Category: garden design

A Favourite Winter Garden – Dunham Massey

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 18, 2018
3 Comments on A Favourite Winter Garden – Dunham Massey

This will be our third visit to the relatively new winter garden at Dunham Massey, a National Trust property in Cheshire, our neighbouring county to the north of our home county, Shropshire. The leaflets concerning the garden refer to it as a “Curiosity Garden”, while inside is written, “Forget hibernating until spring, Dunham Massey’s Winter Garden is wide awake with colour.”

The leaflet then invites us to “Take a refreshing walk in the Winter Garden along meandering paths with shocking red cornus and brilliant white birch trees trees glittering in the winter sun. Discover bright winter berries, late flowering scented shrubs and thousands of snowdrops and iris in the new year.”

We approached the winter garden by meandering along gravel paths across a shallow valley, when upon passing through the first red-bricked outbuildings we discovered some of the best pleaching we had ever seen. It stops us in our tracks on every visit.

The pleached limes look a few decades old and possess the ubiquitous knobbles from where the new wands of growth spurt in the spring after their annual pollarding.

Shrubs come into their own in the winter season with their coloured stems, their scent and beautiful hanging flower clusters.

Early flowering bulbs add much of the colour in the garden in February. Sunlight catches them and highlights their bright colours.

All winter gardens open to the public make strong features of trees with coloured, textured bark, Betulas, Acers and Prunus.

Shrubs with coloured stems provide effective partner planting for these trees, especially Cornus and Salix varieties. The gardeners at Dunham Massey are adept at transparency pruning, effectively lifting the akirts of shrubs and small trees to expose their trunks and lower branches.

The one plantingcategory that sorts out the best winter gardens from the average is the good creative use of ground cover. It is all too easy to use bark mulch but there are good interesting plants that can cover the ground and add new dimensions to planting schemes. Dunham Massey is on the way to sorting this well, using Carex, Bergenia, Ophiopogon, ferns and Pachysandra.

So there we have it, a thoroughly inspiring visit to one of our favourite winter gardens.

Tags acers., bergenias, betula, birches, carex, cornus, dogwoods, ferns, flowering bulbs, groundcover, shrubs in winter, snowdrops, winter, winter garden, winter gardening, witch hazels

colours flowering bulbs garden design garden furniture garden photography garden ponds garden pools garden seat garden seating gardening gardens gardens open to the public grasses hardy perennials light light quality NGS ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs photography sculpture shrubs spring bulbs trees water in the garden Winter Gardening winter gardens Yellow Book Gardens

A canal-side garden in winter – John’s Garden Part 1

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 12, 2018
2 Comments on A canal-side garden in winter – John’s Garden Part 1

We have visited “John’s Garden” before in the height of summer and really enjoyed it, so much so that we were determined to re-visit at different times of the year. We imagined it would be an effective all-year garden. Mid-February and John opened his garden on a cold and wet winters day, so we went along with garden-loving friends Pete and Sherlie.

We started with a hot mug of coffee in the nursery coffee shop to warm us up, so with added warmth and lots of excitement and anticipation we wandered down the drive from Ashwood Nurseries to his own 3 acre-garden.

The garden has the advantage of boasting a canal, the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, running along its length – not many gardeners could say that about their patch!

An unusual hedge greeted us as we entered the garden, a long cloud pruned hedge, beautifully sculpted. A slate pathway at its end took us into a colourful area full of winter interest. Hamamelis and small deciduous trees were the stars, supported ably by ferns, bergenias, snowdrops and a variety of small-leaved shrubs trained as spheres.

We left this little garden behind and crossed an open lawned area dotted with topiary specimens and trees with interesting bark, coloured, textured or peeling. We joined up with the gardens bordering the canal, the sort of background gardeners can only dream of.

After a close up look at these trees and touching their bark, we followed the canal-side borders into the main gardens. Here grasses mingled with dogwoods and Willows, both pollarded and coppiced to enhanced their stem colours. Conifers of all sorts of shapes, colours and sizes began to appear here becoming strong features of this garden during the winter months. John is a master at transparency pruning which brings out the trees attributes. Interestingly he prunes both deciduous trees and shrubs and coniferous specimens too, which makes them look so much more interesting and they add so much to borders.

