Category: NGS

A new NGS Yellow Book garden, Longden Manor

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date June 4, 2019
1 Comment on A new NGS Yellow Book garden, Longden Manor

It is always exciting finding a new NGS garden to visit and when we find one that is just a few fields away as the crow flies it is extra interesting. Longden Manor with its organic farm still had to be driven to though and we seemed to drive in a big loop before we got to its field parking. As we drove up the drive to the field we were amused by several topiary pieces as well as a beautiful bright patch of Azaleas.

The Manor House itself sits in such a dominant place with wide sweeping views out across the Shropshire countryside. A huge lawn sits in front of the house ensuring a clear view, a view framed by large specimen trees.

New areas are being discovered all the time, old parts of forgotten gardens which are now being unearthed. It was a privilege to look at a pool and bog garden area just cleared and being prepared for planting. The pool has been reinstated already but it looks as if there will be exciting waterfalls and streams to follow.

From the newly discovered old pool we wandered through established woodland into a small orchard, an unusual holly orchard and kitchen garden.

I shall finish off my report of our visit to this new National Garden Scheme garden with another piece of topiary created to make you smile. A rather happy caterpillar!

Tags flowering shrubs, kitchen gardens, NGS, NGS gardens, orchards, rhododendrons, topiary., water feature, water in the garden, woodland garden, Yellow Book Gardens

countryside flowering bulbs garden arches garden buildings garden design garden paths garden photography garden seating garden wildlife gardening gardens gardens open to the public hardy perennials meadows National Garden Scheme NGS ornamental trees and shrubs pathways spring spring gardening village gardens wildlife Yellow Book Gardens

Another NGS Garden : Gorsty Bank – a wildlife friendly garden

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date May 18, 2019
1 Comment on Another NGS Garden : Gorsty Bank – a wildlife friendly garden

This a wonderful wildlife friendly garden which opens for the NGS and is owned and gardened by fellow Hardy Plant Society Shropshire Group members Annie and Gary Frost. The garden is a short distance from home so we soon arrived after a short journey and enjoyed the walk through the village of Hyssington and up the drive to the garden. We found some lovely primulas along the lane and the driveway itself was atmospheric with old stone walls on one side and native hedging alongside.

We were warmly greeted by Gary and as usual made our way to the refreshments and enjoyed talking with Annie as we enjoyed tea and tasty homemade cakes. The views from our seats afforded an idea of the richness of the experience we could look forward to.

We then enjoyed a slow wander around this gentle garden with its paths and gateways to guide our way. We loved the two meadows and the mini-arboretum.

Another enjoyable return visit to a favourite NGS garden afforded us a great day out. We will be back!

Tags daffodils, garden wildlife, gardening for wildlife, gardening in spring, gardens of Powys, meadows, NGS, NGS gardens, Powys, primulas, spring blossom, spring bulbs, tulips, wildflower meadows, wildlife gardening

colours flowering bulbs garden buildings garden design garden designers garden paths garden photography garden seat garden seating garden sheds gardening gardens gardens open to the public grasses hardy perennials light quality National Garden Scheme NGS nurseries ornamental grasses outdoor sculpture sculpture Shropshire South Shropshire spring bulbs spring gardening traditions village gardens walled gardens Yellow Book Gardens

Seasonal visits to two very different gardens

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date May 15, 2019

Instead of a monthly visit to the same garden for a whole 12 months I decided to look at two gardens, one small and one large. We have already visited the large one, Bodnant Gardens in North Wales already. So here is our first visit to our chosen small garden Wildegoose Nursery and Garden here in Shropshire.

We visited on May 5th, the day that Wildegoose opens with Millichope Hall Gardens for the NGS, just as we do. Wildegoose is the restoration project of the hall’s walled garden. Here a young couple, Jack and Laura Willgoss, have set up a nursery and are developing a modern perennial style garden as well as specialising in hardy perennial violas. It is an exciting project which we love to visit often.

