Category: garden photography

Spring bulbs at Avocet

This time of year is made extra special as the bulbs we planted in the autumn start to burst into flower. Daffodils give splashes of every shade of yellow often with orange trumpets. We have a few whites left from the hundreds we inherited. We are not keen on white daffs as they seem so wishy-washy so we dug out hundreds leaving just odd clumps. Crocus are far more delicate and come in a wider range of colours from white to yellow, orange and purple. Anemone blandas are joining these now and appear as delicate blue daisies among the fresh growth of perennial plants. We don’t have many hyacinths but the few we have are most welcome and remind us to order more next autumn. You may spot the interloper – the flowers of a bergenia – walking past I could not resist taking its picture!

The best way to savour the effects that our bulbs have on our March garden is to come with me with my camera and see what we spot. So follow the gallery by clicking on the first photo and then use the arrows to navigate. Enjoy!

Tags bulbs, crocus, daffodils, flowering bulbs, gardening in spring, iphaeon, March, March garden, Muscari, spring bulbs

garden photography gardening hardy perennials

Hellebores – winter and spring perennials

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 24, 2020
1 Comment on Hellebores – winter and spring perennials

At this time of year we love turning up the drooping heads of our hybrid hellebores. They can flower from mid-winter on through spring so are such useful garden plants and loved by most gardeners.

Enjoy my photos below of some of the hellebores that are in flower mid-March.

Tags hardy perennials, hellebores

garden photography gardening hardy perennials spring gardening

Simply beautiful Pulmonarias

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 22, 2020

We grow a couple of dozen pulmonarias in the shadier parts of our garden, where they give both interestingly marked leaves and plenty of flowers in pinks, blues and white. We have lots in flower now, mid-March but several others will flower in the coming weeks.

I hope you enjoy my gallery of those that are flowering now. To follow the gallery just click on the first photo then navigate using the arrows.

Tags gardening in spring, March, March garden, pulmonarias, spring, spring flowers, the garden in spring

flowering bulbs garden photography

Attingham snowdrop walk

Every year in February we follow our usual walk around the grounds of Attingham Park, a National Trust property just a half hour drive away. What makes this February walk different is the thousands of snowdrops growing happily beneath beautiful mature trees.

Another unusual aspect of our walk was the amount of standing water around, including flooding from the river that runs through the parkland.

An extra feature this year was a display put on by the local WI (Women’s Institute) all knitting and different forms of fabric craft. The pieces were displayed on the trees and on lengths of woolen yarn strung between trees and were created to highlight the plight of our planet, caused by climate change issues.

We particularly liked our first sighting of the signs of spring!

Tags Attingham Park, gardens of Shropshire, gardens of the National Trust, National Trust, parkland, Shropshire, snowdrops, WI, woodland, woodland walks

flowering bulbs garden photography gardening irises spring bulbs trees Winter Gardening winter gardens

My Garden Journal 2020 – February

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 5, 2020
2 Comments on My Garden Journal 2020 – February

Okay, it’s February in this leap year so we will gain a day, and it is time for another visit to my garden journal. Weather has been interesting this month just because it has been so extreme and variable, wild and wet, with gales, hail, snow, sleet and rain!

On the first page I wrote,“February’s flowering plant of the month, Iris reticulata.” at the page top above a photograph of Iris reticulata ‘Cantab’ and two of my watercolour sketches of the same iris plus one called ‘George. I used Japanese brush pens.

Over the page I painted two Cyclamen growing in our Arabella Garden, which were planted as a clump of five small plants and have now become a lovely ground-hugging patch in shades of pink with a few whites. The foliage is as interesting as the flowers.

On the page opposite I feature a beautiful brown-bronze foliage evergreen shrub, my “Foliage plant of the month. Coprosma ‘Pacific Night!”

More sketches created using Japanese brush pens appear on the next page where I selected a few branches of some of my favourite Salix shrubs, willows, Salix daphnoides, Salix gracilistyla ‘Mount Aso’ and Salix gracilistyla ‘Melanostachys’. We love these for their unusually coloured catkins.

On the opposite page is my “Stem and bark plant of the month, Euonymus alata ‘Blade Runner’, so called because it sports long thin wings alongside each stem and these become a real feature in the winter months.

I finished off my February journal entries with a double page spread of photogrsaphs illustrating our “Gardening tasks for February”.

These tasks included pruning hydrangeas, pollarding our contorted willow, attempting to repair a leak that has appeared in our wildlife pond and beginning the time-consuming task of adding a 2 inch layer of organic compost as a mulch over every border. The most fiddly job was trying to repair our woven willow fence panel that the wild dog from next door decided to break through and create a hole right through.