John is also a master of topiarising shrubs to emphasise their beauty and give structural elements throughout the garden. All sorts of conifers and evergreen shrubs have been given this treatment.

In part two of my post all about our winter visit to John’s Garden, we will move along the canal borders before returning along the opposite side of the patch, while along the way discovering a pool, sculpture and a terrace and lots more exciting plants and plant pairings.

Tags cloud pruning, conifers, creative pruning, deciduous trees, garden sculpture, hamamelis, outdoor sculpture, shrubs in winter, snowdrops, topiary., transparency pruning, winter, winter garden, winter gardening, winter gardens, witch hazels

colours flowering bulbs garden design garden photography gardening gardens grasses hardy perennials irises light light quality ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs roses Shrewsbury Shropshire shrubs South Shropshire spring bulbs Winter Gardening winter gardens

My Garden Journal 2018 – February

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 1, 2018
2 Comments on My Garden Journal 2018 – February

Part two of my 2018 Garden Journal sees us still freezing cold and struggling to get time in the garden.

I opened my February entries by noting, “February is the month when we feel that the quality of the light improves and makes us feel better and there are definite signs of the days lengthening. Early bulbs begin flowering and others are showing strong leaf growth.”

I next sought out another quote from Dan Pearson’s book, “Natural Selection” and was pleased to find this one, “Making room for the winter garden is every bit as important as managing a garden that draws your attention in the dark months.”

Turning over to the next double page spread I write about newly acquired plants.

“It is always an enjoyable time planting newly acquired plants but it is an extra-special experience doing so in February. We were delighted to find good healthy specimens of two fastigiate plants, a Taxus baccata “Fastigiata Robusta” and an Ilex crenata “Fastigiata”. The only two fastigiate plants we have already established at Avocet are a Berberis and an Oak, Berberis thunbergia fastigiata atropurpurea “Helmond Pillar” , (a tall thin shrub with a long thin name!” and Quercus palustris “Green Pillar” which despite its name is grown for its deep red autumn colour.”

“We also recently planted a Viburnum with a very different growth habit to our fastigiate purchases. It is a low growing shrub with a very open, airy growth and sweetly scented flowers in April. It is also described as “almost evergreen”, so we will wait and see exactly how ours behaves. We already have a good collection of Viburnums around our Avocet patch.”

Some of my watercolour sketches of Hellebores and details of their petals feature on the next page.

“Hellebores peak in February adding a richness with the deep reds and purples as well as cheeriness with their yellow flowers.”

“I love turning up each flower to reveal its beauty, its colours and markings of spots and streaks.”

On the opposite page I looked at some of our grasses with winter interest and share some photos of them.

“In late February we begin to cut down “deciduous” grasses, choosing the right time to avoid cutting through this year’s new growth. Evergreen grasses especially varieties of Carex come into their own especially when partnered with evergreen foliage plants such as ferns, bergenias and arums.”

Moving on to the final double page spread for February, I considered coloured stemmed Dogwoods and a look at roses as they give their final points of interest before they are pruned and begin to grow anew for this year.

“The coloured stems of Dogwoods add so much colour to the winter borders. We use them to catch the rays of the low sun which helps them to glow and liven up our garden.”

I finished off my February journal entries by featuring roses and a very special plant, special because it is a dogwood that occurred in our garden as a chance seedling of Midwinter Fire crossed with one of our other Cornus plants. We have grown it on and now take lots of cuttings hoping to bulk it up. We hope to be able then to sell them at our open days. Very exciting!

I wrote, “Our Cornus Midwinter Fire throws up new plants from runners and occasionally a few from seed. The runners are identical to the parent plant but the seedlings can vary a lot. We pot the seedlings on and then plant them out on our allotment plot to allow us to identify “star plants”. We have one which is far redder than its parents and has better autumn colour. We are propagating these (see below). We have named it Cornus “Arabella’s Crimson” after our granddaughter.”

My final page is about roses and yellow flowers of the February garden. The yellow flowers are Jasminum nudiflorum, Cornus mas and a pale yellow rose bud. I wrote “Sparkling spots of yellow flowers brighten up the February weather, fighting against this month’s greys.”

