowledge and experience.
A special highlight though was the day we spent at Tresco Abbey Gardens. Even our journey to the garden was exciting, flying from probably the smallest and certainly the friendliest airport, and disembarking finally by boat on Tresco.
View over the Scilly Isles
Such a remote place and yet busy along the little harbour with its coffee shops and a smattering of sailors and intrepid holiday makers chatting excitedly. Tresco is an island where time seems to stand still, unmodernised and unspoilt.
Tresco Abbey Garden
A subtropical gem
When we arrived at the Abbey Gardens we were incredibly fortunate to have the Head Gardener Andrew Lawson as our guide, whose knowledge and humour was a joy. As we walked around we saw Echiums (Echium pininana) – taller than giraffes, they self-seed and fill areas of the gardens swaying merrily in the breeze.
Echiums
Sculpture of Gaia
The gardens span 17 acres and are a mix of dry temperate to wet temperate areas. Surprisingly they experiences long dry spells, going up to 10 weeks with no rain in the summer. With virtually no winter frosts, the seasons start earlier here than on the mainland.
Spring flowers tend to appear weeks ahead of mainland counterparts. In the 19th century, this gave rise to competition between Tresco and Kew. Each New Year’s Day, there was a count of the individual species in flower – a custom that continues to this day. Typically, around 300 species were counted. Head Gardener Andrew Lawson gets everyone involved – set up with pen and paper – and each takes an area and starts counting!
Andrew Lawson
The Gardens have proved a happy habitat for various New Zealand natives. One that does exceptionally well is the flame tree (Metrosideros excelsa), whose intolerance to frost and cold winters mean they cannot be grown elsewhere in the British Isles. Flowering from May to July with clusters of bright red flower, their scarlet petals are so vivid that they can be can seen across the water from the other islands. According to curator Mike Nelhams: ‘This is probably the best tree in the world for wind and salt spray tolerance, making it quite at home on the islands.’
Flame tree
Other trees from around the world include the Norfolk Island pine, which again does well here, forming a new layer of upper branches each year. From 400 miles off the coast of Chile, comes the stunning, orange flowering, Robinson Crusoe Cabbage Tree (Dendroseris littoralis). A native of the Juan Fernandez islands, its homeland is what inspired Daniel Defoe’s adventure novel of 1719.
A plant we were all interested to see was the Giant Dandelion, a self-seeding relative of the common garden dandelion. A native of the Canary Islands, it can grow to more the 3.65 metres! Makes one think twice about complaining about weeds in your own garden.
Giant Dandelion
Protea from South Africa
It seems difficult to choose the highlights of the Garden because, like the abundance of plants, there were so many. But the area around the remains of the Abbey are particularly beautiful, and a place in this garden you must see for yourself.
Below is a little bit of the history taken from my latest book Botanic Gardens of the World: Tales of extraordinary plants, botanical history and scientific discovery, which came out a couple of months ago. In it I included Tresco, even though it may not be what everyone thinks a botanic garden should be – not a glass house in sight…
‘In the 1830s, merchant banker Augustus Smith bought a long lease on the Isles from the Duchy of Cornwall and chose Tresco, the second largest island in the archipelago, as his home. He built a house next to the ruins of a 10th-century Benedictine Abbey and a 12th-century priory, near a fresh water pool and overlooking the sand dunes and beach at Carn Near. Within the abbey ruins, he cultivated a garden, creating a series of terraces on its steep slope.
To defend against the wild Atlantic winds, he built a series of high granite walls, planted gorse and erected a shelter belt of imported trees from North America, including Californian Monterey Pines and Monterey Cypresses. Today, an incredible hedge of 15.25 metre-high oak (Quercus ilex) protects the plants.
Smith’s descendant, Arthur Dorrien-Smith, oversaw a large expansion of the garden in the early years of the 20th century. A prolific traveller, Dorrien-Smith undertook expeditions to, for example, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, returning with over 2,000 new specimens.’
Today the Duchy of Cornwall still own Tresco and still lease it to the same family Robert Dorrien-Smith and his wife Lucy, who run Tresco Estate (so ultimately the island is owned by the Royal Family and the revenues go now to the Prince of Wales – Prince William).
We will be heading back to Cornwall and Devon this June and you too can come and discover all the incredible corners of Tresco!
GREAT GARDENS OF CORNWALL & DEVON
This 11-day tour takes us through some of the most beautiful countryside in England, visiting 16 English gardens in their early summer glory. Beginning on the dramatic coastline of Cornwall, we make our way out across the seas to the distant Isles of Scilly before traversing into the wild moors of Devon.
Along the way we’ll learn about great historical landscape designers like Gertrude Jekyll and Sir Edwin Lutyens, as well as some of the most innovative names in modern English garden and landscape design like Sir Tim Smit and Keith Wiley.
