Category: garden photography

A Wander around our Garden in December

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 18, 2012
8 Comments on A Wander around our Garden in December

The last month of 2012 and therefore here is the last post in the “wander around our garden” series. December was a month that started wet and cold and quickly got wetter and colder. We have found ourselves carrying on regardless – we weren’t going to let the weather beat us. So we donned warm waterproofs and busied ourselves clearing soggy perennials and pruning shrubs.

The birds are suffering from lack of natural food in the surrounding countryside so are flocking to our feeders. They add so much colour and song. This year’s flocks of Long Tailed Tits and Goldfinches are much larger than in recent times. Mixed tit flocks have reached over 70 in number at times and finch flocks up to 25. So we are kept busy regularly topping up the seeds, nuts and fatballs. As a result of the poor harvests of berries and fruit in the woods and hedgerows we have had invasions of large flocks of Blackbirds into the garden and already our shrubs are stripped of their produce. The blackbirds are aided in their berry stripping by Thrushes, Redwings and Fieldfares. All the red berried shrubs were denuded first, leaving not a single berry on our Cotoneasters, Hollies and Mountain Ashes so they are looking a little less colourful. They have now started on their second choice berries – yellows and whites.

There is still an amazing amount of colour in the garden with some flowers still going strong. This Hebe just ignores whatever the weather throws at it and keeps on flowering. When a frost comes these delicate looking flowers prove they are not delicate at all. They stand to attention even when coated in frost.

These small Hypericum shrubs, similar in size to the Hebes, perform on several fronts with flowers still apparent, berries showing several colours on the same plant and leaf colour which gets richer as the weather gets colder.

Odd flowers of Rudbeckias appear throughout the winter way outside their peak flowering period. They are like little bursts of sunshine.

Other plants are meant to be winter flowering and we look forward to these each year. Mahonia japonica exhibits its long thin upright racemes of buttercup yellow flowers with the added luxury of a beautiful warm scent, somewhat reminiscent of pineapples.

The glossy, dark hand shaped leaves of Fatshedera are a perfect foil for bright summer flowers in our Shed Bed, but it produces its own much more subtle flowers throught the winter. They are the palest of cream with a dull orange centre. They look as if they should emit the mouth-watering aroma of vanilla but that is sadly only in my imagination.

After a deep frost these flowers loose substance and flop, hanging lifelessly until warmed by the sun.

The starkness of winter structure exposes simple shapes and patterns working together. This yellowed sword shaped leaf of a Crocosmia cuts dramatically across the curved metal seat back.

Sculptures take on a new life. Our ironwork ferns rimmed with frost particles curls through the whitened grasses in the Stump Garden.

Seating areas look less inviting!

Right down at the bottom of the garden the summerhouse looks sadly at the pool which sits frozen solid at its feet.

Similarly the water in the birdbaths is often frozen. Each morning as I wander down the garden to feed the chucks I take a detour to add warm water to the birdbaths to melt the ice.

Frost decorates ornamental features giving them a new winter look.

Frost highlights the overnight toils of spiders who weave webs around sheds, nest boxes and insect homes.

There is little to harvest in December but we harvest various prunings. Taller thicker branches will be used as bean poles, smaller branches as pea sticks and to support perennials next year, and these spiral willow stems will be part of some sculpture that I am planning. Bamboo prunings will give us our own bamboo canes. Our first real crop of canes! That should save a few air miles!

Whatever the winter has in store for us, we are well-prepared. This pile of hardwood logs, oak and birch, will keep us warm and cosy and its scent of woodlands give a good welcome. And outside the chimenia patiently waits with its own fuel supply for us to venture outside to garden and enjoy a coffee break in the winter sun. Alongside the sculptural fire bowl adds further interest.

And what is happening in our borrowed landscape in December? Sheep seek nourishment in the paddock and provide a little natural fertiliser for the grass, and the wheat fields sadly sits waterlogged, growth at a standstill.

Tags birds, garden photography, garden wildlife, grasses, ornamental trees, roses, winter

autumn colours garden design garden photography gardening gardens open to the public grasses hardy perennials ornamental grasses photography

A Selection of Sedums

Sedum spectabile “Autumn Joy”. If you had looked for autumn flowering sedums in gardening books 20 years ago that would be the variety that would invariably have popped up. Today things have changed so much.

