Origins
Begun in 1875, it is the creation of four generations of Aberconways and is divided into two parts: the upper level (around the house) features huge Italianate terraces, specimen trees and formal lawns, with paths descending to at lower level "The Dell" with a wooded valley, stream and wild garden below. Included within the Dell are the Old Mill, the mill pond with the mill race and an attractive spillway waterfall into the River Hiraethlyn, to give the delightful babbling brook through the Dell its proper name.
Of the many specimen trees within the Dell and the Woodland, notable are several Californian Redwoods. One giant redwood (sequoiadendron giganteum) measured 47.2 metres (155 ft) in height. Another tree from the western United States, the Oregon Douglas Fir Pseudotsuga menziesii was 48 metres (157 ft). From China about 1949 came the Dawn Redwood, previously known only from fossils and believed to have been extinct.
Above the Dell is "The Poem", the family mausoleum from which a network of paths leads through shrubberies and the Rosemary garden to the front lawn (separated from the old park by a ha-ha) and across the lawn to the Round garden.
Read more about this topic: Bodnant Garden
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