Category: gardens open to the public

The Line – a simple tribute to Richard Long

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 21, 2017
1 Comment on The Line – a simple tribute to Richard Long

Jude and I are great fans of land artists and are proud of our British contingency of these sculptors with big ideas. We have sought out pieces around the UK and loved the work of Andy Goldsworthy, David Nash and Richard Long in particular.

Leaving a wooded shaded area and entering a open grassland mown short by the munching mouths of deer and sheep, the sunlight caught the purity of the white fibres of the sheep wool. A simple white line, a reminder of the work of Richard Long.

Richard Long and his landscape art would soon come back to our thoughts and eyes, as we continued our wandering in the woodlands at our local National Trust property with its wonderful parkland, woodland and walled garden, we had to take a detour veering away from our usual routeway. We took a poorly marked diversion beneath open woodland of long stretched trees with narrow trunks and branches way up creating a high canopy.

Some of these trees, although relatively young tend to weaken due to competition from their neighbours simply growing too closely, and then either die off or get blown over by strong winds. On this day in late November the bright sunshine shone so low down that it lit up the felled trunks. Below I share my photograph of a thin silver line lying beneath the narrow black verticals, a broken birch bough beneath living conifers stretching to reach the light.

It put in my mind the work of Richard Long, the part played in his creativity of lines and paths. I took a few shots to put together as a short appreciation of his work.

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sb1-18 The end of the line ………………..

……………………… for now. Soon more broken bright green moss covered fallen boughs cut across our pathway. the richest green cutting through the deeply carpeted dried browns of fallen autumn leaves.

More lines appear before your eyes when you have Richard Long’s work in your mind, the wash left as a white line across the dark surface of the river, the bright line of light vertically drawn down the trunk of an ancient proud tree.

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So our visit to Attingham Park was made even more special and the experience raised even higher by linking it to Richard Long’s creativity. What a surprise!

Tags deciduous trees, land art, lines, National Trust, outdoor sculpture, Richard Long, The National Trust

architecture buildings gardens open to the public landscapes log piles logs National Trust Shrewsbury Shropshire The National Trust

A Walk in the Park – 3 -The WW2 Walk

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 5, 2017
2 Comments on A Walk in the Park – 3 -The WW2 Walk

In readiness for my new monthly visit blog postings for 2017 we have visited Attingham Park our subject for next year a few times during the late autumn and early winter to walk the paths and introduce them to you.

Today it is the turn of the World War II Walk, a walk we had never tried before, so we set off not knowing what to expect.

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During World War Two Attingham Park was the site of an RAF airfield, which was built over existing smallholdings. It began life as an RAF fighter station but during 1942 it was handed over to the USAAF when it was used as a training station for American fighter pilots. It closed in the Autumn of 1946. We were not really sure what to expect so set off full of anticipation.

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We set off on an overcast chilly day for our walk and the weather was to remain dull for the whole walk.

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We first crossed the corner of the Deer Park and made our way alongside ancient dying or dead trees. We were pleased to see that plenty of new young trees have been planted to replace them. The old trees were left after they had died to become valuable wildlife haunts from woodpeckers to beetles to myriads of micro-organisms. This is a healthy way to manage woodland and parkland. Fallen wood has been left where it dropped or piled up to create wildlife shelter and food. A local beekeeper has established a good colony of bees with several sorts of colourful hives set alongside the woodland fenceline.

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Jude the Undergardener and I are both very imaginative and love looking for shapes in clouds, flames and here within the shapes of fallen rotting wood. The tree trunk in the photo below reminded us of a Komodo Dragon!

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We love the textures in rotting tree wood – the patterns, lines and colours creating works of art.

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We wandered along a woodland path beneath dark tall conifers, the path soft beneath our feet made from chipped bark and topped with a layer of pine needles.

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Site Number 10 is where we found the evidence of the Atcham Airfield, ruins of barrack huts, officers’ quarters and latrines. To begin with an odd brick or two then signs of an old wall and then even the ruins of a building.

