Highdown Gardens are gardens on the western edge of the town of

Worthing Worthing () is a seaside town in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 111,400 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Brighton and Ho ...

, close to the village of

Ferring Ferring is a village, civil parish and electoral ward in the Arun District of West Sussex, England. It is part of the built-up area of Worthing and is accessed along the A259 road west of the town - comprising North Down Farm and Highdown Hi ...

and the National Trust archaeological site

Highdown Hill Highdown Hill is a hill in the South Downs, with a height of . The summit of the hill and its western slopes lie in the parish of Ferring in the Arun district, while its eastern slopes lie in the borough of Worthing. It is a popular spot for pi ...

, in

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...

, England. Overlooking the sea from the

South Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, East Sussex, in the eas ...

, they contain a collection of rare plants and trees, collectively a

national collection The UK National Collection is a collection of around 280 historic rolling stock, rail vehicles (predominantly of British origin). The majority of the collection is kept at four national museums: * National Railway Museum, York * National Railwa ...

. The gardens are owned and maintained by

Worthing Borough Council Worthing Borough Council is a district council in the county of West Sussex, based in the borough of Worthing. The borough council was created in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972 out of the existing Worthing Municipal Council, which also ...

with free admission. Created from a

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...

quarry where there was little soil and unfavourable conditions for plant growth, the Chalk Garden at Highdown is the achievement of Sir Frederick Stern (1884–1967) and his wife, who purchased the in 1909 and worked for 50 years to show that plants would grow on chalk.Gardens to Go-Gardens of Sussex
Retrieved on 3 January 2009 The gardens were created during a period when expeditions were going to China and the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 10 ...

collecting rare and interesting plants. Many of the original plants from the early collections are in the garden today, particularly plants collected by

Reginald Farrer Reginald John Farrer (17 February 1880 – 17 October 1920), was a traveller and plant collector. He published a number of books, although is best known for ''My Rock Garden''. He travelled to Asia in search of a variety of plants, many of wh ...

and

Ernest Henry Wilson Ernest Henry "Chinese" Wilson (15 February 1876 – 15 October 1930), better known as E. H. Wilson, was a notable British plant collector and explorer who introduced a large range of about 2000 Asian plant species to the West; some sixty bear ...

. On the death of Sir Frederick in 1967, aged 83, Lady Stern carried out his wishes and left the gardens to Worthing Borough Council. During spring and early summer there is a succession of flowering bulbs:

snowdrop ''Galanthus'' (from Ancient Greek , (, "milk") + (, "flower")), or snowdrop, is a small genus of approximately 20 species of bulbous perennial herbaceous plants in the family Amaryllidaceae. The plants have two linear leaves and a single sm ...

crocus ''Crocus'' (; plural: crocuses or croci) is a genus of seasonal flowering plants in the family Iridaceae (iris family) comprising about 100 species of perennials growing from corms. They are low growing plants, whose flower stems remain under ...

anemone ''Anemone'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae. Plants of the genus are commonly called windflowers. They are native to the temperate and subtropical regions of all continents except Australia, New Zealand an ...

s and

daffodil ''Narcissus'' is a genus of predominantly spring flowering perennial plants of the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae. Various common names including daffodil,The word "daffodil" is also applied to related genera such as ''Sternbergia'', ''Ism ...

s, followed by paeonies and bearded iris.

References

External links

Official website
1909 establishments in England Gardens in West Sussex Tourist attractions in West Sussex Worthing {{UK-garden-stub