Dragon to stay on garden duty

When the news broke on television that a new charity at Knoll Gardens in Wimborne was hoping to site a classroom on an existing pond, dragon lovers in Dorset jumped to the conclusion that the dragon in the pond was being scrapped.

Standing guard for nearly twenty years, the dragon was made by local sculptress Susan Ford, and recreates one of the stained glass windows of Wimborne Minster.

The Knoll Gardens Foundation is the new charity, which as been set up by Knoll Gardens’ owner, Neil Lucas.

Its remit is to take Knoll’s naturalistic style of gardening to a wider audience and one way to achieve this is by expanding its popular range of lectures and masterclasses and holding them in a purpose built outdoor classroom. Everyone at the nursery was very positive about the plans until visitors to the garden began to voice concerns for the dragon.

“It took us a while to realise that people had been confused by television coverage from this year’s Chelsea Flower Show,” said Neil. “It was said that we hoped to site the classroom on an existing area of water, and whilst we do have two other pond areas everyone seemed to think I was about to evict the dragon.”

In fact nothing could be further from the truth, and the pond is now not only home to the dragon but also to a small shoal of rudd which are busy making new homes under the water lilies.

“In time we hope to put the classroom at the top of the garden on a pond area that really does need updating,” said Neil.  “I’d like to reassure everyone that the formal pond, with its guardian dragon, will definitely remain.

“The Dragon Garden is one of my favourite areas at Knoll and I anticipate it will be here for many years to come.”