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After experiencing the discovery of the ruins of the airfield complex, we left the artifacts behind us and made our way back through the deer park towards the hall.

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We will no doubt re-visit this walk and its WW2 ruins during our monthly visits in 2017.

Tags Attingham Park, NT, parkland, Shropshire, The National Trust, world war, world war 2

autumn autumn colours colours garden photography gardening gardens gardens open to the public light light quality National Trust ornamental trees and shrubs Shrewsbury Shropshire The National Trust woodland woodlands

A Walk in the Park – Part Two – The One Mile Walk

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 3, 2017
1 Comment on A Walk in the Park – Part Two – The One Mile Walk

Returning to a second post about Attingham Park, we would like to introduce you to another part of this Shropshire National Trust property. The One Mile Walk was our chosen walk on a November afternoon visit to Attingham Park. We only had a short amount of time available as the light disappears far too early for us outdoor types at this time of year. Attingham will be our featured monthly visit during 2017 when we will chose one walk from the several available, clearly marked throughout the parkland and woodlands.

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We decided that our chosen walk would give us the chance to relish in the beauty of autumn, trees and autumnal sunlight all working together especially for us. Come with us and see!

The Mile Long Walk begins close to the stableyards and is a circular walk which has distinctive characteristics for the clockwise or anti-clockwise directions. So far on our many ambles around this path we have always followed it in a clockwise direction, really simply because given a choice we always go clockwise. So for this visit we broke our habit and took off in the anti-clockwise direction, and we were amazed how different it not only looked but also felt.

For a while we ambled riverside, getting glimpses of the shining blueness of the surface of the little river.

Some trees look special in so many ways. Sweet Chestnuts grow as tall as giants reaching for the passing clouds so have a magnificent presence. They have deeply textured striated bark of delicate grey. On the floor below them they carpet the floor in golden long-fingers of leaves and the spiky cases of the nuts, mixed up like a tasty granola.

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Lime trees decorate the tips of their branches with delicate seeds partnered with seedleaf wings which have the translucence of clear local heather honey.

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The surprise trees for us though were the Tulip Trees which dropped their leaves at all stages from the palest green to the darkest brown. Combined with the unique leaf shape it all added up to a great carpet.

We had to look all about us as there was so much going on to catch our attention, lovely tree silhouettes against the blue sky right down to dried multi-coloured fallen leaves which became kaleidoscopic like pictures as the beams of the sun kissed them.

We would love you to come with us and explore the wonderful “One Mile Walk” at our favourite parkland, Attingham Park. As usual start the gallery by clicking on the first photo then navigate by clicking on the arrows.

Tags Attingham Park, autumn, autumn colours, autumn gardens, autumn leaves, National Trust, ornamental trees, The National Trust, woodland, woodland gardening, woodland gardens, woodland walks, woodlands

autumn autumn colours colours flowering bulbs fruit and veg garden buildings garden photography gardening gardens gardens open to the public grow your own kitchen gardens memorials National Trust remembrance renovation Shrewsbury Shropshire The National Trust walled gardens walled kitchen gardens

A Walk in the Park – Part One – The Walled Garden

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 1, 2017
3 Comments on A Walk in the Park – Part One – The Walled Garden

Near to us, a mere half hour drive away is situated the parkland of a National Trust Property called Attingham Park, which is a place we often visit for an afternoon walk. The parkland affords us the opportunity of following different lengths of walk depending on the time we have and how fit we feel and of course on what the weather chooses to present us with. The parkland contains huge collections of trees and shrubs but few actual gardens, formal or naturalistic. It does however have the added element of a productive walled kitchen garden which the NT has lovingly and meticulously restored. So there is plenty to love about Attingham Park. We hope you will enjoy meeting the parkland and getting to understand its sense of place, or put more simply getting to know it like a new friend.