Thanks to the work of garden designers from all over Europe such as Piet Oudolf and Tom Stuart-Smith, who have been seeking out new and imaginative ways of using herbaceous perennials, we have the choice of many. Different flower colours. Different leaf colours, textures and shapes. Different ways of changing their flowers as autumn moves into winter. The photo below illustrates how Piet Oudolf uses Sedum at Trentham.

We have been adding many to our newer borders at home and in the communal borders on the allotments and now is the time to look and see how many we have and how we have used them.

The first selection is from our garden at home, the first two illustrating our favourite way of using them with grasses. The extreme contrast in flower shape – the flat umbrellas of the Sedum with the tall spires of the grasses – make them good companions and the colours of the grasses both in their green coats and in their dried winter cloaks enhance each other.

Up at the allotments members have donated many different Sedum which we have planted within the communal gardens.

And finally I can’t resist sharing a few shots taken in other people’s gardens.

So there we have the sedums. Stalwarts or stars?

Tags autumn, foliage plants, garden photography, gardening, grasses, Piet Oudolf, Sedum

autumn autumn colours garden design garden photography gardening gardens open to the public ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs photography the South trees

Images of Savill.

Savill Garden is a special places. Wandering around, its paths leads you to surprises, gentle places, sudden views and unexpected delights.

Tags autumn, foliage, foliage plants, garden photography, gardening, grasses, ornamental trees, the Savill Gardens

colours garden design garden photography gardening gardens open to the public grasses ornamental trees and shrubs photography the South trees winter gardens

The Winter Garden at The Savill Garden

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 29, 2012
9 Comments on The Winter Garden at The Savill Garden

For our second post about the Savill Gardens we shall discover the colours, shapes and textures of the Winter Garden. Although planted with winter interest in mind when we explored in the autumn it was full of interest.

The third and final visit to the Savill Gardens will feature a selection of images from around the gentle walk we took through these stunning gardens. We had looked forward to visiting these gardens for years and when we finally did we were not disappointed in any way.

Tags foliage, foliage plants, garden photography, gardening, grasses, ornamental trees, shrubs, the Savill Gardens, trees, winter gardens

autumn autumn colours colours garden design garden photography gardening gardens open to the public grasses hardy perennials ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs photography the South trees

The Savill Garden in October

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 27, 2012
4 Comments on The Savill Garden in October

At last we have got around to visiting the Savill Garden. It was worth waiting for! The new visitor reception is an amazing building, a single storey space under a long, sinuous roof shaped like the tail of a Whale.

Looking up at the wonderful reception building.

Looking down into the garden from the reception building.

The Savill Garden is situated on the edge of Great Windsor Park and is just a small part of the Royal Landscape. We followed the recommended path around the garden so that we could see the effects of Autumn throughout.

In most areas of the garden, Savill had the typical look and feel of a stately home garden, both in plants grown, choice of design features and border arrangements, but hints of newer thinking were showing through, such as the use of grasses and new perennial plantings.

A true highlight of our visit to the Savill Gardens was the surprise at coming across this modern water feature. It looked good and it sounded good.

Although we visited the gardens at Savill in the Autumn one of the most colourful areas was the Winter Garden, already showing many interesting features. So the next post will be about the winter Garden in Autumn.

Tags autumn, autumn colours, foliage, foliage plants, garden photography, gardening, grasses, greenhouse gardening, ornamental trees, shrubs, the Savill Gardens, trees

autumn autumn colours climbing plants colours garden design garden photography gardening grasses hardy perennials ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs photography poppies roses Shropshire trees

A Wander Around our Garden in November

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 23, 2012
6 Comments on A Wander Around our Garden in November

This is the penultimate garden wander for the year and what a colourful one it is. The weather has turned cold with daytime temperatures failing to reach double figures and night time temperatures only just above freezing. Some days though do please the camera, with deep blue skies in between storms.

This rich red oriental poppy never fails to impress even this late in the year.

Several of the plants that feature in the November garden seem to sport odd shaped flowers. The Strawberry Tree, Arbutus unedo has flowers that hang like pearly cream bells. Cyclamen hederifolium have curious fly away petals while Shystostylus flowers hang on gently curving stems.

Roses seem to be blooming away giving us brightness for most of the year. Many that started blooming in late May are still flowering now and they are producing buds in readiness to flower right through to the end of the year.

At the moment I pass the wonderfully colourful corner of the Shed Bed, where grasses have coloured up intermingled with the dries flower heads of Eryngium and Agastache. It has to be my favourite November patch in the garden.

