GARDEN DESIGN
17,000 PLANTS BRING ROCKLIFFE’ S NEWLY TRANSFORMED GARDENS TO LIFE
One of the UK’ s largest plant nurseries, Johnsons Nurseries Ltd, has continued its long-standing relationship with the five-star luxury resort, Rockliffe, supplying more than 17,000 plants and trees for its newly landscaped grounds as part of its multimillion-pound transformation.
Set within 375 acres of historic parkland near Darlington, Rockliffe has undergone an extensive transformation, including the restoration of its Grade II-listed Old Hall, enhanced accommodation, new dining experiences, and the creation of a standalone restaurant pavilion named Atlas.
The ambitious project has seen the resort’ s gardens and outdoor spaces transformed to complement the renovated and new buildings, creating an attractive and welcoming environment for guests.
The landscape and planting scheme was designed by Colour Landscape Architects, while Johnsons Nurseries supplied an extensive selection of shrubs, trees, instant hedging, ornamental grasses, flowering perennials and topiary, creating yearround interest throughout the newly landscaped grounds.
Among the varieties supplied were mature Scots pines, multi-stem Amelanchier lamarckii and Magnolia trees, alongside instant Carpinus betulus hedging and ornamental Taxus baccata topiary. The planting scheme also features an extensive mix of flowering perennials and ornamental grasses, including
Anemone‘ Honorine Jobert’, Geranium‘ Rozanne’, Rudbeckia‘ Goldsturm’, Calamagrostis and Deschampsia, providing seasonal colour, texture and movement throughout the gardens.
The landscaping was carried out in-house by Rockliffe’ s Estates team, led by Head of Engineering & Estates Phil Mennell. Despite one of the hottest and driest summers, the team worked tirelessly to establish thousands of plants and trees, extensive hedging and new lawn areas, overcoming challenging conditions and tight deadlines to complete the grounds ahead of the resort’ s reopening.
Group Managing Director at Johnsons Nurseries, Graham Richardson, said:
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