Category: garden seating

Are you sitting comfortably? Part 16 in a very occasional series.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 2, 2018
1 Comment on Are you sitting comfortably? Part 16 in a very occasional series.

It seems a while since I shared a post with you in this very occasional series about garden seating, so Ithought I would check back over this autumn and summer garden visits to see what we discovered on our various garden visits. I hope you enjoy this widely varied selection from very varied locations.

The first pair of seats is from a visit to a woodland garden in Powys with the wonderfully strange name of Gregynog.

The first seat is created from the remains of an old massive fallen tree, whereas the second is a quite common garden bench but with an exceptional view out over a lake.

We then move to Herefordshire to the amazing Picton Gardens, home of Asters, where seats are welcome as there is so much to see and appreciate you need time to sit and take it all in.

In our home county of Shropshire a young couple have created a garden and nursery in an old walled garden attached to Milllichope Hall. This is a garden with so many unusual herbaceous plants as well as more well known ones all mingling with ornamental grasses. It is an exciting new garden which looks set to get better and better. Just look at this matching pair of simple wooden benches.

On a much larger scale are the gardens at Ness Botanical Gardens up in the Wirral near Liverpool, a great wandering garden that needs a full day to appreciate all it has to offer.

Way down in Somerset is a Piet Oudolf garden designed to soften the area around farm buildings now converted into gallery spaces. These simple metal chairs in the enclosed courtyard fit so well.

Still in the South West of England we next visit the RHS garden at Rosemore, a garden with many different areas of changing character.

I shall finish off this selection with a visit to The Japanese Garden down in Cornwall.

It feels to good to finish this seat selection with some unusual seats set in an unusual garden. Next time we visit this occasional post it will be number 17.

Tags garden benches, garden furniture, garden seating, garden seats

autumn autumn colours garden buildings garden design garden paths garden photography garden seat garden seating garden wildlife gardening gardens gardens open to the public grasses hardy perennials

Return to Wildgoose Nurseries and Garden

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 15, 2018
1 Comment on Return to Wildgoose Nurseries and Garden

We returned in early October to a nearby garden and nursery set in a walled garden, Wildgoose Nursery and Garden run by Jack and Laura Wildgoose. This young couple took over the running and renovation of the walled garden in 2011 and we are amazed at each visit to see how far they have come.

The garden looks especially good in late summer and into the autumn, displaying many ornamental grasses and late-flowering hardy perennials. The light was goodon our last visit so the garden looked extra special.

As the above photos show the garden is situated in a sloping walled garden and along one wall is a very unusual curved glasshouse which has been beautifully restored and visitors can go inside to appreciate its special beauty.

The garden itself is based on brilliant planting using new perennial style material with meandering gravel paths throughout giving close views of most of the plants. Long vistas allowed us to appreciate the way shapes, structures and colours of the plants are so well thought out. Jack and Laura, the owners, have such a good eye for special plants plus the ability to arrange them beautifully. I thought that a gallery of my photos would give the clearest impression of this very special garden. It is difficult to imagine that the couple only took on the restoration of the walled garden and the creation of the new garden and nursery in 2011. Such determination and strength of character!

flowering bulbs garden design garden photography garden seat garden seating gardening gardens gardens open to the public grasses hardy perennials Herefordshire irises kitchen gardens log piles logs National Garden Scheme NGS nurseries ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs spring bulbs trees village gardens Winter Gardening winter gardens Yellow Book Gardens

Snowdrops and Creative Pruning – Ivy Croft Garden

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date June 28, 2018
3 Comments on Snowdrops and Creative Pruning – Ivy Croft Garden

I often publish posts about summer days out in winter to help us warm up so as we are in the middle of an exceptionally hot period of weather I shall do the opposite and publish this post I wrote in the winter in the hope it may cool us down!

There were two main reasons we wanted to visit Ivy Croft Garden and Nursery to look at, firstly their huge collection of snowdrops and secondly their imaginative pruning techniques. Both these elements are highlights of the February garden. We drove down to Herefordshire with gardening friends Pete and Sherlie who had never visited the garden before. We had been once before several years ago, when it was still quite early on in the development stage. We were looking forward to seeing what it was like after so many years.

The garden which was started in 1997, surrounds the cottage which has a formal area close to the house partly enclosed by an ivy hedge. Further afield the garden becomes less formal and a wander around gave us the chance to look at its pond, willow and dogwood collections, a perry pear orchard and a vegetable garden enclosed with trained fruit trees.