“Late February is the time when we begin pruning our bush roses in readiness for the new growing season. We always find wrinkled rose hips and even the odd flower bud.

“Next month is one we really look forward to. Already by mid-February light values have improved, but soon Spring may begin to creep in!”

Tags arum, cornus, cornus mas, Cornus Midwinter Fire, dogwoods, fastigiate plants, flowering bulbs, grasses, iris, iris reticulata, ornamental grasses, shrubs in winter, spring bulbs, viburnum, winter, winter aconite, winter garden, winter gardening

Flintshire fruit and veg garden design garden photography gardening gardens gardens open to the public National Trust ornamental trees and shrubs The National Trust Wales Winter Gardening winter gardens

A Wonderful Welsh Winter Walk – Erddig Hall

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date February 25, 2018
1 Comment on A Wonderful Welsh Winter Walk – Erddig Hall

We took a short one hour drive out into Wales today to visit a National Trust property, Erddig which we hoped would afford us the opportunity of exploring a garden with winter interest, interest found in its formal structure, its topiary and imaginative pruning as well as planting. We knew that it holds the National Collection of Hedera (Ivies), so we had something specific and extra to look for too.

After too many wet weeks the day dawned bright and we were to be treated to a day of bright winter sunshine, which would play with shadows and light throughout our walk. We were surprised to discover that the whole place, buildings and gardens were in a state of disrepair bordering on dereliction in the 1960’s when a new owner decided to rescue it and awaken a real jewel of a property.

Two welcome signs greeted us as we entered, a rustic overhead design and another with a beautiful quote which read, “Where fragrance, peace and beauty reign ….”. We would soon see if this were true.

The garden is Grade 1 listed and is based around the 18th Century design. Amazingly it works well today! Even the car park and courtyards on the way in had points of interest to us gardeners, some of the Ivy cultivars, ancient wall-trained fruit, a beautifully carved wooden seat featuring carved horse heads and a vintage garden watering cart. We soon met our first Hederas (Ivy) in the collection, an unlabelled specimen which grew to frame a window, and one with beautiful foliage, Hedera hiburnicum variegata.

A feature we were looking forward to at Erddig was the huge variety of creatively pruned trees, both fruit trees and conifers. Some of these fruit trees must be decades old but are still skillfully pruned. Really well pruned and trained fruit trees are really beautiful. It felt good to see these age old gardening skills carrying on so professionally.

We discovered this double row of pleached limes after spotting an orange glow as the winter sun caught the new twigs and buds.

Beautifully topiarised conifers were presented in neat rows and as hedges throughout the formal garden area.

Not all the conifers were trimmed and controlled though, some were left to mature and become tall proud specimens.

We loved this tall double row of pollarded Poplar trees towering above our path, their network of silhouettes highlighted against the blue sky. This added to the strong structure of the garden.

We love to see a touch of humour in gardens and points of interest for children and we enjoyed a few here as we wandered around Erddig.

Erddig holds the National collection of Ivies, growing a huge selection of Hedera, but it took us along time to find the organised and well-labelled display of them growing along an old brick-built wall. We were amazed by the sheer variety, from plants with plain green typical leaves to those with the most beautiful and subtle variegation.

Don’t you just love to see what gardeners are up to when you visit a garden? Here hedge cutting and mulching borders with rich well-matured farmyard manure were keeping the gardeners on their toes. We were very impressed with the quality of their work and the evidence of a sense of pride in everything they did.

From the front of the house itself we found some wide views over the surrounding countryside.

I have only briefly mentioned the Ivy collection at Erddig so far but I will change all that by sharing a collection of my pics of the Ivies as a gallery. Please enjoy by clicking on the first photo and using the arrows to navigate.

Hollies feature too with a lovely varied collection sadly with no labels but here are some to enjoy anyway.

Each photo of an Ilex tree is matched with a close up of its foliage.

So you can appreciate just how impressed we were with the gardens at Erddig on our return visit after many years. We will be returning more often in the future!

