We visit the Bluebell Nursery and Arboretum near Ashby de la Zouch most years and look forward to enjoying the autumn colour in November. There are so many interesting trees and shrubs in the gardens and arboretum some rarely seen elsewhere which makes a visit a real treat.
I am going to publish three posts over three days to illustrate how rich a selection of interesting plants live there, especially trees.
Here are my general photos of our visit, but I will post a more specialist blog later on ‘Betulas and Sorbus’ and another on some of our favourite specimens at Bluebell.
Gentle colours from the late flowers of hydrangeas greeted us as we entered the arboretum and garden, soft blues, pinks and whites with hints of green.
The first part of our wander took us towards the bridge over the drainage ditch. Bluebell is such a wet place sitting as it does on a heavy clay soil. Each time we visit there seems to be new drainage projects.
We crossed the bridge constructed from railway sleepers and moved into the main arboretum field, where we were in for a delightful time enjoying a varied selection of trees and shrubs, deciduous and evergreens both conifers and broadleaves. Most were well signed with names both botanic and common with plenty of useful information to add to our enjoyment.
It felt good to see how felled trees became log piles for wildlife especially beetles. Two birches close to each other were felled and the resulting logs were stacked between the stumps.
We enjoyed a good few hours walking the main arboretum, finding so many unusual, special varieties of betulas, sorbus, liquidamber and acers. We returned to the garden area where these sights entranced us.
What an amazing collection of trees to enjoy! The next few posts will feature our favourite trees mentioned earlier.
greenbenchramblings 