Category: Winter Gardening

Winter Wonderland at Dunham Massey – part one

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date April 4, 2015

We are in the habit of visiting the gardens of the National Trust property, Dunham Massey, especially since their Winter Garden has matured. We tend to visit in February. This year we made our annual pilgrimage on a sunny, mild day right at the end of the month.

The new visitors centre of glass and wood gives a fresh new welcome and these beautiful etchings in the glass feature throughout. They set the atmosphere to prepare you for the wonderful winter garden.

On the walk to the garden we passed this dead tree now cut down and the wood used to create a wildlife habitat. Brilliant idea!

As soon as we had taken our first steps in the garden we could see what we could expect, with this border of coloured stemmed shrubs, Cornus “Midwinter fire” and Rubus thibeticanus against a background of ilex crenata and a mixture of conifers.

A few paces further on and the large numbers of white stemmed birches, Betula utilis “Dorenbos” appeared like a ghostly forest, with a carpet of Snowdrops adding to the atmosphere. You must know by now how much I love Betulas so you can imagine how planting them on this scale impresses me deeply. They enticed me to try out my new wide angle attachment on the Nikon. Not too sure about the vignetting on this one though!

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There was much more than white coloured plants to look at! And some lovingly selected plant partners.

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Not all the trees here in the winter garden were Birch either, there was plenty of room for others like this Prunus serrula and Acer griseum.

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As in any well-designed winter planting coloured stems are very potent, especially Cornus and Salix.

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But of course there were plenty of flowering plants to give us colour in the gloomiest of months, flowering bulbs, shrubs and even a few perennials.

In some areas we stopped to appreciate the beauty of an individual plant or even a single bloom but in others it was the sheer mass of planting that impressed.

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Other fresh growth provided interest without any colour other than browns and biscuits.

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Of course it is more natural to think of these lovely warm biscuits and browns when we consider the growth that was green or brightly coloured last year. And I love these colours when they are a result of decay and age as much as any other colour in the garden. Enjoy this little collage of brown and biscuit!

Thinking about winter of course we mustn’t let the berries in their gaudy reds and oranges get missed out.

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Sometimes the beauty was hidden behind a haze. In the pictures below you need to look through the thin mist and the reflective surface of water.

Tags betula, birch, birches, Cheshire, Cheshire gardens, cornus, dogwoods, Dunham Massey, iris, National Trust, spring bulbs, spring flowers, winter garden, winter gardening, witch hazels

allotments colours community gardening gardening ornamental trees and shrubs recycling trees Winter Gardening

The Wonder of Willows – part three

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 26, 2015
4 Comments on The Wonder of Willows – part three

So for the third in my posts about the wonder of willows we move to our allotment community garden site, Bowbrook Allotment Community (www.bowbrookallotments.co.uk)

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Here we grow many different varieties of Salix, willows with different habits, leaf shapes and in particular coloured bark. but before I move on to look at these I thought I would reminisce a little and cast my mind back to my childhood where willows played an important role. I lived in the vale of the River Severn in Gloucestershire and here, the lowland nature of the farmland meant that ditches had been dug for centuries around field boundaries to help with drainage.These ditches, and indeed every stream and brook was flanked with willows. These were pollarded and regularly harvested to be used by local craftsmen and women, the basket makers, trug makers and hurdle makers amongst them. But to me as a country lad they meant places to search for wildlife, to hide from the fishes I was angling for and in the case of the old giant hollow trunked willows they were dens to hide in. Below is a picture of a little clump of such pollarded willows in Herefordshire we spoted on our journey back from Croft Castle.

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Most of our allotment willows grow in our Withy Bed designed to help drain a particularly wet patch of land but mostly to provide vivid colours when they are stripped of their leaves in the autumn and winter months. We also grow them to help drain a wet part of our Winter Garden. The photo below was taken looking through the willows towards the white barked Betulas and the coloured stems of the Cornus (Dogwoods). As well as draining this area so effectively they add so much winter structure and colour of their own to the picture. In the second picture of these same willows you can see they have just been subject to their annual haircut.

The contorted willow below is one of two being trained up tall to weep over the top of the path behind the Winter Bed to form an archway.

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Each spring as the weather gets a little more conducive to outside work a group of us have our work cut out pruning so many willows, some we coppice and others we pollard at different heights. We have about twenty different cultivars here to enable us to achieve the effects that we are after. It takes a small team of volunteers a day’s work to get the task completed, resulting in some aching backs the following day. The first pair of photos shows a pair of before and after shots of one of our yellow stemmed coppiced willows.

