Under its glass roof, this stunning Welsh garden is an inspiration for locked down growers
Alpinia zerumbet below an
Alpinia zerumbet below an
MattCollins
Sat 16 Jan 2021 06.00 EST
Aberglasney in south-west Wales is one of Britain’s finest heritage gardens. Saved from dereliction in 1995, the elegantly remodelled cloister and three gardens (kitchen, woodland and shrub) surrounding its restored 15th-century mansion are testament to a vibrant, open-minded horticultural approach that has kept me coming back for a decade.
But more recently, my attention has turned to Aberglasney’s hidden gem: an unconventional indoor garden, part of the house itself, called the Ninfarium. It consists of two storeys of ruined walls in the oldest part of the building, topped with a modern glass roof. The exposed walls and window cavities are overgrown with exotic greenery; ginger and voodoo lilies spring through a doorway; Spanish moss drips from the mortar; and hefty bananas stretch to the roo