I knew I was in for a treat when I drove up to the newly opened Butterfly World along Miriam Lane. An affectionate homage to Dame Miriam Lane (Rothschild), the great conservationist and butterfly enthusiast, was a good start, but so was the fact that the banks on the side of the road to the car park were carpeted with rainbow-coloured meadow annuals — blue cornflowers, yellow Californian poppies, pink corn cockle, scarlet poppies –— all flowering fit to bust.
Two thirds of the 27-acre site at Chiswell Green, near St Albans, is covered with these annuals, in varying combinations of 65 species. The seed has come partly from Emorsgate Seeds and partly from sources across the temperate world; it has been ‘hydro-seeded’ on to Grade 3 agricultural land, from which the top soil has been removed. These enlivening annuals are the idea of Ivan Hicks, landscape designer for the project and best known for a certain surreal quality to his garden layouts, such as the ‘Enchanted Forest’ at Groombridge Place (he was once Edward James’s head gardener at West Dean, so it figures).
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