The Farmhouse Garden at Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse Museum
A variety of gardens awaits the visitor to Union Farm, part of the Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse Museum, Norfolk.
The main Farmhouse Garden sits alongside the Victorian farmhouse and was designed and developed around 10 years ago. It was intended to be a ‘sensory garden’ with aromatic, tactile and other plants including a ‘herb wheel’. It was also intended to demonstrate how planting could be used to control pests. This original purpose has been diluted over the years and the garden now provides a pleasant green foil to the farmhouse building. The garden is domestic in scale with a large area of grass and an irregular series of planted island borders, including raised beds edged with split poles. There are a number of shrubs, including climbing roses on the farmhouse wall, bench seats and a wooden shed in the north-eastern corner which contains garden tools.
The kitchen garden at Union Farm
On another side of the Farmhouse a vegetable growing patch has been developed which is used to demonstrate grow your own techniques and different types of vegetables. To the front of the farmhouse sit two other gardens, one with a range of perennial herbs that would have been used in the farmhouse kitchen and another which houses a wide range of plants that were used in the traditional dyeing of cloth. This garden was slightly rearranged last year with new edges to the borders and with a length of low willow fencing to provide both a sense of enclosure and to discourage visitors from trampling in the beds. The plants are regualrly used here in demonstrations of traditional dyeing.
One side of the Dyers’ Garden
Developed in recent years by the volunteer dyers, some of the plants grown here include:
| Alcea rosea varieties | Helianthus annuus varieties |
| Alkanna tinctoria | Hemerocallis varieties |
| Amaranthus caudatus | Isatis tinctoria |
| Anthemis tinctoria | Lythrum salicaria |
| Berberis vulgaris | Mahonia aquifolium |
| Buddleja davidii | Origanum majorana |
| Calendula officinalis cultivars | Perilla frutescens |
| Carthamus tinctorius | Phytolacca americana |
| Consolida ajacis | Pyracantha angustifolia |
| Convallaria majalis | Reseda luteola |
| Coreopsis tinctoria | Rheum x hybridum |
| Dahlia varieties | Rhus typhina |
| Datisca cannabina | Rosa –climbing varieties |
| Foeniculum vulgare | Rubia tinctorum |
| Forsythia | Rudbeckia triloba |
| Galium verum | Solidago |
| Genista tinctoria | Tagetes patula cultivars |
Other posts in this series:
From Grand entrance to Grand Central at Norfolk Museum
Gypsies, tramps and thieves: garden where poor once trod at Norfolk Museum
Cottage Garden recreates 1930’s at Norfolk Museum
Old Workhouse Garden a wildlife oasis at Norfolk Museum
Unique Heritage Gardens at Norfolk Museum
Old School Gardener
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Old School Garden 
looks like a lovely plantsperson’s garden – the colours in the dyers garden are fantastic – thanks for the plant list here as well – will keep in a bookmark
Glad you liked it, Chas!