Category: garden photography

Harold Hillier in Hampshire – Part 2

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date September 15, 2015
1 Comment on Harold Hillier in Hampshire – Part 2

So here we are back in Hampshire and still wandering around the miles of paths along which we explored the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens.

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The Acer Grove was full of colour when the sun hit the foliage after the dullness of the rains.

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The Pinetum was a wonderful place to explore the many shapes of the trees and the texture and colour of their needles. Cones added even more interest. Not a great lover of conifers I felt myself enjoying being among their rich variety.

But the broadleaved trees were my stars of the gardens with their colourful bark, flowers and the leaves.

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Jude was easily distracted by this wonderfully sculptural swing!

We continued to discover a huge variety of sculptural pieces along every path and around every corner.

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But there was so much more than trees and sculpture to enjoy at these amazing gardens – we found so many interesting colourful flowering plants too.

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I will finish part two of our visit to the Harold Hillier Gardens with these photos of an amazing archway over a path and a beautifully coloured and shaped pot.

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Tags flower colours, garden sculpture, gardens open to the public, Hampshire, Harold Hillier, outdoor sculpture, sculpture, The Harold Hillier Garden, trees

arboreta garden design garden photography gardens gardens open to the public ornamental trees and shrubs outdoor sculpture sculpture trees

Harold Hillier in Hampshire

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date September 12, 2015
2 Comments on Harold Hillier in Hampshire

We have had the Harold Hillier Gardens in Hampshire on our bucket list of places to visit for a few years now so we decided that the summer of 2015 was the time to go. We had great expectations! But did it live up to them?

We arrived in heavy rain so made straight for the cafe and dawdled for even longer than usual over coffees and cake while keeping an eye, a “weather eye”, on what the rain was up to through the windows. We gave up waiting for a lull in the rain so donned waterproofs and wandered into the garden clutching the garden plan that was to get soggier and soggier as the day wore on.

The garden was simply brilliant so took our minds off the weather. When you wait so long to visit a place you feel set for disappointment but no such things here at the Hillier Gardens.

As we expected the trees were the stars. We wandered through the Winter Garden and on through the Acer Dell and stopped frequently to enjoy close up views of the huge range of trees. Within the trees though splashes of herbaceous colours shone through the gloom of the overcast and very wet morning.

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We seem to have the knack of visiting gardens when there are sculpture exhibitions on and it happened to us again here. Sculpture always looks so good against trees and flowers. There was a huge variety of subject, material and style in the selection.

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Spot the metal sculpture of a Little Owl among matching metallic leaved conifers.

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The rain gave way to clouds mixed with sunny periods and we enjoyed the sight of raindrops on foliage. In part two we will continue our wanderings.

Tags arboretum, garden sculpture, garden trees, Hampshire, Harold Hillier, outdoor sculpture, sculpture, The Harold Hillier Garden

birds climbing plants flowering bulbs garden photography garden ponds garden pools garden wildlife gardening hardy perennials ornamental trees and shrubs trees water in the garden wildlife

My Garden Journal – August

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date September 8, 2015
3 Comments on My Garden Journal – August

Here we are with part 8 of my monthly series looking at what I have put into my garden journal. August has been a disappointing month weatherwise, with winds, rain and dull skies, and the plants have responded with short flowering periods and even our roses have failed to repeat flower.

I began my August entries, “The month of school holidays when families make their way to the seaside, is not a holiday in the garden. We have to keep dead-heading and tidying to make sure it looks its best.” and continued with my monthly quote from Jenny Joseph, “August is a time of vegetables and smells of leaves and roots as we clear: dusty, musty smell of old growth. What flowers we have in August depends on how diligent you’ve been at dead-heading earlier.”

I continued, “We dead-head our Roses most days in an attempt to keep them in bloom, and cut back dying perennials to encourage both fresh blooms and fresh growth from below.”

I next referred to our fun activity which takes us back to our childhoods, pond dipping, “An early dip in the pond with our net revealed that young Newts are still very much in evidence. We discovered the shell of a Dragonfly larva and a strangely bodied surface dwelling insect, its shape like an elongated diamond.” I wonder what a pond dipping session will reveal in September as autumn will then be creeping in.

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Our Cercis siliquastrum tree featured again as we turn the page of my journal just as it has done in my May entries.