Tags Erddig, Erddig Gardens, Erddig Hall, gardens of Wales, hedera, hollies, ilex, ivies, ornamental trees, pleached limes, pleaching, pollarding, topiary., trees and shrubs, Wales

garden design garden photography gardening gardens gardens open to the public grasses hardy perennials meadows ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs RHS Yorkshire

Two RHS Gardens – Part 2 Harlow Carr

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date February 13, 2018
1 Comment on Two RHS Gardens – Part 2 Harlow Carr

To visit the second of the RHS gardens we visited during 2017 we had to travel north up to Yorkshire and we stayed near Harrogate, a beautiful spa town. This is the RHS garden we probably visit the most as it is our favourite and we love the area it is situated in. We chose to go up in late summer. We particularly enjoy the Winter Garden and the new perennial gardens and as we had already visited to see the Winter Garden so we needed to see the perennials borders too.

The RHS are excellent at giving a warm welcome to its visitors and we certainly felt that at their most northerly garden, beautiful planters, great breakfast at the famous “Betty’s Tearooms” and cheerful plants as we entered the main gardens, including bright, cheerful meadow planting.

A recent children’s competition involving creating miniature gardens in old boots provided some entertainment at the bottom of the main steps into the garden.

Next we will share moments we enjoyed as we made our way towards the educational centre with its new buildings, glasshouse and plantings.

The gardens around the education centre provide a fine example of contemporary plant choice and plant combinations, starring grasses and tall airy perennials, growing beautifully among gravel, a wildlife pond and a contemporary styled vegetable garden alongside. Even the seating has been carefully chosen to look just right. Nothing has been left to chance!

As mentioned at the beginning of this post we were looking forward in particular to wandering around the borders of “new perennial planting” especially as we were visiting when it should be its prime time. So please enjoy this wander with us by following the gallery. Click on the first picture then navigate with the arrows.

When we were finishing our visit to this wonderful RHS garden we made our way back for a final coffee before finding our car and returning to our hotel, and noticed a large and very beautiful insect hotel alongside the path. It was an heartening end to our exploration.

Tags grasses, hardy perennials, new perennial gardening, ornamental grasses, perennials, RHS, RHS gardens, RHS Harlow Carr, Yorkshire

colours conservation garden design garden furniture garden photography garden seat garden seating gardening gardens gardens open to the public grasses hardy perennials light light quality ornamental grasses RHS

Hyde Hall and its Dry Garden

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date February 9, 2018
1 Comment on Hyde Hall and its Dry Garden

As promised we now return once again to share our experience and enjoyment of our visit to RHS garden Hyde Hall and in particular to celebrate the famous Dry Garden. This was a small patch when we first saw it but a recent revamp has seen it develop greatly in scale but more importantly the addition of new plants has enhanced the original scheme. This patch of planting is on a gentle knoll of land and the plants in it have never been fed or watered since they were first planted. We were interested in this as we treat areas of our Avocet patch in exactly the same way. To us it seems a very natural way to garden, being much as Mother Nature intended for some wild areas.

Gravel is the mulch surface through which plants are planted and clear gravel patches become paths and ways to explore the plantings. Right on the very top is a stunning wooden seat, which is a splendid place to sit and look all around every degree of the full 360 view!

I shall now share a selection of photos I took of the dry garden to give you an impression of the style and character of the planting.

There is another phase of development underway at Hyde Hall so we need to visit again soon to see what is going on – can’t wait!

Tags dry gardening, Essex, Essex gardens, Hyde Hall Gardens, RHS, RHS gardens, RHS Hyde Hall, the dry garden

colours garden design garden photography gardening gardens gardens open to the public grasses hardy perennials light light quality ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs RHS

Two RHS Gardens – Part 1 – Hyde Hall

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date February 2, 2018

As members of the RHS we often visit their gardens and their partner gardens. Sadly it is a long journey to get to any of their main gardens so we do not visit as often as we would like. We make an effort to visit at least two each year.