Having passed my favourite corner I pass our trees as I go down to to the bottom of the garden to feed the chicks. Their bark textures and colours change every day. This birch’s chocolate coloured bark is peeling back to reveal snow white smooth bark below, like a white shirt beneath jacket collars.

It seems to be a special year for cotoneaster berries, with every variety covered thickly in readiness for arrival of the winter migrant thrushes.

There is something very special about the freshness of the flowers of the Fatsia, with their creamy, greeny whitish colours. They always look to me as if they should smell of vanilla and be edible!

There are difficult decisions to be made in the November garden. Which seed heads to cut down and which to leave for their looks and wildlife value is perhaps the most difficult. How could you possible cut this clematis down when it looks this good? We tend now to leave perennials standing unless or until they fall and become soggy. Once they do this they endanger the lives of the plants they may be smothering. To me the idea of “putting the garden to bed for winter” just doesn’t add up. A garden is for 12 months, all of them

Wrapping the greenhouse in its winter jacket of bubble-wrap is the least favourite of all of our gardening tasks. This Novenber we started on a cold day knowing that as we added the thermal layer to the greenhouse we would heat up as well. But the sun came out and we got too hot. We started off wearing fleece jackets over jumpers but by the time we had finished we had shed both these layers and were down to tee-shirts.

First we collected the rolls of wrap from their summer quarters – the woodshed, and piled them up outside

Next we attempted to begin hanging it inside the greenhouse over specially positioned strings and wires. The bubblewrap then attacked Jude, the Undergardener.

Eventually Jude managed to overcome the wrap and get on with the job in hand, lining the sides and then hanging it over strings tied across the roof. Soon the temperature increased.

I hope these plants appreciate it!

Let’s us finish our November wander with a couple of richly coloured beautifully lit views across borders, and a quick look across our borrowed landscape.

Tags autumn, autumn colours, clematis, foliage, garden photography, grasses, November, ornamental trees, poppies, roses

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

Go South 7 – Nymans

This is the last of my “Go South” posts and as promised it features a garden. Well after all those coastal posts in this series it was only a matter of time before we visited a garden. And boy what a garden it was!

Nymans was created by one of the great supporters of the English plant collectors and it shows in the variety of plants and in the difficulty in identifying some of them.

Nymans is a garden to delight any plantsman who will leave with a list of must-haves. It will also make any good gardener desire his very own areboretum just to plant the rare and special trees spotted at Nymans.

I am not a great fan of coniferous evergreens but these three display diversity in their foliage colour and in their structure and shape.

In the shade of deciduous trees the shapes of their trunks are revealed.

Walking around this varied and surprising garden is like walking through the pages of a good book on garden design. Here you can find every principle of design shown in all its glory. Any gardener, whatever the size of their garden could adapt ideas to be found on a walk about at Nymans.

Framing a view …..

Using a structure to invite you onwards ….

Planting in trios ………………..

Drawing the eye …………

Using structures as an invitation and to support plants to provide shade from the sun ……………

Much of the house belonging to the gardens at Nymans is now in ruins, but they somehow suit the garden. They provide a good foil for planting.

The ruins provided some oportunities to photograph little details and patterns.

But the gardens of Nymans aren’t all about big views and big trees. Richly coloured traditionally proportioned double herbaceous borders excite the eye of the visitor.

There was so much to see at Nymans that another post will appear soon.

Tags garden photography, gardening, herbaceous borders, National Trust, Nymans, ornamental trees, shrubs, trees

garden photography gardening ornamental trees and shrubs shrubs

Bungei and Trichotomum

With those fun words as part of their names these plants have to be special. But what are they? Clerodendrons. This is a species that is represented in our gardens by just a few varieties even though there are about 150 different ones known in the wild, mostly from China and Japan, and they have been in cultivation in Europe for over 250 years. Some can be grown in conservatories and under glass when heated, but Clerodendron bungei and C. trichotomum are the only two reliable for our gardens.

We grow both and enjoy them in several seasons as they have so much to offer. They have interesting foliage, the colours of which vary with the seasons, fine flowers of interesting structure and colours and startling coloured fruits, which all means they have a long season of interest.

The first three photos are of C. trichotomum.

Clerodendron bungei, below, is said by some to smell of peanut butter but by others as smelling of rancid peanut butter or even drains. Perhaps not its best feature!

And what about those two words, bungei and trichotomum? Where do they come from?