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We set off with a wide range of pruners from small secateurs up to hefty loppers and slowly move from one end of the Withy Bed to the other with a good few tea breaks. We find it helpful to be bendy and wriggly to get in among the willows, bending low to the coppiced stools and reaching high to the tallest pollards and every combination in between.

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The prunings created when we cut them are used around the site to make structures and to create plant supports. But for this year many have been used while developing our new wildlife pond. The photos below show the prunings being kept fresh by being lain into the pond and illustrate the range of colours available to us.

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We have Violet Willow growing in the allotment’s Spring Garden which was a cutting off our tree at home and after four years it is a beautiful specimen which has sparkling silver catkins in Spring.

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Last year we created a Fedge with the prunings to give us a brightly coloured living willow fence. This acts as a useful windbreak and also hides part of the site’s manure/compost compound. In the winter when I took these pics it doesn’t hide much but the diamond shaped trellice effect shows up.

The final post in this series about willows will show how we have used some prunings from home and from the allotments to create a children’s play feature.

Tags Bowbrook Allotment Community, communal gardens, community gardening, community spirit, pruning, recycling, recycling in the garden, willow, willow features

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The Wonder of Willows – part two

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 19, 2015

For part two in this series about the wonder of willows we start in our own garden at our home “Avocet” in Shropshire. The first photo shows our striking, architectural Salix erythrocadium flexuosa with the orange coloured tips to its thinnest branches. Together with the colour, the amazing curling, spiraling branches impress everyone who sees it.

Close by our Violet Willow is equally impressive with its almost black stems which develop a white bloom in the winter. In the late winter and into early spring it produces strongly contrasting sparkling white catkins.

As the group of photos below show we have trained this as a pollarded specimen with its branches pruned down to the pollard stumps at about 8 to 9 feet. This is just tall enough to help us appreciate its catkins against the ever changing sky and also to make pruning easy.

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In late February or early March each year we prune it hard to give it its skeletal pollarded shape.

These two photos show how much material we pruned off it this year and the amazing range of colours.

Apart from these two specimen willow trees we have this ground hugging Salix variety that barely rises an inch above ground level.

Tags ornamental trees, pollarding, trees, Violet Willow, willow, willow pruning

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The Wonder of Willows – part one

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 16, 2015
2 Comments on The Wonder of Willows – part one

We spent a cold February day at the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust reserve in Gloucestershire, Slimbridge. Work was going on coppicing and pollarding the many willows around the site. It is so good to see this ancient countryside craft still being practised. Many of the willows here at Slimbridge are ancient but there is plenty of planting of willows going on all the time. When the trees have been cut the wands are used around the site. In other parts of the country the willow prunings are used in cottage industries like basket making and hurdle making. Larger pieces are also used as fuel. Willows are so useful but also very beautiful, the branches of no two ever seem the same ranging from greens and yellows to oranges and reds. One in our garden has even got black branches which develop a white bloom on them in the winter, making it a beautiful addition to our garden.

The photo below shows a grove of willows through an observation hatch in a hide.

The photo below photo shows a craftsmen head down sharpening his tools and having a break from pollarding these ancient willows. The wands when cut are delivered around the site where they are used to make screens which allow the public to walk around the site without disturbing the wildfowl and waders feeding in the lakes, scrapes and estuarine mud.

There is evidence of recent coppicing and pollarding at every turn.

The pair of pictures below show a freshly cut willow and another showing strong regrowth.

Some of the older willow trees line the main paths and looking close up you can see the gnarled bark. Some are hollowed out so that in extreme case only a tube of trunk remains.

Enjoy this little gallery of photos of individual trees.

We came across groves of small willows pollarded at about 4 feet high. When freshly cut they look like a busy crowd of people.

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The bowls of ancient willow after years of being subject to regular pollarding create a perfect moist area for mosses to thrive.

So there we have it – a brief appreciation of the willows at Slimbridge. They have an important role to play in these wild areas but of course they can also star in our gardens. But, as they say, that is a different story. Soon we will need to pollard and prune the many willows we grow in the community gardens of our allotment site. I shall post a blog celebrating those willows soon.

So there we leave Slimbridge with its wonderful willows and look forward to my next post about willows, featuring these versatile trees growing in much smaller places.

Tags coppicing, pollarding, trees, wetlands, Wildfowl and Wetalnds Trust, willow, willow structures

colours flowering bulbs garden photography garden ponds garden pools garden wildlife gardening grasses hardy perennials light light quality ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs recycling Shropshire spring bulbs spring gardening trees wildlife Winter Gardening winter gardens

My Garden Journal – February

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 13, 2015

Here we are with part two of my post featuring my garden journal, where we can look at what was going on in our garden in February.