In 2017 the two we selected were Hyde Hall in Essex and Harlow Carr in Yorkshire, two very different gardens, one in the south and one in the north. The first we visited was Hyde Hall which is the furthest away of all their gardens so we have only ever explored it once before. We made this journey in the middle of the summer and were looking forward in particular to seeing how the Dry Garden had developed as this was a new venture when we originally visited this garden. When we journey down to Essex we usually pay a visit to the garden of the great lady of British gardening, Beth Chatto, but this time we did not have time. But we will go to her garden soon when I will post about her incredible garden when we do. For now though we will concentrate on the gardens of Hyde Hall.

It is rarely possible to admire the planting within a car park, but at Hyde Hall the planting was worth looking at and photographing. It was based on new style perennial planting which had such a gentle calming effect on us as we walked from the car to the garden. Grasses and airy perennials were the mainstay of the plantings.

Once inside the gardens themselves, the quality of planting and the brilliant way in which plant partners were grouped were of the highest quality.

Grasses feature strongly at Hyde Hall adding texture to the landscape where grass is cut selectively, but different ornamental cultivars are used for structure and their architectural presence, and in mixed plantings for contrast, movement and for visitors to touch and stroke.

In places we could identify where plants had been chosen to take advantage of the light from the sun, using its brightness to encourage us to see reflection, shimmering light, glossy textures and contrasting patterns. Essex is dry and sunny particularly compared to our Shropshire climate. Using the brightness of the sun and the dryness of the climate to enhance gardens is so clever and not often done well. Hyde Hall is the star in this department.

In my second post about this wonderful RHS garden I shall focus on their famous Dry Garden, but for now I want to explore the way light is used so effectively in some areas. Light can emphasise glossiness of foliage, it can emphasise the interplay of light and shade and it can emphasise texture.

Tags dry gardening, Essex, Essex gardens, grasses, hardy perennials, Hyde Hall Gardens, light, light and shade, light quality, new perennial gardening, ornamental grasses, perennials, RHS, RHS gardens, RHS Harlow Carr, the dry garden

garden design garden photography gardening gardens gardens open to the public hardy perennials National Trust ornamental trees and shrubs outdoor sculpture sculpture The National Trust trees

Anglesey Abbey in mid-Summer

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 29, 2018

Anglesey Abbey gardens are best known for their brilliant Winter Gardens, which were the first well-known gardens designed to be at their best and visited at this season. But there is far more to these premises than this seasonal garden, such as beautiful gentle herbaceous borders and lots of plants that attract wildlife.

The famous Winter Garden is still worth wandering through though!

We set off beyond the Winter Garden to see what we could discover of interest in the rest of the garden. We felt sure we were in for a few surprises! Turning a corner and rounding a hedge of glossy leaved Laurel we found a mystery. A piece of sculpture? A clock? We explored it for a while before we realised its true identity.

The oak structures are designed to support visitors as they lean back to enjoy the wide Fenland skyscapes.

To return to the entrance we followed a tow path alongside a very overgrown canal, its surface carpeted with our native yellow waterlily.

Looking upwards we noticed an open structured sculptural piece hanging from a bough of a mature tree. It presented a strong contrast to the stone griffin close by.

In the end though what makes a good garden great is the quality of its plants and how they are put together. The photos below prove just how great the gardens at Anglesey Abbey truly are whatever time of year you visit.

Tags Anglesey Abbey, bark colour, betula, Betula utulis, birches, Cambridge, coloured bark, coloured stems, deciduous trees, garden wildlife, gardens of the National Trust, herbaceous borders, herbaceous plants, National Trust, ornamental trees, wildlife gardening, winter garden, winter gardens

architecture garden arches garden design garden photography gardening gardens gardens open to the public hardy perennials ornamental trees and shrubs pergolas Uncategorized woodland woodlands Yorkshire

Parcevall Hall Gardens – Wharfedale

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 24, 2018
2 Comments on Parcevall Hall Gardens – Wharfedale

Situated in Wharfedale one of the most beautiful places in North Yorkshire, Parcevall Hall was really difficult to access via narrow roads, hairpin bends and narrow bridges, but it somehow suited the place that we enjoyed one day in September. The gardens were beautiful and typical of those created in the arts and crafts style, the house being redesigned and much developed at that time also.