Bungei relates to a C19 Russian botanist, Dr Alexander von Bunge and trichotomum means “three branches” but I can’t work out exactly why it is called that.

Tags Clerodendron, garden photography, gardening, shrubs

autumn colours colours garden photography gardening gardens open to the public National Garden Scheme NGS ornamental trees and shrubs Powis shrubs

Hydrangeas at The Dingle Garden

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 17, 2012
4 Comments on Hydrangeas at The Dingle Garden

The Hydrangeas at the Dingle Nursery’s Garden shone out in the darker shadier woodland sections. I am a bit particular when it comes to Hydrangeas as I like the delicately shaped and coloured lacecaps but few of the mopheads which I find too blousey. I like individual paniculatas too but again not the blousey ones. In this series of photographs all the Hydrangeas are lacecaps with the exceptions of two which are of a Hydrangea paniculata and one mophead has sneaked in as I just couldn’t believe how bright the blue colour was.

The beauty of the lacecaps is the variety of different shaped and coloured flowers and bracts that appear together on the same shrub.

These next two photographs are of the creamy pyramidal flower heads of the Hydrangea paniculata.

Finally to show that I don’t wish to upset those gardeners who love the mopheads here is that blue bloom.

Tags autumn, autumn colours, garden photography, gardening, Hydrangeas, NGS, Powis, shrubs

allotments autumn autumn colours bird watching colours community gardening fruit and veg garden photography garden wildlife gardening grasses grow your own meadows natural pest control ornamental trees and shrubs photography roses wildlife

A Wander Around our Allotments in November

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 10, 2012
10 Comments on A Wander Around our Allotments in November

The penultimate lottie wander post for 2012 and at last the weather is providing a few bright cold days. This is what we look forward to in this autumnal month, rather than the wet dark days we have been presented with in the first few days. The light is warm and gives a crisp edge to any photos taken as the blue haze of summer has disappeared.

We went up the lottie yesterday to deliver some spare seeds for the Seed Swap basket and to collect some greens left by fellow plot holders for our chickens. They are spoilt by our friends from the site! It was mid-afternoon and we had not intended to stop to work, but we changed our minds. We got out the communal mowers and rakes and gave the final two meadows their annual “hair cuts”. Jude, The Undergardener did most of the work as it is a bit difficult with my spine and leg pains, so I wandered off taking advantage of the special quality of the day’s light and shot off a couple of dozen pics with my Galaxy.

As we worked on the meadows the resident Field Voles scuttled off as they felt the mower’s vibrations and disappeared down their holes. We left a few clumps of wildflowers standing for everyone to enjoy before winter cuts them down. Field Scabious, Mallow and Sunflowers.

The meadows that are already trimmed look flat and brown, but the pathways mown through them look crisp and green.

The foliage in our Sensory Garden is given extra vitality in the November sunshine.

The next shot is a view of the site boundary through the seed heads of a white-flowered Actaea across the Spring Garden. In the Spring Garden a tiny Acer shows that you don’t have to be big to impress.

In the meadows the last of the grasses and sunflowers stand tall and proud.

Up in the mature Sycamore and Oak the resident bats will be shuffling around and preening in readiness to leave their roosts in the boxes and go on the feed for moths and night-flying insects. Bats are our night-time pest control patrols. In the daylight hours we are being entertained by birds of prey often being mobbed by our flocks of Jackdaws and Rooks . Peregrines, Buzzard, Red Kite, Kestrel and Sparrow Hawk.

Around the plots the gardeners are preparing their plots for the winter, beds are cleared and manure piled up or spread over the surface.

A few crops remain for winter sustenance.The red stems and purple leaves of Ruby Chard add a burst of colour. Brassicas are covered to give protection from ravenous and greedy Wood Pigeons who love to eat the sweet centres of Brussels Sprouts and the tenderest, newest leaves of cabbages.

A few remaining flowers add extra brightness to the plots.Tthat most popular of companion plants, the Calendula brightens up compost areas and odd roses still perform in the Summer Garden. We can expect these David Austin roses to continue to treat us to flowers until the new year.

The star of the site for the next few months will be the Winter Garden and it is already showing promises and hints of what delights it has in store for us in times ahead. As leaves fall from trees and shrubs the colours and textures of the stems and trunks will come into their own.

We have endured a wet summer and autumn with each month breaking previous rainfall records. Crops have been poor and we have been flooded four times. Dave, the Scarecrow looks a bit worse for wear too!