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The first entry in my Garden Journal for February shares another quote from Jenny Joseph, “The next day, after a morning as closed in as ever, something must have shifted in the upper air, for suddenly there were distances and some weight was lifted from my head.” The first photos in this month’s journal were of startlingly white Snowdrops. “Bulbs send their tiny bright flowers out to greet us. Tiny but precious gems.” was my accompanying note.

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I also featured Primulas this month, “2015 is going to be a good year for Primulas. These two were flowering in the first days of Feb. Our plants of the native Primrose have been busy spreading their prodigy. We have seedlings in the gravel, in borders and in cracks in paving. Many are producing tiny flowers.”

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The first day of the new month was spent in the garden and what a wonderful day we had. A bonus day outside in mid-winter is so welcome. We pruned the climbing roses, trimmed down the old growth of perennials to reveal the fresh green shoots eagerly waiting to burst into growth with the onset of Spring. The plant that never fails to impress is the Sedum with its virulent fresh growth waiting thickly at the base of last year’s cut down stumps.

The tall elegant stems of grasses are now cut close to the ground after their winter display. Even the gentlest of breezes has encouraged them to dance, their stems swaying stiffly but gracefully and their seed heads far more fluent in their dances. They will soon be back. In my journal I noted “Cutting down the grasses is a task I do with mixed emotions. They become old friends in the garden and provide homes for over-wintering wildlife. Ladybirds especially love the shelter of their stems.”

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We like the month of February, as both Jude the Undergardener and I suffer from S.A.D.(seasonally adjusted disorder) and mid way through February we can spot a change in the light and literally feel an improvement in light quality and with it an improvement in our mood. I am sure the garden feels the same as all that future growth waits underground to burst forth and all those buds lie waiting on the resting bare branches of the deciduous trees and shrubs.

Birds are showing signs of getting themselves prepared for the rituals of spring that awaits them. Blue Tits are exploring nest boxes already with two boxes already held by two pairs. Collared Doves, those invaders to our shores, entertain us by filling the sky with their acrobatics designed to impress their mates. They fly diagonally backwards into the air!

In my journal I wrote “It is always heartening to hear the first signs of the “Dawn Chorus”. Top billing goes to the Song Thrush. This early in the year it has already started to stake his claim through song. By the end of the month he is joined by Blackbirds singing from high points on trees or buildings. Wrens are also now singing to mark their territories but their songs emanate from deep inside shrubs.”

Our attention is drawn to the wildlife pond from mid-February onwards as it is around this time that we start to hear the deep croaks of the male frogs calling the females in to join them in the water. One evening coming in from the garden we made a plan to clear the leaves and any winter debris from the pond the next day before the first frogs arrived. But they beat us to it for as we went into the garden to do just that a pair of mating frogs was in residence and close by lay a large glob of spawn. Our job became more difficult as we tried not to disturb their nuptials. My journal notes “February is also the month for mating frogs with their deep croaks heard from everywhere in the garden, “The Frogs’ Chorus!” We love frogs in the garden where they act as great pest controllers. Some move into the greenhouse once they leave the pond and work in there for us too. Free labour!

We can still enjoy the coloured stems of Cornus and Salix and the coloured textured trunks of the trees. The Betulas glow white with hints of silver, cream or salmon, while the Prunus serrula shines gold and brown. The brightest of all though must be Cornus “Midwinter Fire”. Late in this month however we begin the task of coppicing and pollarding, hard pruning to give us bright new stems with brighter colours in the year to come. My journal says, “It is also the time of year when we begin to coppice all our Dogwoods and willows. This is the last we shall see of their brightly coloured stems for a few months.” I move on to make special mention of the Violet Willow of which we have a trained multi-stemmed pollarded specimen which holds a great presence in the garden at every time of the year.

The photos below illustrate how its many colours vary with the changing light.

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These shots show the before pruning and after pruning images, so you can see how hard we prune them down. We certainly need our strong, sharp loppers for this job.

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The final pictures illustrate just how much wood is removed and shows the colours of the branches. All this material will be used for making plant supports and will be useful when we make a willow dome for some friends’ garden in a week or so (look out for a post about this). This is a fine example of recycling in action in the garden.

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We shall make the next visit to my garden journal in the month of March which we hope is full of the promise of spring.