In 2017, rather than make monthly visits to a garden and reporting these visits in blog posts on a monthly basis we will visit Attingham Park each month of the year looking at both the Walled Garden and one of the walks. So there will be 2 posts featuring Attingham each month.

To help introduce you to Attingham Park we enjoyed a sunny day visit in November to take in an autumnal woodland walk and a quick exploration of the walled garden. Just a taster really for what we hope to share with you in 2017.

The Walled Garden

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After a half mile simple level walk along a woodchip track we found the Walled Garden. To reach it we walked beneath giant hardwoods and softwoods, deciduous trees and evergreens from many parts of the world discovered and brought here by some of the great plant hunters.

A first glance through the mature gnarled tree giants highlighted the gardeners’ bothy framed in low boughs almost parallel to the leaf littered ground. What a setting!

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The walled garden features restored glasshouses, bothy, gardeners’ stores and outbuildings as well as an orchard and the main productive vegetable borders.

The glasshouses looked magnificent wrapped up in their thick coats of fresh white paint. The yards around them were clear but we will see great changes throughout next year’s visits. Sugar mouse pink Nerine blooms provided neon strip of colour along the bases of the glasshouses.

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The orchard hosts rows of ancient fruit trees gnarled and their boughs leaning low to the ground. On this visit it was home to a “Remembrance Tree” and a collection of photographs of the staff “then and now”.

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Displays in the bothy showed the plants of the season, the pumpkins in all their orange glory and they also were used as parchment for messages written in them all about the garden in wartime.

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The garden staff and volunteers had grown cordon tomato plants up against the inner brick wall of the productive garden, Tomato Andine Cornue. They were “forcing” chickory and endive to sweeten them and here we discovered even more pumpkins.

As we begin our Attingham monthly forays early in 2017 we will have a look at the main body of the productive walled garden.

Tags Attingham Park, fruit and veg, fruit and vegetable growing, glasshouses, old glasshouses, orchards, pumpkins, walled garden, walled gardens

colours garden design garden photography gardening gardens gardens open to the public hardy perennials ornamental trees and shrubs Shropshire Staffordshire trees Winter Gardening winter gardens

The Dorothy Clive Garden in December

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 27, 2016
4 Comments on The Dorothy Clive Garden in December

So here we are with the final installment in my series of posts where we report on our monthly visits to the wonderful gardens on the Staffordshire and Shropshire border, the Dorothy Clive Garden. We have really enjoyed our monthly visits and every time has been so different with different things to stimulate all the senses.

It has been a most enjoyable series of visits. Next year we will be looking at a very different place in our monthly visit series.

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As we have come to expect, the table decorations reflected the season, as we enjoyed a coffee and cake to launch our final visit for 2016. The borders up against the tea shop wall looked so bare now after them recently being full of the brightest colours possible provided by Nerines. But within a few yards of leaving the tea shop we discovered colour in flowers and buds giving promises of things to come.

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The new Winter Garden has now really come into its own and will continue to impress for a few months to come.

dcd2-19 dcd2-20 dcd2-19 Structure comes into its own in any good garden at this time of the year and we found that the DC garden was no different. At home we love our cloud pruned box hedges and box balls and in winter of course they come to the fore so we were so pleased to see similar styles of hedge cutting going on on a much larger scale at the Dorothy Clive.

This rolling bundle of box bushes tumble like acrobats along the hedgerow and by partnering up with two mature trees they frame the countryside beyond. Great fun! The next three group around the bottom of a tree like three young triplets cuddling up to their mother. In the third pic the box balls invite the visitor to pass between them to discover more garden beyond.

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Berries on trees and shrubs will hang on well into the winter depending how poor the weather becomes and how deeply winter sets in both here and on the continent. If weather as far away as Siberia becomes too inclement for the indigenous thrushes, starlings and blackcaps they migrate to our shores forming raiding parties upon arrival spreading countrywide consuming the fruits, seeds and berries in the countryside and increasingly our gardens. Some colours also last longer as birds are a selective lot when they have the choice, red first, oranges next then yellow and finally white and translucent.

