Category: garden design

Ruthall Manor – well worth the wait.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 13, 2018
2 Comments on Ruthall Manor – well worth the wait.

We go for years intending to visit a garden but sometimes circumstances dictate otherwise. This is what happened with Ruthall Manor, a Shropshire Yellow Book Garden. After years we finally visited earlier this year in June. The wait was so worth while!

First impressions count for a lot when you visit a garden, and a good garden can quickly reveal its qualities and general level of care. Atmosphere, special places and surprises will reveal themselves later and more slowly. A good garden will keep on giving.

Ruthall Manor soon made us feel warmly welcomed and involved in the plantings and design. It had the added bonus of some original interesting sculptural pieces beautifully positioned within plantings or out on their own as centres of attention.

Pathways, arches and gateways encouraged us to explore further, around the next corner, through a hedge or border or into the next garden area.

I thought that the best way to share as many pieces of sculpture and artifacts as possible I would create this gallery for you to enjoy. The variety of pieces was so large that we just did not now what to expect around the next corner.

In the end of course good plants well chosen, cared for and partnered thoughtfully are what gives a garden its true quality.

So Ruthall Manor was certainly worth waiting so long to go and visit. What an enjoyable afternoon!

Tags garden arches, garden furniture, garden paths, garden sculpture, garden seating, gardens seats, National Garden Scheme, NGS, outdoor sculpture, Yellow Book, Yellow Book Gardens

autumn autumn colours garden design garden photography gardening gardens gardens open to the public lakes National Garden Scheme NGS nurseries ornamental trees and shrubs Powis Powys shrubs trees Wales water in the garden Yellow Book Gardens

The Dingle Gardens Month by Month 2018

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 5, 2018
2 Comments on The Dingle Gardens Month by Month 2018

My chosen garden f0r my monthly visits in 2018 is so much smaller than Attingham Park which we enjoyed throughout 2017. The Dingle is a Nursery just over the border into Wales situated on the edge of the market town of Welshpool. The garden is accessed through a little wooden gate in the bottom left corner of the nursery where a large selection of Acer shrubs are displayed for sale. It is a garden centred around a huge collection of shrubs and trees, many unusual, growing on a gentle slope down to a lake.

The garden like ours opens at times under the auspices of the National Garden Scheme, but opens every other day of the year bar Christmas Day. I have already featured the gardens four times in my past posts. Here are a few photos to give you a taste of what we might discover during the year.

I hope these few photos will give you an appetite for the 12 posts to come about The Dingle in 2018.

Tags gardens of Powys, gardens of Wales, Powis, Powys, shrubs, The Dingle Nurseries, The Dingle Welshpool, trees, trees and shrubs

climbing plants colours garden design garden photography gardening gardens gardens open to the public half-hardy perennials hardy perennials meadows National Trust ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs poppies roses The National Trust

Packwood – one of the stars of the National Trust.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 31, 2017

We have held memberships of the National Trust for over 40 years and one of the first we took our two children to was Packwood Hall. Packwood is now a firm favourite and we made a visit again this year. The welcome sign describes Packwood as “a house to dream of, a garden to dream in”. We were only intending to look at the house from the outside and mainly intended to explore the garden in greater detail. Packwood is well known for its unusual collection of sundials.

The approach to Packwood is one of the most welcoming we have ever come across, passing through wildflower meadows and impressive gateways.

Once we had passed through a few of these gateways and archways we discovered colourful well-designed borders full of herbaceous perennials and roses. Much of the planting had been chosen to attract wildlife, predators and pollinators.

The gardens were well structured, divided into garden rooms with different characters and atmospheres in each. In one formal lawn area we came across a rectangular sunk garden built from limestone and its borders were planted with plants that enjoyed the dry well drained soil. These plants provided a strong contrast to the lush look of the rest of the gardens.

Lush planting was prevalent elsewhere throughout the garden making for an atmosphere of excitement. There were wonderful individual plants to be found as well as well designed borders.