We also began to create a new water feature for our front garden, a large fibreglass bowl finished in a granite effect ready to become a miniature water feature. We took up a square of turf up and filled the area with a few inches of gravel to sit the bowl in. We now wait until the right time to plant suitable plants.

So that is my February entries for my 2020 Garden Journal. In next month we might be able to report a few early signs of spring.

Tags catkins, Cyclamen coum, deciduous euonymus, foliage, foliage colour, foliage plants, iris, iris reticulata, pruning, salix, shrubs in winter, the garden in winter, willow, winter, winter cyclamen, winter gardens, winter shrubs

colours garden photography gardening gardens ornamental trees and shrubs shrubs

Simply Beautiful – no 32 in very occasional series

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date February 27, 2020
3 Comments on Simply Beautiful – no 32 in very occasional series

We reach number 32 in this very occasional series of simply beautiful things found in gardens. Today I am featuring an extremely unusual Berberis with the most rich orange flowers I have ever seen. Sadly I do not know its name and there was no label on the shrub. We found this lovely plant at Moors Meadow in Herefordshire.

So there it is the most amazing Berberis I have ever seen, and I don’t know what it is!

Tags berberis, flowering shrubs, orange, ornamental shrubs, shrubs

countryside garden design garden photography gardening gardens gardens open to the public hardy perennials landscapes ornamental trees and shrubs shrubs Wales

Pentre Uchaf – a high altitude garden

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date February 23, 2020
2 Comments on Pentre Uchaf – a high altitude garden

While holidaying in mid-Wales near Cardigan we enjoyed a visit to a garden high up in the hills, surrounding a cottage called Pentre Uchaf. It took quite a drive to get there following narrow lanes up and down steep hills and along narrow valleys. We were so relieved to get there and started as usual with refreshments.

The walk from the car up to the house treated us to great views looking through the planting of trees and perennials.

The theme of the visit was enjoyment of these views from every part of the garden.

These two little surprise elements added extra interest to our garden wanderings.

As with any garden it is the plants that are the stars! Pentre Uchaf was no exception!

It may have been a difficult drive to find this little garden but it was most definitely worth the effort.

Tags garden views, gardens of Wales, Pentre Uchaf

garden design garden photography gardens gardens open to the public outdoor sculpture sculpture Wales

Sculpture Heaven

The name for this garden was a bit off-putting but once through the gates we warmed to it immediately. This was a collection of outdoor sculpture of all sorts, a huge variety in fact but there was the important element of a garden wander to see all the pieces.

As soon as we entered through the rustic gateway we knew we were in for a treat, as sculpture was placed all around in trees, shrubs, in borders in grassed areas. We made our way across for refreshments and checked out the map to get an idea of a route we could follow and not miss any areas out.

Here is a selection of some of the weird and wonderful characters we met on our wanders.

We were delighted to discover sculptural pieces that were also musical instruments. They were so simple but very beautiful.

This was one of those gardens with a second string to its bow, the sculpture. It made for a good day out!

Tags garden sculpture, gardens of Wales, outdoor sculpture, sculpture, sculpture gardens

garden design garden photography garden ponds garden pools gardens gardens open to the public water garden water in the garden

Chatsworth – part two

Back at Chatsworth we now explore further through the gardens and stop to study the two famous water features, the water steps and the tall water spout.

Alongside the top path through the open woodland area, we discovered delicately planted areas, some designed by Dan Pearson and adapted from his Chelsea Best in Show garden dedicated to Chatsworth.

A special and unusual feature here is the Pulhamite rockery and ravine, Pulhamite being an artificial stone created for use in gardens. It all looks so realistic!

So that was our day at Chatsworth. Our next visit may be when the RHS Chatsworth Flower Show is on in the summer. Watch this space.

Tags chatsworth, water features, water in the garden

garden design garden photography garden seat garden seating gardens gardens open to the public grow your own hardy perennials ornamental trees and shrubs outdoor sculpture sculpture shrubs trees walled gardens

Chatsworth – part one

In 2019 we spent a warm and humid mid-July day at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire where we explored the gardens for the whole day, refreshed by the largest ice-cream cones we have ever enjoyed. It is one of the UK’s largest gardens and is full of interesting planting, unusual features and some wonderful glasshouses. These glasshouses are the work of a past head gardener Joseph Paxton. You need a whole day to really appreciate these gardens and you need to plan your day well.

The first set of photos shows the beauty of the glasshouses both old and new at Chatsworth and a beautiful mature specimen of Cedrus atlantica ‘Glauca’ and a subtly planted pot.

We made our way around the glasshouses towards the productive garden, which we knew had been developed since our previous visit and enjoyed some interesting plants and plant combinations along the way.

Sculpture is always in evidence at Chatsworth and there was plenty of interest on this visit, from classical to modern, wood and stone and hidden away throughout the gardens.