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The colours, textures and patterns found on the bark of trees as well as the stems of shrubs take centre stage at this time of year and are lit up by any late year sunshine.

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We associate dried flowers with indoor arrangements in the winter but there are plenty of interesting versions to be found outside, especially if you can find some Hydrangeas like the many at the Dorothy Clive Gardens. The colours are those of faded tapestries.

Although not great fans of coniferous trees we can appreciate them more in December when their heavy skeletal frameworks show well. Cones and the last of the flowers hang on their solid branches.

We do however greatly appreciate the silhouettes of tall skeletal networks of deciduous trees.

We were surprised by how many different fungi we spotted as we wandered as we would normally see them in the autumn. They provided bright tiny patches of colour on old logs placed as border edges.

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So there we have it, a year’s worth of visits to this lovely garden on the border of Shropshire and Staffordshire, one of our favourites and lucky for us within an hour’s drive so very easy to visit. I hope you have enjoyed the Dorothy Clive Gardens and my attempts at recording its seasonal beauty through the lens of my camera.

Tags berried shrubs, berried trees, berries, Dorothy Clive Garden, Dorothy Clive Gardens, fungi, gardens of Shropshire, North Shropshire, Shropshire, Shropshire gardens, shrubs in winter, Staffordshire, Staffordshire Gardens, winter, winter garden, winter gardening, winter gardens

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

Bressingham Gardens – 2 – Using Grasses.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 18, 2016
1 Comment on Bressingham Gardens – 2 – Using Grasses.

In this second report of our visit to the gardens at Bressingham I am going to look at the use of grasses throughout the gardens. As the batch of shots below illustrate, grasses here are beautifully integrated into the mixed borders and enhance their partners’ attributes. The grasses add movement, sound and an element of delicacy to the whole garden.

The Bloms family created the gardens here at Bressingham not only to show the use of perennials and grasses but also coniferous evergreens. It is here they display all the many new cultivars of grasses and perennial herbaceous plants that they have bred over the decades. They also pioneered the use of island beds in garden design where for the first time herbaceous borders were designed to be seen from all around and the island beds of plantings were designed to be islands within seas of lawn.

Grasses especially varieties and cultivars of Miscanthus are an integral part of the gardens here including the island beds. There is a large collection of Miscanthus which impressed and delighted me as it is a grass family that I love to see and love to use in our garden. It is a great multi-season group of plants.

Here are a few shots of the Miscanthus collection, but it was hard to do justice with the camera to illustrate the subtle variations in colour, height texture and growth habits of these grasses, the colours in all the different flowers and the leaf stripes and variegations.

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Using grasses in clumps, blocks, rivers and ribbons adds drama to the garden, but equally a single specimen partnered with a shrub, tree or herbaceous plant can increase the aesthetic value of both the grass and its partner.

Here are a couple of ideas seen at Bressingham using grasses in ribbons and rivers.

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We enjoyed finding effective planting partnerships involving grasses with other classes of plant.

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We came away full of new ideas and a list of Miscanthus we look forward to adding to our Avocet patch.

Tags Blooms, Blooms of Bressingham, Bressingham, Bressingham Gardens, Foggy Bottom, grasses, hardy perennials, herbaceous borders, herbaceous plants, island beds, island borders, mixed borders, ornamental grasses, perennials

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

Bressingham Gardens – 1 – Colour Combinations and Conifers

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 15, 2016
3 Comments on Bressingham Gardens – 1 – Colour Combinations and Conifers

Jude and I have a book in which we write and keep our bucket list, or really bucket lists. We keep lists of places to visit, gardens to visit and activities to try out. We add to them throughout each year and revamp and edit them at the beginning of each new year.

