Holly Cottage – another garden visit with the HPS

June 16th and we are visiting two gardens with fellow members of the Shropshire Hardy Plant Society. In my previous post I shared our morning visit to “Fairview” and now we move on to Holly Cottage just a few miles away for the afternoon. To get to the cottage we had to drive over a few fields dodging sheep and when we parked up the heavens opened and the temperature plummeted. Bravely we donned waterproofs – it was well worth it. The garden at Holly Cottage ran downhill from the cottage and within its two and a half acres formal and informal plantings of herbaceous plants mingled with mature trees, meadows, a pond and even a small stream.

Just as we were impressed by the veggie patch at Fairview in the morning, the fruit and veg garden at Holly Cottage impressed too. This veggie patch practised organic principles to produce quality harvests.

Part of following organic principles is to encourage wildlife to garden with you and here there were nest boxes and bird feeders in evidence as well as a meadow, a small arboretum featuring mostly native and wildlife attracting trees and shrubs. A comfy rustic bench was also positioned where we could appreciate it all.

We like to find original new ideas or twists on old favourites during our garden visits. At Holly Cottage we came across this wonderful example of high-rise living for plants.

As with any garden the plants are the stars and on a dull, wet cold day such as this these stars are needed even more. Holly Cottage’s plants did not let us down. They lifted our spirits out of the gloom.