“Discovering new points of interest in the garden is always refreshing. We have always loved our Cercis siliquastrum for its mass of pink flowers in May, but this year we have rows of seed pods hanging from branches like celebratory bunting or prayer flags from Tibet.”

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I attempted to paint a watercolour of a selection of pods and this proved to be a real challenge with the subtle variations of green and pink from pod to pod.

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Further notes about the wildlife in our August garden followed on at the turn of the next page, where I noted, “Gardening in August is done with the sounds of Swallows and House Martins wheeling over our heads. Two very contrasting wildlife sounds add to the soundtrack, the deepest croaking grunt of our Toads and the highest pitched song of all our garden birds, the diminutive Goldcrest.” In my painting I tried to capture the character of the Goldcrest, cheerful, jittery and sparkling with life.

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More sounds featured on the facing page, “Gentle, almost inaudible sounds emit from every border, the sounds of Hoverflies. Gentle humming from above flowers, rapid beats make wings almost invisible, the Hoverfly moves in sudden sharp changes of direction. They can be wasp-like, bee-like or fly-like, masters of mimicry and disguise”. I love taking photos of the wildlife that shares our garden and insects and have hundreds in my Photoshop storage space. I have found a few featuring a few of the many different species of Hoverfly to share with you.

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It is one of my favourite families of plants that I featured on the next double page spread, the Crocosmias. “Hot colours throughout our garden are provided by many different Crocosmias. Yellows, Oranges and Reds.” I enjoyed the challenge of creating watercolour paintings of three of our cultivars.

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From one bulbous rooted plant to another, from Crocosmias to Agapanthus. “Remember those Aganpanthus buds of July? Well, just look at them now!”

I hope you enjoy this little gallery of photos of our Agapanthus. Just click on the first photo and use the arrows to move on through.

My final page for August featured another garden favourite, this time a climber, the Honeysuckle. I wrote “Scent is an important player in our garden and one scented plant that waits until the evening to share its sweet aromas is the Honeysuckle or Lonicera. We have used a particularly beautifully coloured one to climb up the trellis that hides our composters. And our moths love it!” I turned once again to my beautiful wooden box of watercolour paints to create a little series of pictures of the buds, blooms and berries of the Honeysuckle.

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The next look at my garden journal will be in September when we may be seeing the early signs of Autumn.

Tags amaryllis, August, cercis, crocosmias, garden journal, garden pond, garden wildlife, gardening, honeysuckle, pool wildlife, Shropshire

garden design garden furniture garden photography garden seating gardening gardens

Are You Sitting Comfortably? – Part 6 of a very occasional series

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date August 25, 2015
2 Comments on Are You Sitting Comfortably? – Part 6 of a very occasional series

Number six in a very occasional series of posts all about the seats I find in gardens. Use your imagination and have a sit in each and see what you think! I hope you enjoy the view from some – you will have to use your imagination!

A visit to the famous Herefordshire garden, The Laskett, created by the couple Sir Roy Strong and Doctor Julia Trevelyan Oman, provided many unusual garden seats for us to try out and to photograph.

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At the Laskett even the toilet seat is quality!

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We will now look at another C20 garden, the gardens at Preen Manor near Much Wenlock not far from Shrewsbury. This is a garden of many”rooms” and each room seems to have a different style of seat.

On a visit to a Yellow Book NGS garden a good mixture of seats can be found, such as these four at Upper Shelderton Hall gardens.

Another Yellow Book Garden, Dovecote Barn in Herefordshire revealed these two seats, one well placed for a secret rest hiding in the polytunnel and the other a little precarious with a bit of a backward slope to it.

So there is my sixth selection of garden seats – I can now look forward to trying out lots more in my search for the seventh selection!

Tags garden furniture, garden seating, garden seats, gardens

architecture colours garden buildings garden design garden photography garden pools gardens gardens open to the public hardy perennials National Garden Scheme NGS ornamental trees and shrubs outdoor sculpture roses shrubs trees water in the garden Yellow Book Gardens

Miserden Park, a Gloucestershire Garden

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date August 23, 2015
2 Comments on Miserden Park, a Gloucestershire Garden

We were journeying south towards Hampshire and searched for a place to break our journey. We were pleased to discover Miserden Park was close to the road we travelled. We expected it to be easy to find as we knew which village it was on the outskirts of but poor signage directing us firstly to the village and then to the garden itself made it difficult.