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Our gardens to visit list has contained one particular garden we wished to visit for 3 or 4 years and it was in the summer of 2016 that we finally successfully got there, The Bressingham Gardens. We looked forward to seeing how they used grasses throughout the gardens and to experiencing enjoying so many beautiful herbaceous perennials. We also hoped that the on-site nursery would give us access to some unusual perennials bred at Bressingham and difficult to get elsewhere, and we particularly hoped to buy some Sea Hollies. Blooms are particularly well-known for their Achillea, Crocosmia and Kniphofia developments, such as C. Lucifer and K. Toffee Nose.

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These expansive gardens are like a calm green sea of short cut grass broken up by island beds exploding with colourful mixed plantings.

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Areas of shade are essential in any open aspect garden, and here small deciduous trees are used throughout to add small patches of shade along pathways, and most of these trees have interesting coloured foliage to add another layer of interest.

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We enjoyed the richness of warm colours working together beautifully when caught by the sunshine, and contrasting colours shining out in the borders.

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Coniferous evergreens are a special feature of the gardens as they are a particular love of Adrian Bloom one of the family who designed, maintain and own the gardens at Bressingham. Here they appear in every shade of yellow, green and blue with shapes of all sorts some extreme shape, from narrow, upright sentinels to drooping waterfalls. They also feature within the tall windbreaks planted all around the site to protect the wide ranging plantings within the gardens.

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In my next blog we will return to the gardens at Bressingham and take a look at how grasses are used to good effects. A big disappointmetn at Bressingham is that the nursery there has been sold to a massive national chain of garden centres, so the plants were the same old same old! So sad!

Tags Blooms, Blooms of Bressingham, Bressingham, Bressingham Gardens, conifers, Crocosmia Lucifer, crocosmias, hardy perennials, hardy plants, herbaceous borders, herbaceous plants, island beds, island borders, mixed borders, Norfolk, ornamental grasses, ornamental shrubs, ornamental trees

autumn autumn colours colours garden design garden photography gardening gardens gardens open to the public landscapes light light quality ornamental trees and shrubs photography Shropshire shrubs Staffordshire trees

The Dorothy Clive Garden in November

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 4, 2016

Our November visit to see the changing faces of this lovely Shropshire/Staffordshire border garden saw us arriving in sunshine but we were to be treated to a magnificent sky later in the day.

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The grass below our feet was wet with the heavy dew from the night hours and it sparkled and glowed in the low autumnal rays of the sun. We just knew we were in for a good day! The two signs near to where we parked up hinted at the joys of autumn we would find and also at the fact that a painting course was being held in the gardens. There always seems to be something going on here as well as the beauty of the garden itself.

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We always love the first few minutes of our visits here, when we get the first views out across the garden and get an idea of what the day may have in store for us. We immediately noticed that the Viburnum which we have never been able to identify had now lost the vibrancy of its red-purple hanging foliage and there was no sign of the richly glossy red and black berries. Instead a white feather hung to one of the last remaining leaves. Nearby in the border leading to the tea house yellow dominated, foliage of a tall Calamagrostis grass, an out of season golden yellow Phlomis whorl of flowers and the delicate seedheads of Agapanthus.

Looking out from the tea shop through its large panoramic window we noticed the light glistening on the dew still hanging on covering the grass and the outdoor seats and tables. As I took the pics of the dew Jude the Undergardener/ Mrs Greenbench looked out from the warmth enjoying tea and cake and the beautiful seasonal table centre bouquet.

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As we re-entered the chill we noticed that the Nerine outside the cafe which we enjoyed in flower last month was parading its glossy black berries. Dew on the deeaply pleated Melianthus leaves increased their glaucous hue. The gardeners were busy cutting, taking under cover or protecting the tender plants around the cafe terrace. In the hot borders many tender perennials such as Dahlia, Salvias and Echiums were already safely put away leaving swathes of bare cold soil in their wake.

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Seed heads have darkened and the scaffolding of stems have become more skeletal during the late autumn and produced a beauty all of their own for our delectation.

