Isabella Plantation Garden

The Isabella Plantation has the best show of rhododendrons and azaleas in London. A woodland garden in the heart of Richmond Park.   The flowers are usally at their peak at the end of April/beginning of May.

The 'plantation' took place when a damp area of Richmond Park was fence off (in 1831 by the deputy park ranger, Lord Sidmouth) and planted with , the oak, beech and sweet chestnut trees for their timber. A later park superintendent, George Thomson, decided to make it a rhododendron garden in the 1950s. Though anomlous in this location, it is a classic woodland garden in the Gardenesque Style - using the planting design principle of composing exotic plants as though they were native plants.