When we saw the house at Miserden we were impressed with the way the gardens around it helped it sit so comfortably in the landscape. The pale blue planting looked so good with the pale limestone of the building.

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We soon realised that this was one of those gardens which impressed with the tiny details of individual plants and colour combinations but also with the bigger pictures it presented.

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Metalwork impressed us from the imposing gates to the intimate seats.

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We loved the contrast between the formal gardens and the wilder “Robinsonian” areas. Paths mown through the long grass in these wilder areas led us to surprise plants to appreciate such as this Aesculus.

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On the paved area which surrounded the house containers planted up with gently coloured plants enhanced the colour of the stonework.

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An unusual rill garden had been created to celebrate the Millenium and a nearby conveniently positioned summer house gives visitors a good chance to rest awhile and admire it.

A shrub border full of deep purple leaves provided a rest for the eyes after studying brighter coloured plantings.

The grey stone walls of local limestone were a perfect foil for gentle coloured roses.

One area had been developed much more recently and afforded impressive contrasts of style.

We couldn’t really work out what this strange stonework integrated into the base of an ancient tree was all about.

We finished our tour of the gardens at Miserden with a long slow walk along the double herbaceous borders.

It is always a bonus to visit a good garden when taking a break in a journey further afield. Miserden was well worth stopping to explore.

Tags foliage, foliage plants, garden photography, gardening, Gloucestershire, Miserden Park, NGS, ornamental trees, rill, roses, shrubs, trees

bird watching birds garden photography garden ponds garden pools garden wildlife gardening gardens hardy perennials meadows poppies

My Garden Journal – July

I can’t believe we are in the second half of the year but as this is the post about my garden journal in July then we most certainly are!

I began my July journal entry with a reference to the weather, the obsession of the British especially gardeners. “The month of July burst in with a heatwave. Some plants objected by wilting but flower colours were enriched in the sunlight. Lilies and Clematis joined the colour pallette provided by June’s Roses and Geraniums.”

Our Oriental Lilies were the best we have ever had this July and we have been growing them for many years. We grow them in big pots so that we can simply drop them in where and when they are needed to add splashes of dramatic colour. Enjoy my little gallery of Lily photos. Just click on the first photo and then use the arrows.

I then wrote about our July pond dipping adventure, “A pond dip early in the month showed young newts still present in abundance alongside nymphs of Dragons and Damsels. This little creature (painting below) caught my eye. At just over a centimetre in length the Water Lice, or Isopoda, is the wet equivalent of the more common Wood Lice. They cannot swim but simply scramble around devouring detritus and decaying plant material. They are common prey of the larvae of Damsels and Dragons.”

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I moved on then from pondlife to birdlife and looked at two of the most beautiful birds that visit our garden. “We have been visited by two of our most colourful birds over the last few weeks, Bullfinches and Redstarts.” The Redstart made a fleeting visit on our last open day at our garden when it was full of visitors, which seemed a bit brazen for a normally shy woodland bird.

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Agapanthus featured next in my July garden journal as our collection in our Beth Chatto garden were budding up nicely promising a beautiful display before too long. We have been building up our collection of favourite Agapanthus for a few years now and it is now coming along well. “Our collection of Agapanthus in our Beth Chatto Garden is slowly getting more colourful as flower buds burst. Surely these are the slowest of buds to become flowers!”

To see some of our Agapanthus up close, some still in tight buds some opening up, please enjoy the little Agapanthus gallery below. As usual click on the first picture and use the arrows to move through. Next month promises to be a month of Agapanthus flowers rather then buds. Can’t wait!

My next double page is about the weather and our min-meadows.

My journal continues, “This year the heat of the early part of July was not set to continue for us in Shropshire. Dark grey masses of clouds took over from clear blue skies.”

Mighty Mini-Meadow is the title of the next page of my journal which features photos of the little but very floriferous meadow we sowed in early May in vegetable bags. The seeds germinated so well that we have been treated to a mass of blooms reminiscent of a summer meadow from the days before intensive agriculture changed our countryside into huge barren fields of monoculture. It sits beneath my collection of antique garden tools. These native wildlflowers attract insects as if drawn in by distant memories, bees, hoverflies and butterflies.

What an honour Mother Nature bestowed on us this month! This is how the next page of my journal begins. It is all about a special time in our garden, a moment we will never forget.