A well-known aspect of the gardens at Packwood is its topiary, especially a group called the twelve apostles. Personally I found this part of Packwood rather dull but here are the photos I took to illustrate it. However I do have a soft spot for cloud pruning of hedges.

Tags cloud pruning, garden open to the public, garden wildlife, gardening for wildlife, gardens of the National Trust, half-hardy perennials, hardy perennials, herbaceous borders, herbaceous plants, meadows, Natiional Trust Gardens, Packwood Hall, roses, sunken garden, topiary., wildflower meadows, wildlife gardening

Christmas Christmas traditions fruit and veg garden arches garden design garden photography gardening gardens gardens open to the public grow your own kitchen gardens National Trust Shrewsbury Shropshire The National Trust walled gardens walled kitchen gardens winter gardens woodland

A Walk in the Park – Attingham Park December

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 29, 2017
1 Comment on A Walk in the Park – Attingham Park December

We made our monthly visit to Attingham Park, our last one for 2017, just as Christmas was making itself known at this National Trust property. Before we even reached the coffee shop for our usual warm drink to get us fueled up for our walk, we had been met by a snowman, a Christmas tree and we were entertained to some 1940’s music and dancing. The hall was decorated in a 1940’s style so the dancing set the scene.

The trees were decorated with wartime decorations, based on the idea of “make and make do”, as were the decorations in the coffee shop, where paper chains were made from newspaper. The trees were themed with one based on children’s games from the 1940’s and another was book based.

We came across a few other Snowmen, as we followed the one-mile trail, to amuse us on this chilly day. I managed to get around this month without my wheelchair as my recovery from leg surgery is coming along nicely. I walked the mile using a crutch which was very pleasing and rewarding!

Wandering through the woodland areas beneath tall mature trees, we noticed that a few browned leaves were managing to hang on to the branches but the majority were bare skeletons. These frameworks of trunks, branches and twigs were magnificent with no green leaves to hide their structure.

New buds were already waiting patiently on some branches anticipating spring far off on the horizon, while on other neighbouring trees a few dried leaves hung on. One patch of trees still showed some green in its canopy. A few old seed pods hung on having defied the storms, rains and gales of autumn, seed heads of trees, shrubs and perennial plants.

We wandered around the walled garden now virtually clear of crops, leaving hazel pole structures bare of the bean plants that once adorned them. The volunteer staff here are adept at creating beautiful and original plant structures.

A green flowered cauliflower had recently been attacked by frost, so had browned a little. Celeriac though recently cropped awaited storage.

The gardeners’ bothy was simply decorated but full of atmosphere, added to by the gardeners and volunteers enjoying their break so the aroma of freshly brewed coffee mingled with the smell of wood smoke.

Whatever time of year you explore the countryside, parkland or even more so a garden, there are always surprises awaiting. An out of season flower, a bud bursting at an inappropriate time or sadly at times the sudden death of a favourite plant. Two surprises were awaiting us at Attingham this December. First were lemon yellow catkins hanging fresh and healthily from hazel shrubs. These are usually key features of the month of February. In December they provided a beautiful diversion for me and my camera lens!

The second surprise was a Rhododendron shrub in flower!

Now that we have explored the parkland at Attingham Park every month during 2017, we need to decide where our monthly visit will be next year. We need somewhere open all year and of interest every month too. We shall let you know in the new year! I hope you have enjoyed visiting Attingham with us each month during 2017.

Tags Attingham Park, bothy, Christmas, Christmas traditions, Christmas Trees, gardens of Shropshire, gardens of the National Trust, National Trust, Shrewsbury, Shropshire gardens, snowmen, The National Trust, walled garden, walled gardens, woodland, woodland gardening

colours garden design garden photography gardening gardens grasses hardy perennials light light quality ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs outdoor sculpture roses sculpture Shrewsbury Shropshire shrubs Winter Gardening winter gardens

After the Storm – snow in December

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 16, 2017
3 Comments on After the Storm – snow in December

Mid-December saw the sudden arrival of snow a rare occurrence in recent years. The last time we can remember having any appreciable snow fall in December was back in 2010 and 2011. Sadly I am still recovering from my surgery so really haven’t been able to get out there and enjoy the white stuff. However it did give me the chance to send Jude the Undergardener out with my trusty Nikon, so this post will feature all her photographs.

