Breezy Knees Gardens: Transforming An Old Potato Farm Into Three Distinct Areas
Breezy Knees Gardens is one of the largest gardens in the North of England.
There are over 7,000 different plants growing within its 25 acres of land, which was curated by Colin and Mary Lynn Parker.
They transformed an old potato farm into a plethora of garden rooms over the past 25 years, making it one of the highest-rated gardens on TripAdvisor in the UK.
I spoke with Colin to find out more about the gardens here.
Transforming A Potato Field
“The gardens were started by myself and my wife Marylen when we bought this land 25 years ago,” says Colin.
“When we bought it, it was just a field of potatoes, so every single plant that you see here, we have put in.
“We spent the first few years putting in trees, hedges and shrubs to give a structure and also to give us some much-needed shelter.
“Each year we’ve been adding new features, to the point now where we’re up to 25 acres of gardened land.
“Now, we’re one of the three largest gardens in Yorkshire.”
Three Distinct Areas
“The layout of the garden is split into three distinct areas,” shares Colin.
“We’ve got the main borders where we’ve got plants that are designed to be in season all the way through from early May until as late as October.
“Then we’ve got certain seasonal gardens, which are designed to be in flower for specific months, and finally we have some seasonless areas that look great year-round.
“This is the period really when the main borders are really coming out and are at their thickest.
“The lawn border is what I would call the the heart of the garden and is home to some of the main borders.
“To me, there are no two colours of flowers that do not go together, so what we do is try to spread the plants out and not put everything that flowers at the same time together.”
Exploring The Garden Rooms
“The rock garden is not a rockery, but we’ve got relatively low growing things and is strewn with rocks,” Colin explains.
“Normally when you think of alpine plants, you’d think of a slope, but this garden is flat, which makes it different.
“I’m really chuffed with this garden and the flowers in it, particularly on a sunny day like this one!
“The June garden was left completely underwater for eight weeks from February 2024 due to the weather.
“The plants in this garden are not generally supposed to like flooding, so it does give a great deal of satisfaction, having had a situation like that for so long, that there is still so much out in flower.
“We’ve got a butterfly in the middle made out of box and berberis shrubs.
“They were underwater and they’ve still survived. If you look in the textbooks now, I don’t think they’ll say they’d stand that amount of water.
“They are meant to like free-draining soil, but they’re still here.”
Visiting Breezy Knees
The thing that I’m most chuffed about is the fact that we’ve started from absolutely nothing and we’ve turned it into one of the few gardens in the entire country that is five-star rated on Trip Advisor,” Colin shares.1Breezy Knees Gardens. (n.d.). Trip Advisor. Retrieved July 9, 2024, from https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g186346-d3486245-Reviews-Breezy_Knees_Gardens-York_North_Yorkshire_England.html
“I hope we keep up with that and I hope people like it. That gives me a great deal of satisfaction – to know that others love it as much as we do.”
To find out more about Breezy Knees Gardens, visit their website here.