“Early one morning we noticed that a Dragon Fly larva had crawled from our pond, across the decking and up the door of our summerhouse. The green colour of the door must have fooled it into thinking it was tall rushes. Once in place the back of the larva opened up and a Dragonfly very slowly emerged. At first it was wingless but as warmth increased they popped out looking as if they were made of plastic. The creature shivered itself into life and the sun helped pump life and rigidity into its wings. An hour later we watched an adult Dragonfly off.”

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I illustrated this amazing spectacle with a simple i-pad drawing and a photo of the head of the Dragonfly gripping the empty shell of its former self.

So with this amazing experience my journal closed up for July and will soon re-open for August.

Tags agapanthus, Asiatic Lilies, bullfinch, damselflies, dragonflies, garden journal, garden pond, garden pools, July, lilies, meadows, redstart, wildflower meadows

colours flowering bulbs garden photography

A Mystery Lily – a case of mistaken identity

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date August 3, 2015

Occasionally we buy plants wrongly labelled and usually realise the mistake the nursery has made but this is impossible to do when bulbs are wrongly named. It is a long wait for the error to reveal itself. Early in the year we bought a batch of Asiatic Lily bulbs to boost the range we currently grow in containers throughout our garden. We chose varieties of deep reds with some almost black. Most performed just as expected and we loved them. They added depth to the colour range.

But one pot of bulbs was late throwing up its flowering stems and when we saw how it grew with thin dark stems it made us realise we had something rather unexpected. When it started to produce flower buds in large groups atop each stem we realised it definitely wasn’t what the label said. This Lily was supposed to be Lilium Landini with very dark red almost black flowers.

Just look at what our mystery Lily turned out to be!

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And just look how each beautiful golden flower opens up for us to enjoy!

What a wonderful mystery! A golden Turks Cap Lily!

But what would have grown in our pot if the label was correct – an equally beautiful but oh so different so dark bloom. Almost black velvet! Luckily we had three pots full of these too.

Tags bulbs, flowering bulbs, lilies, Martagon Lily, mystery, Turks Cap Lily

colours fruit and veg garden photography gardens gardens open to the public hardy perennials kitchen gardens National Trust ornamental trees and shrubs poppies roses The National Trust walled gardens

Croft Castle month by month – July

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date July 31, 2015
2 Comments on Croft Castle month by month – July

It was getting towards the end of July so was time for our monthly visit to see what had changed throughout the garden at Croft Castle. The weather certainly wasn’t what we expected in July, as rain fell intermittently and temperatures failed to rise much above the mid-teens.

The first big change in the garden was in the long border we have to pass on every visit on our way to the walled garden.

Our first view of the walled garden convinced us that we were in for a colourful time.

The beautiful pink poker like flowers of this Francoa caught our eyes in the borders opposite the grape vines, which were now showing the first signs of little bunches of tiny bright green grapes.

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July was definitely the month for Crocosmias and Japanese Anemones. Crocosmias provided hot colours to enjoy while the Anemones gave us the cooler colours.

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On the north wall Nicotiana and Dahlias were flowering well among a mixture of flowering shrubs, annuals and perennials. Buddlejas were already flowering and we hope to see each bush covered in long racemes of butterfly-attracting blooms on our next couple of visits. Let us hope the sun is out then so that all the wildlife that loves Buddleja will be out seeking nectar and pollen.

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Apples were beginning to show the first signs of ripening as they blush a little. Close by there were plenty of Figs forming on the plants grown close to the walls for extra protection. The borders along this side of the walled garden were mostly blue and white.

There were few Rose flowers to be seen on this visit but perennials did make up for it, with Morinia, Geraniums and herbaceous Clematis taking centre stage.

The veggie beds were looking good with healthy rows of salad crops and the newly created willow walkway was coming on nicely.

Views looking over the perennial plantings in the main borders towards the castle and its surrounding buildings showed the softness of the plantings.

The final part of our monthly tour involved us leaving the shelter of the walled garden with its own special micro-climate and wandering towards the castle followed by a walk around the perimeter of the building. We noticed that the old Walnut tree is now loaded with green shelled nuts so it looks as if it may produce an impressive harvest in the autumn. Our next visit to Croft Castle will be our August one so we will be able to see if the nuts are still developing.