Our first visit for this series of posts was on May 5th, a bright day with a chilly wind but a day with great light for taking photos and enhancing the brightness of colours.

We arrived via a tall gate in the the brick walls and were immediately struck by a patch of Forget-me-nots and tulips. We soon realised that Jack and Laura had a great taste in tulip colours. These tulips complimented so effectively the strength of colours of euphorbias and wallflowers.

Throughout the garden, as we wandered and explored, little gems of plants caught our eyes like this unusual Cammassia and the strong stemmed Thalictrum “Black Stocking”.

Memories of the walled garden’s Georgian origins and its history until its demise after the two world wars appear occasionally throughout the garden, and exciting artifacts integrate into the plantings.

The teashop is wonderfully old-fashioned and is so welcoming with beautiful bone china crockery in which tasty tea is served along with home-made cakes. We found a beautifully coloured table and chairs within the garden. We are tempted to paint some of our metal furniture in that colour as it sits so comfortably in the garden.

Next here is a selection of photos taken throughout the walled garden for you to enjoy.

We finished our wanderings at the nursery. Always a good idea! Here we bought a selection of their hardy perennial violas – beautiful!

Laura and Jack’s twins always leave a surprise somewhere in the garden and today this was in the nursery beds. A nice friendly way to finish an inspirational, relaxing afternoon.

We will be back in the summer and report that exploration too.

Tags hardy perennials, hardy violas, independent nurseries, new perennial gardening, nurseries, ornamental grasses, perennials, South Shropshire, violas, Wildgoose Nursery

garden arches garden design garden designers garden furniture garden paths garden photography garden ponds garden pools garden seating gardening gardens gardens open to the public hardy perennials National Garden Scheme NGS ornamental trees and shrubs outdoor sculpture pathways pergolas shrubs spring gardening

Whitlenge Nursery and Gardens – an NGS opening

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date May 9, 2019
1 Comment on Whitlenge Nursery and Gardens – an NGS opening

One of our first NGS garden visits this year was to Whitlenge Garden and Nursery near Kidderminster in the West Midlands. The gardens were show gardens for the owner, a garden designer/landscaper, but we still enjoyed parts of it, including some plant combinations and some landscaping ideas mostly. being a designer’s show garden it didn’t have a coherent feel to it and it lacked flow. But there were so many ideas for visitors to pick up on.

Here I will share our wanderings around the garden with you for you to enjoy.

Please click on the first photo and then navigate using the arrows.

Tags archways, designer gardens, foliage combinations, foliage plants, garden paths, National Garden Scheme, NGS, NGS gardens, pathway, plant combinations, water features

garden design garden paths garden photography garden pools garden seat garden seating gardening gardens gardens open to the public hardy perennials lakes National Garden Scheme NGS ornamental trees and shrubs outdoor sculpture pathways Shropshire shrubs spring gardening trees Yellow Book Gardens

The NGS get together at Hodnet

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date April 12, 2019

Every year in late March we attend a get together with the NGS county organiser and the garden openers. This year was our friend Allison’s first year as county organiser and as her garden is small she had to arrange an alternative venue. To everyone’s delight the owner of Hodnet Hall and Gardens offered the use of his restaurant and also allowed us free range of the gardens. We were in for a treat!

To start off with we were warmly greeted by the car park attendants, Martin and George, then after parking up as we reached the courtyard fronting the restaurant building, we received more warm welcomes from Allison, our County Organiser, and Sir Algernon Heber-Percy the owner of the hall and its garden. He formally welcomed us all with a humorous speech. After informative talks by representatives of MacMillan Nurses and Horatio’s Gardens we indulged in a sumptuous meal.

Then we were left to explore the gardens, all 60 acres of it! We began our exploration by following a small flight of stone steps into an area of tall mature trees and then moved on to take a slow wander around the string of lakes and back to the borders below the hall itself.

I will continue the tour by sharing a gallery of photographs with you. As usual click on the first pic and navigate using the arrows.

So that was our day out at Hodnet Hall – a great time was had by all! I wonder what next year’s NGS get together will entail!