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Leaves and fruit add richness and depth to the more limited November colour palette.

Side by side two completely different plants, one an Aesculus, one a Fuchsia present the same pinkish-cream colour, the first within its leaf and the second in its faded pink flowers. Beautiful to see them side by side!

Without a doubt my favourite family of shrubs is the deciduous Euonymus and they are always such exciting plants with unusual stems, bark, flowers and berries. Naturally I was delighted to come across this beautiful little shrub, Eouonymus alatus nana with beautiful subtle pink colouring to the autumn foliage and deep purple with orange flowers and berries.

So our eleventh visit to Dorothy Clive was such a worthwhile, even exciting day for us with such an unusual sky event lighting up the gardens for a little while. Our next visit in December will be the final one so we will see what the year end brings to this wonderful place.

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Tags autumn, autumn colours, autumn gardens, changing colours, colour, deciduous euonymus, euonymus, garden in November, light, light quality, light vales, North Shropshire, November, Shropshire gardens, Staffordshire, Staffordshire Gardens

autumn autumn colours colours garden photography garden ponds garden pools gardening gardens gardens open to the public landscapes light light quality ornamental trees and shrubs reflections Shropshire Staffordshire trees water in the garden

The Dorothy Clive Garden – Autumnal Super Sky!

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 27, 2016

Sometimes something happens that will remain with you for ever, a fleeting moment when Mother Nature shouts out, “Hey! Look at me! Check this out!”. She puts on a great show which disappears as quickly and silently as it appeared a short few moments previously.

While following one of our slow monthly ramblings around the Dorothy Clive Garden looking at what the garden had to offer especially for this month, we were, to say the least, waylaid by the weather.

As we walked slowly down the sloping path to the lower garden and the pool, we photographed the birches, trunks pale against the deep evergreen conifers behind them.

We looked over the hedge, the garden boundary, out and across to the countryside beyond. We saw that the light was changing rapidly and dramatically lighting up the countryside. A darkness crept over the approaching clouds which became the darkest blue-grey possible. Combined with the bright shafts of low November sunlight we were suddenly surrounded by the strangest weather we could ever remember.

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The birches against their dark backgrounds lit up further. In a matter of seconds it was all magic surrounding us. The first two pics are the first pair prior to the light change, and the following three illustrate the changes those few moments in time produced.

Just look at the subtle changes in these three photos below taken just seconds apart. Look at the light on each tree and the reflection!

We will now share the changing scenes of a fleeting moment in time with you via a gallery of photos shown in the order I took them. Enjoy.

Things began to calm down as a dark cloud took over the sky once again and we enjoyed a final view from this lovely garden bench. It is strange to think that this this beautiful short passage of time which changed our view of trees and the garden in general will never be seen again. An unforgettable experience and an unrepeatable performance!

What a special moment, a moment we will never forget. In the short time this special lighting was putting on its special personalised show for us we were so excited and couldn’t stop pointing out special moments to share.

In my next post I will share the rest of our November visit to the Dorothy Clive Garden.

Tags autumn, autumn colours, autumn gardens, Dorothy Clive Garden, Dorothy Clive Gardens, light, light quality, North Shropshire, Shropshire gardens, Staffordshire, Staffordshire Gardens, trees and shrubs, weather

fruit and veg gardens open to the public kitchen gardens memorials National Trust remembrance Shrewsbury Shropshire The National Trust walled gardens walled kitchen gardens

Tree of Remembrance

In the words of the children’s song, “If you go down to the woods today are in for a big surprise!” proved to be true this week when we went for a walk around the National Trust property, Attingham Park.

And we were! I shall share these few moments with you when we felt very emotional by this surprise awaiting us. The gardening staff had created a “remembrance tree” by decorating, very tastefully, an old gnarled apple tree in the orchard abutting the old walled garden. It was a very special, personal way for the current team of gardeners and volunteers to remember the gardeners who worked at Attingham Park walled garden when war broke out and sadly never returned.