They are pretty good for someone who says she can’t use a camera! Methinks the lady objects too much! Jude the Undergardener has such a good eye for a picture!

Seedheads of perennials gain caps of snow and ice, and light finds places to make sparkle.

Twiggy skeletons of shrubs that had lost their leaves managed to catch balls of snow in their branches.

Evergreen trees and shrubs gather much more snow and ice around them like thick duvets.

Sculptures scattered around the garden change as they absorb the snow.

Surprise flowers add tiny patches of colour among the whiteness, roses throwing up surprises through to the end of the year. Similarly the colours of fruits and berries pop up from the snow like “jack-in-the-box”, but this will only last until our winter thrushes consume them.

Structures that blend into the background for the rest of the year come to the fore when winter arrives but even more so when snow covers the garden in white. These structures include trained fruit trees, trellises, evergreen climbers and pollarded trees.

Looking out of the garden into our borrowed landscape showed that the countryside too had put on a new coat. Looking into the garden there are very special moments in time to catch. This leaf may at any time fall to the ground in a gentle breeze.

Tags berried shrubs, berries, December, light, light and shade, light quality, ornamental grasses, shrubs in winter, snow, the garden in December, winter, winter garden, winter gardening, winter gardens

autumn autumn colours colours flowering bulbs garden design gardening gardens gardens open to the public half-hardy perennials hardy perennials kitchen gardens light light quality National Trust pathways photography Shrewsbury Shropshire The National Trust woodland woodlands

A Walk in the Park – Attingham Park November

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 9, 2017

Number eleven in my series of posts where I report on our monthly visits for a wander around Attingham Park, our local National Trust property. Just as in October I was in a wheelchair pushed around the paths by Jude, the Undergardener so some of the photos will look taken from a low angle. Please enjoy sharing our visit with us!

We decided to follow the One-Mile Walk and as usual made our way firstly towards the Walled Garden. Autumn had settled in although some varieties of tree still held onto a full complement of foliage, awaiting another few days of frosts to join into the feeling/essence of the season. The colourful mixed herbaceous and annual flower borders which have been welcoming us into the walled garden have almost lost their colour with just a few yellow-flowered Rudbeckias extending the show.

The borders around the central circular dipping well still showed colour from healthy-looking specimens of Penstemen “Garnet” and a few white flowers as companions.

The vintage hose-reel held modern plastic hose in a bright yellow rolled up to form tight patterns.

The wooden doorway from the main section of the walled garden which leads visitors into the glasshouse section opened wide to reveal a wheelbarrow full of Dahlias prunings. A gardener knelt nearby preparing the plants for their winter storage. She had lifted the plants, cut their top growth off with her Felco secateurs, thrown these prunings into her barrow and busily cleared soil from around the tubers. These she would take off into one of the cool brick stores to overwinter. Some of the hardier varieties were in flower closer to the gardeners’ bothy.

All of the glasshouses were closed up against the changing weather, but through their windows we spied pumpkins and chilies drying. Nerines added pink cheer to the outsides.

The autumn light shone through the trees at a low angle lighting up the colours of the changing foliage giving the effects of stained glass windows.

Next month’s visit will be the final one of our 12 monthly visits to Attingham Park to study the seasonal changes. We look forward to seeing how the move into the next season, winter, will show itself.