For information Hodnet Hall is open for the NGS but does have other opening dates throughout the year so do check them out.

Tags flowering shrubs, Hodnet Hall and Gardens, Lakes, National Garden Scheme, NGS, ornamental shrubs, ornamental trees, spring, spring garden, trees and shrubs, water features

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 photography gardening gardens gardens open to the public landscapes light light quality National Garden Scheme NGS ornamental trees and shrubs trees water in the garden Winter Gardening winter gardens woodland woodlands Yellow Book Gardens

Early Spring Light in a Woodland Garden

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date April 29, 2018

March at the Dingle woodland garden at The Dingle and Nursery near Welshpool proved to be a time with special light when the sun appeared for odd periods. I am sharing some of my photos taken of the landscape and the light playing with it. I hope you enjoy them!

Tags gardens of Powys, gardens of Wales, Mid Wales, ornamental trees, Powis, Powys, The Dingle Nurseries, The Dingle Welshpool, Wales, winter, winter garden, winter gardening, winter gardens, woodland garden, woodland gardening

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 garden design garden photography garden ponds gardening gardens gardens open to the public light log piles National Garden Scheme NGS nurseries ornamental trees and shrubs outdoor sculpture Powis Powys shrubs trees Wales Winter Gardening winter gardens Yellow Book Gardens

The Dingle Gardens Welshpool – January

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 21, 2018

Here we are back visiting our chosen garden each month, with our garden for 2018 being the attached garden at The Dingle Nurseries near Welshpool. This garden is of a totally different scale, atmosphere and style to Attingham Park, our garden for 2017. The garden is open every day of the year bar Christmas Day and on odd days the fees go to the National Garden Scheme.

The nursery is stocked with perennials, shrubs and trees but specialises mostly in the last two, and it is from here that we tend to buy our trees and shrubs. This is a nursery we are delighted to have on our dooorstep. As we move through the entrance we always enjoy the displays of plants with current interest and similarly plants for winter interest and displayed in the first few rows of plants.

So, here we are on the 14th January with our first visit to our new garden, arriving on a dull lightly overcast day. Having never visited before this deep into winter, we entered through the wooden gate green with algae and followed the gravel paths into the garden, not quite knowing what to expect. We enjoy surprises in the gardens we visit!

Evergreens both coniferous and broadleaves lined the paths and are planted in thoughtful groupings. In the first photo a dark, glossy leaved Pittosporum “Tom Thumb” sits comfortably with a Euphorbia, a Brachyglottis and a Hebe. In the second picture two conifers illustrate how different they can be in texture, colour and form.

Early in our wanderings we found this lovely rustic seat which is slowly being eroded away by the weather. Close by the seat glowed the pale green flowers of a Helleborus foetidus.

Hydrangeas appear throughout the garden in the autumn showing their colourful inflorescences in pinks, white and blues, while throughout the winter these colours fade to biscuits, gingers and ivory. In some flowers hints of blues and pinks remain.

Out of season flowers appear here and there on odd shrubs, on others leaf buds promise fresh growth in the spring while berries hang as remnants of their winter harvest.

When tree surgery work is carried out in the Dingle Garden logs are left as habitats for the many forms of wildlife that maintain a healthy ecosystem in the garden.

At the lowest point of the gardens a calm lake affords us a place to stop awhile to look around its banks. A bog garden at one end looks dull and dark at this time of year, with just the deep brown of dead leaves of Gunnera and Lysichiton americanus rising above the mud.

Recent heavy snowfall has caused damage to trees and shrubs, breaking branches of all sizes and crushing foliage. Strong winter winds have added to the damage.

To share more of my photos taken during our wandering and enjoyment of the gardens at the Dingle I have created the following gallery. Enjoy the pictures. The next visit to this garden will be in February.

Tags conifers, evergreens, gardens of Powys, ornamental shrubs, ornamental trees, Powis, Powys, shrubs and trees, The Dingle Welshpool, Welsh gardens, Welshpool

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.