Category: garden photography

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colours garden photography gardening gardens hardy perennials National Garden Scheme NGS outdoor sculpture roses Shropshire Uncategorized village gardens Yellow Book Gardens

Our first post lock down NGS Garden in Shropshire – ‘Offcot’

Opening our own garden along with Vicky, Rosa and Jacob’s next door garden early in July made us one of Shropshire’s first open gardens under the new timed ticket system.

The first Shropshire NGS garden we visited was a little later when we visited Offcot, a garden with a younger gardener/owner than is the norm with NGS gardens.

We arrived at the gate of the garden and were greeted by our friend Ruth, an assistant organiser for the NGS Shropshire. Ruth had assisted at out opening and also sold some of her plants but here at Offcot she was on the gate and serving refreshments too. A warm welcome from Ruth and brightly coloured flowers as we entered the garden both boded well for the visit.

Around the first corner we were stopped dead by this unusual piece of recycled metal sculpture! But from then on it was the planting that we stopped to admire.

We are not fans of annual bedding plants and we don’t like petunias either but we were amazed at the quality of these plants especially those hanging plant collections.

We enjoyed the choice of colours of roses and dahlias, with some unusual shades in evidence.

It always feels good wandering around a garden when longer views catch the eye, especially where borders surround patches of neatly cut grass.

We really enjoyed this visit to a refreshingly good garden and of course the first visit after lockdown to a Shropshire NGS garden.

 

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garden design garden furniture garden paths garden photography garden seat garden seating gardening gardens hardy perennials ornamental trees and shrubs Powis Powys roses town gardens Yellow Book Gardens

Pont Faen – another lock down garden in Powys

We visited another NGS garden in Powys as we continued our way through lock down, this time the garden was on the edge of the town of Knighton. Pont Faen was owned and garden by a retired farmer and his wife.

The garden wrapped around the house and had a colourful collection of alstroemeria, several roses, dahlias and many bright coloured patches of rudbeckias.

   

All these collections of colourful plants were scattered around a garden of lawn and large sweeping borders, which allowed us to see large parts of the garden at the same time.

The gardeners here have a wonderful use of foliage either in clumps of species together such as these hostas or integrated into borders as a foil for the flowering plants.

Another interesting garden visit to help cheer us up while locked down – so enjoyable!

 

 

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garden furniture garden photography

Are you sitting comfortably? August 2020 – no 24

It has been a while since I wrote a fresh post about garden seats because of the long period of lock down and shielding, so it is great to be creating a new one. As usual enjoy looking at the seats and consider what it would be like to rest awhile on them to enjoy the garden and its viewpoints.

The first photo below shows Jude, the Undergardener with our granddaughter Arabella enjoying the seats between two patches of meadow plants. To the right are the same seats with no sitters!

The next four are of seats we found in an NGS garden in Powys our neighbouring county in Wales.

And this set is from another Powys NGS open garden

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Wherever our travels take us next in search of gardens to enjoy I will be keeping an eye out for seats!

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garden design garden photography outdoor sculpture sculpture Shropshire

The Tree of Life

During lockdown we were also shielding because of my vulnerable status due to a blood condition and COPD so during that time we were unable to meet up with others. Towards the end of that period we were due to celebrate our 50th Wedding Anniversary with friends and family. Sadly this could not happen but we do have a special gift from Jude the Undergardener’s mother, Sheila which has now taken pride of place in one of our sitting areas.

It is a corten steel relief sculpture of a Tree of Life, which looks wonderful against a newly painted brick wall. It features three birds enjoying its branches.

This beautiful silhouette can be seen along a long view down the central path from the .bottom of the garden. Lovely to look at as we walk up the path back towards the house.

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autumn colours flowering bulbs garden photography gardening gardens hardy perennials

Crocosmias – the brightest stars of the mid-summer garden

When wandering around our garden in mid-August we were surprised by how many crocosmias were flowering even though the earlier varieties such as C. ‘Lucifer’ had already faded and were producing their rather beautifully structured and coloured seed heads which will last for months and provide good cutting material. The gallery below features those crocosmias that we enjoy in our garden through August, September and into October for their flowers and then onwards through winter for their stuctural seedheads.

 

So I decided to wander around the garden with my camera and take photos of each different one, for you to enjoy as a gallery. As usual click on the first picture and then navigate using the arrows.

 

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countryside garden design garden paths garden photography gardening gardens hardy perennials landscapes National Garden Scheme NGS ornamental trees and shrubs Powis Powys shrubs Yellow Book Gardens

Some NGS gardens open by timed tickets – part 1 – Bachie Uchaf

After not being able to visit any gardens during the lockdown period, due to government guidelines, it was great when some lifting of the lockdown rules allowed gardens using a timed pre-booked ticket only system to open. The RHS, NT and our very own NGS (Yellow Book Gardens) all made plans to make this safe.

We opened our own garden along with our next door neighbour on the 2nd and 3rd July, which was great success. But we also started visiting our NGS gardens too.

The first of these was Bachie Uchaf a garden not far away in Powys. It felt great to be out enjoying someone else’s garden. Between the car park on a rough part of the farmyard and the house itself we passed some impressive plant combinations which gave us ideas of what we had to look forward to in the main garden.

The garden is set at the head of a valley so afforded impressive views out into the Welsh countryside.

This was a garden divided up into ‘rooms’ but still afforded us long vistas within its quarry bottom setting.

