Sussex Prairies Wild — Attraction in Horsham

Stumbled upon this place as I was with friends attending a craft fair... Wow! Based loosely on Prairie gardening there are swaithes of beautiful rustling grasses begging to be touched as you walk along, paths croos some beds encouraging this interaction and connection. A sensory delight for the senses with one grass plant described: "scented like coriander and at a distance, of chanel no5!" if that doesn't say "buy me!" I don't know what does!

When we went in September it was 3 for price of 2! Unusual varieties made it a joy to explore and exclaim over! My friend succumbed and watching her walk, body unseen to the car with 3 plants over 2 ft high was a giggle!

Art work abounds within the gardens, adding moments of surprise or delight: available to buy.

Relaxed bohemian Cafe with fresh baked scones and cakes, soft drinks, teas, and coffees (see photos of the fabulous upcycled fabric bags giving products and prices! Now I know what to do with all of my surplus bags!!! 👍😁) Toilets basic but good, like an eccentric Aunt's outside WC! (ie Not minimalist!) Didn't see even a quarter of the 8 acres- so lots to come back for!

Craft fair was great, the artisans are passionate about their crafts and when yiu caht you realise just how many hours are lovingly spent on each item... Hours, days, weeks and in this age of mass production the initial shock of the prices brings back to mind that these are bespoke, unique, beautiful and something to treasure. Just a v few snaps of their wonderful and beautiful crafts and wares as I was too busy chatting, admiring and generally losing myself in them and the plants! Food was also available including yummy pizzas. As always temptation galore!

It's a lovely setting and we will...

If you are a plant lover this place is gonna be right up your street.

I went during the Bazaar event

It was a nice day out. It was full of beautiful and well maintained plant life. You can clearly see money goes to caring and keeping the gardens maintained and beautiful.

The staff are very friendly. I really liked that they have a lot of wasp traps. It manages to keep the wasps away from the cafe so you can enjoy tea or a drink without being attacked.

I have one negative thing to say. Please forgive this can be a bit of a subjective opinion in all honesty.

Some/most of the “art” really ruins the look of the gardens. A lot of the catalogue is full of dreadful, ghastly “art” instillations between the plants. The first example is a two Grand bit of yellow painted rebar with some sort of metal objects welded together that should “subjectively represent the brevity of life” or some stupid made up meaning to an otherwise lazy excuse for “art”.

It doesn’t look good just cheap to build bits of metal stuck together costing a grand a piece. There is a lot more than that but I think my example is enough. The whole industrial art look is a very polarising look. It’s not all of them just most of the bits of industrial “art”

Conclusion- this place is definitely worth a visit/multiple times through summer. The colours and life is wonderful to walk through. You can find a place to sit in peace and quiet. For nature lovers you will really...

Lovely place to visit. Beautifully laid out gardens with a lovely selection of plants. I especially loved your two pigs. Tamworths? The food available was definitely up to scratch. I would have given you 4 or 5 stars but for 3 issues. The Wasps near the cafe. There were absolutely hundreds of them and countless people were upset by their presence. This is not as big an issue to deal with as you may think. Your Wasp Banes which are meant to attract then catch Wasps were actually on your outside dining tables and were therefore attracting Wasps to exactly the places where people wanted to sit and eat. Outside the entrance to the cafe you had a large commercial bin with the lid propped up. This was another massive attractant to the Wasps. I explained this to the chap serving coffee and told him that I have qualifications in pest management and suggested that the Wasp Banes should be hung in trees slightly away from the tables and the bin should be moved and the lid kept closed. This was met with indifference bordering on rudeness. If I'd have received a more positive and polite response I would have offered to locate the Wasp nest or nests and given free advice on dealing with it. Given the lovely setting china cups and saucers would be much more appropriate...