HortWeek Podcast

Joining Rachael Forsyth the week's HortWeek Podcast are Harry Baldwin head gardener at the Somerset garden and estate, The Newt, alongside Katie Lewis, estate architect.

After four years as a headline sponsor at the Chelsea Flower Show, it is The Newt's 'finale' year and it is set to showcase tropical plants sourced from nurseries in the UK, South Africa, and from its own collection in its Karoo Succulent show garden, a collaboration with The Newt's South African sister farm, Babylonstoren.

As Katie says: "There will be plants in the garden that probably many will not have seen before, as well as some quite recognizable plants that people might have as houseplants. But they'll be able to see them set in what we're trying to evoke as their natural setting, so we're hoping that that's going to be quite inspiring and exciting for people."

But The Newt's relationship with the RHS will not end completely, Katie explains: "So we'll continue to be a partner garden and we'll continue to support the RHS."

Harry talks though some of the attractions and features on The Newt Estate, aka the Hadspen Garden. He explains the way the 40-strong specialist staff work - which includes dedicated garden and woodland teams.

New to the team is entomologist Tom Oliver who is instrumental to work The Newt is undertaking to understand, audit and improve its biodiversity. Tom's data will also be used to help The Newt experiment with new cutting regimes for the wildflower meadows to try and maximise the invertebrate life throughout the year.

Harry says: "We have a really rich biodiversity across the estate. I guess we're also quite lucky here because we've got different types of landscapes...we've got the woodlands, we've got pasture, we've got our formal gardens, and we've got quite a big range, which no doubt helps with the biodiversity."

The Newt is set to host a Head Gardeners Conference in October 2025 which will gather 100 head gardeners to discuss trees for the future.

Like all gardens The Newt faces challenges with pests and diseases and climate change and trees are central to these topics.

Harry explains: "native plants are important because our invertebrates have adapted ... to our native plants and our native landscapes. But it's obviously important that we do start to bring in some non-natives. For example, we've got one area ... where we've had to sadly remove a number of large ash trees because of ash dieback...So there

I'm hoping to planting native trees but also looking slightly out the box where we can planting, for example, we can plant a Caucasian hornbeam ...which is still going to service our woodland but it might have the added diversity of being able to be slightly more drought tolerant perhaps."

In keeping with it's lightly unorthodox approach, The Newt allows visitors to pick vegetables and fruit from its kitchen garden:

"The ethos of the kitchen garden is that for people to try - everything in there is completely edible and there is almost no boundaries... We want people to be immersed into our landscape, into our fruit and sort vegetable heritage."

And with her design hat on, Katie is keen to extend the spirit of experimentation and innovation at The Newt:

"I think there's ways that we can champion plants more, champion seasonality more, offer more to our guest experience in various ways. 

"I want to really showcase plants that aren't necessarily purchased from your local garden center...I've had the opportunity to work with some really great, wonderful and unusual plants from various temperate regions of the world. And I really want to bring that to The Newt."