Bachie Uchaf surprised us with its unusual quarry bottom setting but also by the imaginative planting and use of space availability by the gardeners/owners. One final area that impressed us in particular was a steep rock face planted with succulents mostly sedums. Very unusual and cheerful.

 

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birds countryside garden design garden paths garden photography garden ponds gardening gardens hardy perennials National Garden Scheme NGS ornamental trees and shrubs pathways Powis Powys Wales water in the garden Yellow Book Gardens

Into Wales for a Post Lockdown Garden Visit

We never expected to find a beautiful garden at the end of a long narrow farm track with grass down its centre, but we did! We were going to visit an NGS garden in the neighbouring county of Powys. The garden in question was ‘Moel-y-Gwelltyn-Ucha, a steeply terraced cottage garden situated at 900 feet above sea level, a truly challenging spot to create a garden.

When we finally arrived at the property we parked close to the five bar gate to the garden and  were warmly greeted by the owners/gardeners. Walking alongside the cottage walls the planting against them gave us an idea of what was to come so we couldn’t wait to get started.

This was a garden with a superior borrowed landscape, gently rolling farmland and the sounds of birdsong, lost lambs and old tractors.

The garden itself also had a peaceful atmosphere which made us feel very relaxed. Gravel paths followed the contours of the slope and the terraces and by following each one and exploring around every corner the garden revealed more and more of its secrets.

A large wildlife pond took up a position centre stage. We came across it several times during our exploration and it sat beautifully within the overall design of the garden.

Surprises always add so much to a garden’s character.

 

Some interesting plants stopped us in our tracks as we moved around the garden, all beautifully healthy and in many cases very well matched to partners.

        

I shall continue with a few views of the garden from each level.

     

Two final photos of superb plant combinations.

 

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garden design garden furniture garden photography garden seating gardening gardens open to the public National Trust Powis Powys The National Trust

Are You Sitting Comfortably – 15

Another of the lost garden seat posts – no 15!

This is my 15th post in this occasional series dedicated to the humble garden seat, a garden feature I am fascinated by, by the huge variety of designs, by the large number there are around and by how varied they are in comfort level!

This first selection are all at Powys Castle close to Welshpool. What a variety!

               

I am ready now to search for another fascinating collection of seats to try out in the gardens we plan to visit. See you with Collection 16!

 

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colours garden design garden photography gardening gardens hardy perennials ornamental trees and shrubs Shropshire

My Garden Journal 2020 – August

Back for another delve into my garden journal, this time to see what I had entered during the month of August. Enjoy sharing it with me!

I began by looking at a few of our colourful borders, “August, the traditional summer holiday month, but to us it is more a time to sit back and enjoy our garden”

Below are the four photos featured on this page.

On the opposite page white blooms are featured, “Until a few years ago I did not enjoy white plants in the garden but recently I have developed a liking for them.” The photos show “White blooms with coloured centres.”

 

Turning over the page are a selection of photos of some of our Hypericum inodorum shrubs, “This month several of our trees and shrubs have finished flowering and their berries are colouring up.”

Two plants feature on the opposite page to the hypericum, a lily and a fritillery, where I shared a photo and an i-Pad sketch.

The next collection of plants to be featured are daylilies or hemerocallis, of which we have over thirty different cultivars. I wrote, “Our collection of Hemerocallis adds so much to our garden, where we have planted them in virtually every border. Each individual flower lasts but one day but more keep coming to replace them. You can eat them too!”

 

On the page opposite I shared a watercolour painting of the beautiful Lysimachia ‘Firecracker’.

Over the page to the next double  page spread we discover photos of agapanthus on the left hand page and a little rodent visitor to our garden on the right. About agapanthus I wrote, “My flowering plant of the month of August is agapanthus. We grow a collection in our gravel garden called the ‘Beth Chatto Border.”

About the rodent I wrote, “Common Shrew live throughout our patch, surviving for just one year they live heir life at speed. We see them as they rush from one border to another, not wishing to be spotted by one of our many birds of prey who frequent our garden, Kestrel, Sparrow Hawk, Owls and Merlin. We welcome shrews as they enjoy slugs and snails as snacks.”

I really enjoyed the challenge of sketching a Common Shrew using watercolour paints and fibre pens.

My journal for August finishes with more pictures of colourful plant combinations and communities we have created in our garden. “Our patch is a very colourful place in mid-summer with each border home to a variety of flowering herbaceous perennials.”

We will see my garden journal again in September.

 

 

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garden furniture garden photography garden seating

Are you sitting comfortably? No 14 of a very occasional series.

Here we are back with another of my lost episodes of this series, no 14

Here we are back with another selection of garden seats we have found while visiting gardens. I hope you enjoy them.

I will begin with seating we spotted at this year’s RHS Tatton Park Flower Show, in displays and in show gardens. Few  show gardens at RHS shows are without at least one bench for two, so there is a wide variety of styles to suit the variety of garden styles. In the show gardens the seats are designed to be looked at by judges and visitors so do not need to be either comfortable or practical.

      

Let’s move on now to seats we discovered in open gardens either through the National Garden Scheme or open all year. These should be comfortable to use and perhaps worn out from too much use or too much exposure to the elements.

This first batch of photos were taken at a local garden, Wollerton Old Hall, a truly remarkable garden because of its strong design but also because of the plants there.

 

This final group are all seats we found at a garden surrounding Harvington Hall where we visited for traditional English afternoon tea.

We hope you enjoyed this selection and we will soon be back with more examples for you to look at.