New tulip and wildflower garden to impress visitors at Arundel Castle

Arundel Castle’s team of highly-skilled gardeners have been working tirelessly to guarantee breathtakingly colourful displays in time for opening. In total, more than 52,000 spring bulbs have been planted – a record for the Castle.

Brand new for 2015, the Tulip & Wildflower Garden will feature areas for visitors to sit and relax or have their photos taken surrounded by beautiful blooms. This area will also be home to one of the largest displays of tulips during the Castle’s annual Tulip Festival which will run from Mid-April until Mid-May.

Over 8,000 tulips are expected to flower in the new Wildflower Garden including the beautiful Carnival de Rio, Flaming Flag, blood red Bastogne, crimson streaked Washington and yellow and red Helmar varieties. Once the tulips have finished, the area will be dedicated to a new mix of wildflowers.

The popular grass labyrinth will also burst with colour in April, with around 1,000 glorious tulips, swiftly followed by over 1,000 bright purple alliums sprouting through the middle circles of the maze.

Newly introduced for 2015, Tulipa Linifolia will feature in the artistic Stumpery, offering flashes of red amongst the upturned tree roots.

Visitors will also be able to enjoy new cloud hedging displays, an array of greenery carefully formed using a Japanese method of training trees and shrubs into shapes resembling clouds.

Head Gardener Martin Duncan commented: “My team and I were delighted to note that over a third of visitors named the gardens as the ‘most enjoyable’ element of their Castle experience in 2014.

“We have been working hard throughout the winter to come up with our most stunning displays to date and would like to invite visitors old and new to see our efforts bloom!”

Arundel Castle will re-open for visitors on 28 March 2014. Further information on the Castle and its 2015 event calendar can be found at www.arundelcastle.org

Report and picture contributed by Flo Powell.