The area around the house featured many flowering bulbs and in the spring and summer alpines would take over. A colourful Acer griseum stood with two variegated Hollies in a circular bed surrounded by a gravel pathway.

The pruned features we discovered as we parked up included a pleached limes, box balls and all were neatly presented.

An amazing selection of ivies made up the ivy hedge which surround two sides of the formal garden around the cottage. It was a beautiful, unusual feature to welcome visitors.

The huge work shed had a unique humorous tough, buttresses created by training and pruning yew trees. Close by stood this beautiful white barked birch tree.

As we walked away from the pleached limes and box ball topiary, we wandered through the wide selection of rare and unusual snowdrops. Beyond this border was a trellis-like “fedge”, a living hedge made from willow.

Shrubs with coloured stems and trees with coloured bark are strong features of the winter garden, and Ivycroft had some fine examples of both. Coloured stems were provided by Salix and Cornus, whereas the coloured bark appeared on Betulas and Prunus.

Little details reward those who take a closer look, a catkin, a flower or an old seed pod.

As mentioned earlier Snowdrops were a special feature of the gardens at Ivy Croft, but we also enjoyed cyclamen, miniature daffodils and hellebores. Colours shone from shrubs too, Hamamelis, Daphne mezereum and Hedera helix in its shrubby form.

We certainly had plenty to enjoy at Ivy Croft and it had changed so much since our last visit over 10 years ago. We will certainly be visiting once again when it opens again for a day in the spring.

Tags cornus, dogwoods, flowering bulbs, gardens of Herefordshire, Herefordshire, Herefordshire gardens, hollies, log piles, pleached limes, pleaching, salix, snowdrops, spring bulbs, topiary., willow

garden design garden furniture garden seat garden seating

Are you sitting comfortably? No 14 in an occasional series.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date June 16, 2018
1 Comment on Are you sitting comfortably? No 14 in an occasional series.

Back for the 14th time for another selection of garden seating for you to enjoy, to look at and imagine the comfort or lack of it! The first photo is of a new pair of seats from our own garden situated in a new border called “Arabella’s Garden”.

The following set of four photos were shot in the beautiful village garden of our friend Von, although we doubt she has much time to use her seats. Von gardens in the countryside to the East of Shrewsbury where she has amazing countryside views.

Another village garden but this time a much larger affair is Cruckfield House south of Shrewsbury, and this garden to has a selection of seats to enjoy.

So there we have it a selection of garden seats from two very different sized village gardens. We shall be back before too long with another set of garden seats, the 15th set, for you to enjoy.

Tags garden furniture, garden seating, garden seats

climbing plants fruit and veg garden design garden photography garden ponds garden pools garden seat garden seating gardening gardens hardy perennials Hardy Plant Society HPS kitchen gardens roses Shrewsbury Shropshire village gardens water in the garden

A little village garden – Von’s garden.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date June 10, 2018
2 Comments on A little village garden – Von’s garden.

We have lots of gardening friends with gardens of all types and sizes and in all sorts of locations. One of our most enjoyable garden related activities is to visit a garden belonging to a friend. On a wet dull day in mid-June we visited the village garden of friend Yvonne, more often called Von. It is a garden with a beautiful view across the Shropshire countryside and a garden that happily sits in its environment.

I hope you enjoy my photographs taken in poor light and drizzling rain but the plants shone through. A gravel path leads us alongside a delicately planted border with softly curved shapes. The spires of tall-growing foxgloves and delphiniums shine through the gloom matching the colours of geraniums that soften the path edges.

Centrally placed in the garden is a softly shaped pool surrounded by beautiful planting.

There are well-placed seats throughout the garden each with special views including some that look out of the garden across the surrounding countryside.

These seats are situated on a gravel patch which boasts a large boulder with a smaller partner, a terracotta pot housing a saxifrage alongside an alpine sink.

Von loves plants so much that every vertical surface is covered with plants, ceanothus, honeysuckle and ivy.

Reaching the bottom of the garden there is a native hedge decorated with soft pink dog roses. Looking back up towards the house we get a different view of the garden and notice a very productive veg patch with neat raised beds.

As with any garden the stars are the plants and here there are many of interesting specimen deserving of more than a glance.

Wildlife enjoys this garden too. While taking a shot of this white and purple-spotted foxglove a bee arrived and set about exploring each little glove. A great finish to our visit, which will definitely not be the last.