The house and gardens sit beautifully on a steep slope which certainly added interest for there was much for the garden team and designer to overcome in the making of the garden, slopes and steps abound. Some of the garden was above the hall, a Rose Garden and the area known as Silver Wood, which hid an unusual rock garden. Below the house terraces were dug into the slope and many different garden rooms created. There was strong design to appreciate and beautiful plants to admire.

We walked up from the Garden Office and Tea Rooms after crossing over a tiny clear stream and wandering up through woodland. From a clearing in the woods we enjoyed a view over the rambling rooftops of the hall and all its outbuildings.

The woodland was dotted with berried and flowering shrubs many with signs that birds and rodents had been enjoying them.

Although the plan we were following meant we expected to find the Rock Garden hidden within Silver Wood it was still a wonderful surprising sight when we first came across it. It was a rock garden of huge proportions cut out from the natural slopes and featured a tiny meandering stream falling slowly down its slope. There were some interesting plants to be found among the rocks.

Please follow the gallery below to tour the rock garden with us. Click on first photo and navigate using the arrows.

After leaving the Rock Garden and Silver Wood we wandered around the hall to find the terraced gardens below it. Each terrace had an atmosphere of its own and different plantings. The best way to show you what we found is by using another gallery to help you enjoy these terraces with us.

To finish off this journey around Parcevall Hall I want to show you this little group of bronze hares looking up at the moon. Moonstruck hares! Great little cameo!

One rogue has no interest in the moon at all and had even turned his back on it to preen himself.

Tags arts and crafts, garden terraces, hares, Parcevall Hall, woodland gardens, Yorkshire

colours garden design garden photography garden ponds gardening gardens gardens open to the public light log piles National Garden Scheme NGS nurseries ornamental trees and shrubs outdoor sculpture Powis Powys shrubs trees Wales Winter Gardening winter gardens Yellow Book Gardens

The Dingle Gardens Welshpool – January

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 21, 2018

Here we are back visiting our chosen garden each month, with our garden for 2018 being the attached garden at The Dingle Nurseries near Welshpool. This garden is of a totally different scale, atmosphere and style to Attingham Park, our garden for 2017. The garden is open every day of the year bar Christmas Day and on odd days the fees go to the National Garden Scheme.

The nursery is stocked with perennials, shrubs and trees but specialises mostly in the last two, and it is from here that we tend to buy our trees and shrubs. This is a nursery we are delighted to have on our dooorstep. As we move through the entrance we always enjoy the displays of plants with current interest and similarly plants for winter interest and displayed in the first few rows of plants.

So, here we are on the 14th January with our first visit to our new garden, arriving on a dull lightly overcast day. Having never visited before this deep into winter, we entered through the wooden gate green with algae and followed the gravel paths into the garden, not quite knowing what to expect. We enjoy surprises in the gardens we visit!

Evergreens both coniferous and broadleaves lined the paths and are planted in thoughtful groupings. In the first photo a dark, glossy leaved Pittosporum “Tom Thumb” sits comfortably with a Euphorbia, a Brachyglottis and a Hebe. In the second picture two conifers illustrate how different they can be in texture, colour and form.

Early in our wanderings we found this lovely rustic seat which is slowly being eroded away by the weather. Close by the seat glowed the pale green flowers of a Helleborus foetidus.

Hydrangeas appear throughout the garden in the autumn showing their colourful inflorescences in pinks, white and blues, while throughout the winter these colours fade to biscuits, gingers and ivory. In some flowers hints of blues and pinks remain.

Out of season flowers appear here and there on odd shrubs, on others leaf buds promise fresh growth in the spring while berries hang as remnants of their winter harvest.

When tree surgery work is carried out in the Dingle Garden logs are left as habitats for the many forms of wildlife that maintain a healthy ecosystem in the garden.

At the lowest point of the gardens a calm lake affords us a place to stop awhile to look around its banks. A bog garden at one end looks dull and dark at this time of year, with just the deep brown of dead leaves of Gunnera and Lysichiton americanus rising above the mud.

Recent heavy snowfall has caused damage to trees and shrubs, breaking branches of all sizes and crushing foliage. Strong winter winds have added to the damage.

To share more of my photos taken during our wandering and enjoyment of the gardens at the Dingle I have created the following gallery. Enjoy the pictures. The next visit to this garden will be in February.