Tags Attingham Park, autumn, autumn colours, garden in autumn, gardens of Shropshire, glasshouses, old glasshouses, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, walled garden, walled gardens

autumn colours climbing plants colours flowering bulbs garden design garden photography garden wildlife gardening gardens half-hardy perennials hardy perennials irises light light quality log piles logs natural pest control ornamental trees and shrubs roses Shrewsbury Shropshire shrubs South Shropshire spring bulbs succulents trees

My Garden Journal 2017 – November

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 7, 2017
2 Comments on My Garden Journal 2017 – November

The penultimate visit to my garden journal for 2017 is here – hope you enjoy it. I began by referring back to a development we started in the garden back in September which we finished off in November. We are very pleased with how it has turned out and look forward to seeing the new plants flourish.

“October continued with damaging winds and days with brown skies and orange sun as we received the effects f Hurricane Ophelia, downgraded to Storm Ophelia as it hit our shores. The last few weeks of October and the early days of November, saw us busy continuing develop our “Oil Tank Garden”.

“We screened the ugly tank with panels of beautiful diamond latticed panels and soon got on with the planting. Always the exciting bit!”

Over the page I continue to describe our development of this border and wrote “Behind the tank we have planted two trees, the Heptacodium mentioned in September and a stunning Sorbus called Joseph Rock with yellow berries in stark contrast to its deepest red autumn foliage.

“Hundreds of miniature daffodils were planted with crocus, Anemone blanda and other small bulbs.”

“A new solitary bee home was sited in the new garden. We gave it a miniature green roof!”

“We soon had a selection of climbers planted to clothe the trellis panels, Roses, Clematis, Honeysuckle and a Coronilla”.

“Behind the tank we planted for wildlife and hedgehogs in particular. We placed a nestbox for hedgehogs among dense planting of ferns and Euphorbias. We added stone piles, leaf piles and log piles.”

Turning over another page I featured some words by Dan Pearson and looked at some autumn flowering plants.

“Taking a look at Dan Pearson’s writings about Autumn in his “Natural Selections” book he wrote,

I want to invite the seasons into the garden, vividly and in layers. I use asters, autumn crocus and gentians at ground level, and shrubs that perform for this season to take the eye up and away, to straighten the back. I weave berrying trees and shrubs into the garden as much for their jewel-like fruit as for the birds which flock down to gorge when the fruit is ready for feasting upon.”

We aim to do exactly the same in our Avocet patch. Below are a few of our Asters which feature in our “Shrub Border”, a border that brings Autumn in.”

“Another herbaceous perennial that features strongly in our November garden are the Salvias. We leave a few to over-winter in the garden but most will be brought into the cool greenhouse.”

Turning over again I take a look at succulents, plants rarely mentioned in the context of the autumn garden.

“When considering Autumn colour, succulents are rarely mentioned, but just check out the photos below of some of our succulents taken in November“

Below are my paintings/drawings of two multi-coloured succulent stems which I created with water soluble pencil crayons.

“Taking succulent cuttings.”

“Final pots of succulents waiting to go into their winter home.”

The final page of my November entries in the Garden Journal celebrates my “Plant of the Month”, which is one of only two Irises native to the UK, Iris foetidissima.

The next visit to look at my Garden Journal in 2017 will be the last one for the year, December.

Tags autumn, autumn colours, clematis, climbing plants, garden photography, garden wildlife, gardening, NGS, ornamental grasses, ornamental trees, roses, salvias, shrubs, spring bulbs, succulents, trees, wildlife

architecture garden design garden designers garden photography garden ponds garden pools gardening gardens grasses hardy perennials meadows National Garden Scheme NGS ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs outdoor sculpture reflections sculpture Tom Stuart-Smith trees Uncategorized walled gardens water garden water in the garden Yellow Book Gardens

Cogshall Grange – a Cheshire garden designed by Tom Stuart-Smith

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 26, 2017
4 Comments on Cogshall Grange – a Cheshire garden designed by Tom Stuart-Smith

Sometimes when you find a garden in the National Garden Scheme’s Yellow Book, you just know it is going to be a special place. Such was the case with the gardens at Cogshall Grange in Cheshire. The description in the book was so inviting and the reality matched it perfectly. It had been designed by Tom Stuart-Smith, one of our favourite garden designers and featured both formal and informal elements, woodland borders, a walled garden, modern herbaceous planting, wildflower meadows and an orchard, all set in the grounds of a Georgian country house.