Tags climbing plants, fruit and veg, fruit and veg growing, garden pond, garden ponds, garden pools, garden seating, garden seats, gardens of Shropshire, roses, Shropshire, village gardens

colours flowering bulbs garden design garden furniture garden photography garden ponds garden pools garden seat garden seating gardening gardens gardens open to the public grasses hardy perennials light light quality NGS ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs photography sculpture shrubs spring bulbs trees water in the garden Winter Gardening winter gardens Yellow Book Gardens

A canal-side garden in winter – John’s Garden Part 1

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 12, 2018
2 Comments on A canal-side garden in winter – John’s Garden Part 1

We have visited “John’s Garden” before in the height of summer and really enjoyed it, so much so that we were determined to re-visit at different times of the year. We imagined it would be an effective all-year garden. Mid-February and John opened his garden on a cold and wet winters day, so we went along with garden-loving friends Pete and Sherlie.

We started with a hot mug of coffee in the nursery coffee shop to warm us up, so with added warmth and lots of excitement and anticipation we wandered down the drive from Ashwood Nurseries to his own 3 acre-garden.

The garden has the advantage of boasting a canal, the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, running along its length – not many gardeners could say that about their patch!

An unusual hedge greeted us as we entered the garden, a long cloud pruned hedge, beautifully sculpted. A slate pathway at its end took us into a colourful area full of winter interest. Hamamelis and small deciduous trees were the stars, supported ably by ferns, bergenias, snowdrops and a variety of small-leaved shrubs trained as spheres.

We left this little garden behind and crossed an open lawned area dotted with topiary specimens and trees with interesting bark, coloured, textured or peeling. We joined up with the gardens bordering the canal, the sort of background gardeners can only dream of.

After a close up look at these trees and touching their bark, we followed the canal-side borders into the main gardens. Here grasses mingled with dogwoods and Willows, both pollarded and coppiced to enhanced their stem colours. Conifers of all sorts of shapes, colours and sizes began to appear here becoming strong features of this garden during the winter months. John is a master at transparency pruning which brings out the trees attributes. Interestingly he prunes both deciduous trees and shrubs and coniferous specimens too, which makes them look so much more interesting and they add so much to borders.

John is also a master of topiarising shrubs to emphasise their beauty and give structural elements throughout the garden. All sorts of conifers and evergreen shrubs have been given this treatment.

In part two of my post all about our winter visit to John’s Garden, we will move along the canal borders before returning along the opposite side of the patch, while along the way discovering a pool, sculpture and a terrace and lots more exciting plants and plant pairings.

Tags cloud pruning, conifers, creative pruning, deciduous trees, garden sculpture, hamamelis, outdoor sculpture, shrubs in winter, snowdrops, topiary., transparency pruning, winter, winter garden, winter gardening, winter gardens, witch hazels

colours conservation garden design garden furniture garden photography garden seat garden seating gardening gardens gardens open to the public grasses hardy perennials light light quality ornamental grasses RHS

Hyde Hall and its Dry Garden

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date February 9, 2018
1 Comment on Hyde Hall and its Dry Garden

As promised we now return once again to share our experience and enjoyment of our visit to RHS garden Hyde Hall and in particular to celebrate the famous Dry Garden. This was a small patch when we first saw it but a recent revamp has seen it develop greatly in scale but more importantly the addition of new plants has enhanced the original scheme. This patch of planting is on a gentle knoll of land and the plants in it have never been fed or watered since they were first planted. We were interested in this as we treat areas of our Avocet patch in exactly the same way. To us it seems a very natural way to garden, being much as Mother Nature intended for some wild areas.

Gravel is the mulch surface through which plants are planted and clear gravel patches become paths and ways to explore the plantings. Right on the very top is a stunning wooden seat, which is a splendid place to sit and look all around every degree of the full 360 view!

I shall now share a selection of photos I took of the dry garden to give you an impression of the style and character of the planting.

There is another phase of development underway at Hyde Hall so we need to visit again soon to see what is going on – can’t wait!

Tags dry gardening, Essex, Essex gardens, Hyde Hall Gardens, RHS, RHS gardens, RHS Hyde Hall, the dry garden

garden arches garden design garden furniture garden garden arches garden paths garden photography garden ponds garden pools garden seat garden seating gardening gardens National Garden Scheme NGS ornamental trees and shrubs outdoor sculpture pathways sculpture trees village gardens water in the garden Yellow Book Gardens

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

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.