Tags Croft Castle., Herefordshire, Herefordshire gardens, National Trust, rose garden, The National Trust, walled garden, walled gardens

climbing plants colours flowering bulbs garden design garden photography garden pools gardens gardens open to the public lakes meadows ornamental trees and shrubs outdoor sculpture Powis Powys trees water garden water in the garden

A garden reborn – Glansevern Hall

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date July 27, 2015
1 Comment on A garden reborn – Glansevern Hall

In this post we will be looking back to a garden visit we made in mid-May when we visited a garden near Welshpool just over the border into Wales but still only a half hour drive away. The last time we had visited the gardens at Glansevern Hall was about ten years ago when the current owners had just started to rejuvenate the run down gardens.

We arrived to find everything improved so much so that some areas were hard to recognise. It is now a garden of real atmosphere, a truly romantic garden. After parking up in a car park which was a clearing among beautiful mature trees, we entered the garden through a courtyard which would have originally have been the stable block of the hall. Planting in narrow borders at the base of the wall included some interesting plants and some great ironwork.

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Once outside the courtyard several garden rooms contained exciting plant combinations and swathes of colour and texture.

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We discovered more wonderful ironwork too!

In contrast to the irregularly shaped beds we came across circular beds planted in very different styles.

A pergola covered in Laburnum with its bright yellow racemes was a real surprise to find as we began finding our way to the informal meadow areas and their collection of interesting trees and shrubs.

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This weeping specimen tree took some identifying. We had never seen one before but eventually came to the conclusion that it was a Weeping Mulberry, Morus alba pendula. A real beauty. The sculpture and the Viburnums were much easier to identify.

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The gardens close to the hall itself were much more formal and had an “arts and crafts” feel to them. The colours of the planting were most unusual in different pale shades of blue around the front and shades of yellow along the side borders.

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Moving away from the hall we walked beneath a wonderfully colourful and highly scented pergola swathed in Wisteria with its long white and blue racemes of flowers. Beneath the narrow borders were full of purple headed Alliums.

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After a quick break for coffee and cakes we traced the path around the lake which was surrounded by specimen trees many rare or unusual, some we had never seen before and a couple we had never even heard of!

We had a great day at Glansevern and came away amazed at how much work had been done developing the gardens into such a romantic place.

Tags garden metalwork, gardens open to the public, Glansevern Hall, herbaceous borders, herbaceous plants, ornamental grasses, pergola, Powis, Powys, wisteria

garden design garden photography gardening succulents Uncategorized

Succulents in Pots

It is always good to have little projects to get on with in the garden. My latest little project was to create a pair of succulent pots. We already have pots of succulents dotted or hopefully arranged around our Rill Garden. Here we feature several different Aeoniums, Echeverias and Sempervivum. They grow happily here because it is south facing and gets extra light reflected off the glass of our garden room.

We thought it about time we introduced some more succulents for added interest for our garden visitors on our open days, so bought a pair of beautifully shaped terracotta bowl-shaped pots and went off to our local nursery, Love Plants, to get an interesting selection of different succulents. We looked for different leaf colours, textures and shapes. A few had the bonus of brightly coloured flowers too. They have such wonderful names too – much too difficult to remember, Oscularia deltoides, Sempervivum jovibarba alionii, Echeveria elegans, Pachyphytum “Dark Red”, Pachyphytum bracteosum and Sedum x rubrotinctum.

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So we gathered together everything we needed on the table in the Rill Garden and got to work.

We mixed up a suitable growing medium by combining equal quantities of a soil based compost and horticultural grit. We hoped this would be free draining while just holding enough moisture to keep the plants happy.

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We then covered the drainage hole with crocks and added a shallow layer of my compost mix, ready to arrange the plants to their best advantage.

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Some of the plants we put in the pots were our own cuttings. The picture on the left shows how new plants have grown from leaf cuttings. The plant on the right was grown from an offset.

Once satisfied with the arrangement we filled in between the plants with the compost mixture and topped it off with a mulch of horticultural grit.

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Whenever you deal with succulents bits fall off and each bit can become a cutting. Other pieces we deliberately took as cutting material.

The photo below shows a leaf cutting taken from an Echeveria which is now forming tiny plants at its base. This is an easy way to make new plants albeit rather slow. It is a process requiring a lot of patience but not much skill.