Jude and I traveled up to Cheshire with friends Pete and Sherlie who also love the work of Tom S-S, so we all arrived full of anticipation.

As we moved from room to room in the garden discovering each feature the atmosphere and mood changed and we were constantly presented with fresh perspectives. This garden was a true garden experience.

We were really looking forward to seeing inside the walled garden which was where the influence of Tom Stuart-Smith was clearly to be seen, but of course we started with coffee and cake to get us in the mood. We discovered and enjoyed interesting small areas of planting as we made our way towards the walled garden, a delicately planted container, some beautifully pruned box and some varied, well chosen plant combinations.

Just as the garden was a careful amalgam of traditional parkland and modern perennial planting so the country house was a combination of old and modern architecture.

The walled garden was where the influence of Tom S-S could be seen and felt most strongly, with his very personal planting style and choice of plants mostly hardy perennials. The atmosphere was so gentle and calming. There was so much to photograph within its walls that the only way to do it any justice at all is through a gallery for you to peruse at your own pace. Please as usual click on the first shot and navigate using the arrows. I hope you can identify the very special feeling of this space.

We left the walled garden via a gateway which led us into gentle meadows of wildflower planting.

Walking back to the car to begin our homeward journey, we continued to make discoveries, some grassland had been cut to contrast with the longer uncut areas which were dotted with sculpture such as this beautiful stone seat.

This beautiful garden excelled!

Tags Cheshire, Cheshire gardens, clipped box, hardy perennials, herbaceous plants, meadows, new perennial gardening, perennials, plant combinations, Tom Stuart-Smith, topiary., walled garden, walled gardens, water feature, water gardening, water gardens, water in the garden, wildflower meadows

garden design garden furniture garden photography garden seating gardening

Are you sitting comfortably – no 13 in a very occasional series.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 23, 2017

More seats to enjoy looking at and to imagine sitting in – enjoy!

This first set is from Bryn y Llidiart, garden set high in the Welsh hills in a beautiful undulating garden with a variety of rich views so every seat enjoys its own special place to look at.

Closer to home is a large country cottage just inside the Welsh border, Hurdley Hall, with a garden full of surprises and one which invites wildlife within its boundaries. Seats allow the visitor to soak up the special atmosphere this garden possesses. Some of the seats invite you to sit and enjoy tea and cakes, others to cool down in the shade and some to enjoy delicious views.

A 4-acre garden set in the beautiful Welsh countryside not far from home and north of us is Aberclwyd Manor is so full of atmosphere. It made us feel so calm and rested, so the many seats were very welcome, although many were too old and rickety to sit on.

Tags garden design, garden features, garden furniture, garden seating, garden seats

architecture Cheshire garden design garden paths garden photography garden ponds garden pools garden seat garden seating gardening gardens gardens open to the public grasses hardy perennials ornamental trees and shrubs trees

The Most Romantic Garden in England – Cholmondeley Castle

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 18, 2017

Many visitors believe that the gardens at Cholmondeley Castle are the most romantic in England, and after each visit we have made it is hard to disagree. Jude, the Undergardener and I visited in mid-September with a group of college friends, every one of whom loved it for its atmosphere. The “Cheshire’s Gardens 2017″ leaflet describe the gardens as “Romantic, beautiful and wild”.

The Cholmondeley family have lived on the site since 1200 but the castle we saw was built in the early 19th Century. Today the gardens feature the Folly Garden, a Lily Pond, a woodland area, as well as smaller borders such as the grass borders. The wide sweeping lawns encourage visitors to wander freely between the borders and enjoy long views.

As we walked these inviting paths, enjoying wide vistas and clumps of mature trees we stopped frequently when our eyes rested upon some fine planting, beautiful individual plants and imaginative groupings.