Since my last visit to RHS Wisley 5 years ago there have been large changes, notably the RHS Hilltop building and adjacent World Food Garden. Last Thursday I was fortunate to be invited to visit by head of the RHS Edibles team, Sheila Das, who had attended my talk on home territory in the autumn (see https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=31687). I was bowled over by the scale of what has already been achieved and the ambitious plans for the future moving away from the “conventional” towards organics, food forests, food diversity, no dig etc. and firmly anchored in improving  biodiversity – pollinators, habitat, the important role of fungi etc (less cutting, more untidy and irregular), sustainability and climate friendly gardening.
After showing me the plans, Sheila took me on to rooftop of Hilltop to get a bird’s eye view of the World Food Garden before walking around. The rigid rectangular growing beds of old are gone, replaced by curved beds in all shapes and sizes and gone also are the straight lines, replaced by irregular intercropping and demonstration of the incredible diversity of food crops available to the UK grower. Edible climbers were being trained up the outside of the perimeter wooden fence. You can already see a number of perennials in the 1 acre World Food Garden (my own Word Garden at 12m diameter now seems tiny in comparison!).  Below can be seen various pictures that I took on a tour of what has become probably the most popular part of RHS Wisley – amazing to witness this transition of the RHS as largely an organisation for ornamental gardeners to an organisation where more than 50% of members today note growing food as their main interest. Of course, edimentals can help bridge the gap between the two gardening camps! See the pictures and captions below for more!