Tags dogwoods, February, frogs, garden journal, garden wildlife, grasses, natural pest control, organic pest control, ornamental grasses, pest control, pruning, recycling, recycling in the garden, salix, spring bulbs, willow, willow structures

colours garden design garden furniture garden photography garden seating gardening gardens gardens open to the public grasses indoor plants ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs recycling Wales walled gardens Winter Gardening winter gardens

The Botanic Garden of Wales in the Rain – part two.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date February 15, 2015
2 Comments on The Botanic Garden of Wales in the Rain – part two.

Welcome back to South Wales where we were enjoying a very wet visit to the Botanic Gardens. In part one we looked at the magnificent glasshouse before taking a break. In part two we carry on in the heavy rain. Winding paths provided us with interesting routeways through the newly planted gravel and rock borders full of interesting foliage all glistening with rain droplets.

The black seed heads of an Eryngium looked in sharp contrast to the pale blue-grey foliage of the Euphorbia close behind. A beautiful oak bench of the simplest design was far too wet to enjoy sitting on. Wet rocks looked full of colour – in the dry they would have been almost monochrome. Grasses always look so good with rock!

Grass borders with every blade moving in waves like a rough sea are here edged with the neatest of low Box hedging. A bench of modern design looked so good against the Box and grasses. Trees in near silhouette looked good against biscuit coloured grasses.

We got soaked through on our walk towards the walled garden but I was still tempted to stop to take a few shots of grasses and my favourite Betulas and some more simple oak block seating.

Jude, aka Mrs Greenbench aka The Undergardener, thought she looked good in this throne! It was a pity her feet didn’t reach the ground – it spoiled the illusion somewhat! It was hard to get her off it! The throne sat under an oak framed arbor with a slate floor, both local materials. Drawings of dragons were etched into some of the slate.

Once in the walled garden, a unique double-walled garden in fact, we enjoyed seeing what the local school children had been up to on their plots. A beautiful bug hotel, a greenhouse made from recycled drinks bottles and an ingenious method comfrey feed all held our interest in spite of the rain.

Once inside the tropical glasshouse we certainly warmed up but my glasses and camera lens both misted up. It took a while for us and the camera to acclimatise. When we did, we were enthralled by foliage of all shapes and sizes, many patterned and textured. Just enjoy the photos.

The few blooms present were bright and gaudy!

When we last visited this garden these old Victorian range of glasshouses were covered in scaffolding so it was great to see they had been renovated and planted up. While the modern curved glasshouse houses temperate plants we were pleased to have discovered the contrast with these old ones housing their tropical plants. It was hot and very humid! The variety of planting was impressive!

The only trouble with the comfort we felt inside the glasshouse was that when we left we had to return to the reality of the wet, cold Welsh weather.

Tags Botanic Garden of Wales, foliage, foliage plants, garden seating, garden seats, green houses, tropical plants, Wales, walled garden, walled gardens

birds garden photography garden wildlife gardening ornamental trees and shrubs shrubs Winter Gardening winter gardens

My Garden Journal – January

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date February 9, 2015
2 Comments on My Garden Journal – January

As promised I am creating a garden journal throughout the year to celebrate our garden and this is the first post looking at January. I am writing and painting in my personalised “Moleskine” notebook, a special gift from our daughter and son-in-law, and as the first photo shows it has been embossed with the name of my blog. A beautiful and most luxurious book which feels a pleasure to handle and an honour to write in and a delight to create drawings and paintings in.

Early on in my journal I have written about the Avocet, the beautiful wader after whom we name our house and made an attempt at a drawing of one.

I wrote about the scented shrubs that keep us company in the January garden.

Daphne bhuloa “Jacqueline Postil” and Sarcococca confusa.

Cornus mas, the Cornelian Cherry and our two Hamamelis “Diane” and “Jelena”.

I moved on to write about our Winter Flowering Jasmine and once again got out the watercolours.

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We enjoyed a couple of magic moments involving birds of prey in January and I recorded them in my journal.

What a pleasure to have a Merlin in the garden and a Marsh Harrier flying over – I don’t expect that will happen too often!

Enjoy reading a few pages ……

Well, that is it for my January journal. February is here already so my journal is gaining new pages, which will feature in my next Garden journal post.

Tags birds of prey, garden journal, hamamelis, January, journal, scent in the garden, scented shrubs, witch hazels

allotments colours community gardening flowering bulbs fruit and veg garden photography gardens irises light light quality meadows NGS ornamental trees and shrubs shrubs spring bulbs Winter Gardening winter gardens

The Allotments at Rest

We took a walk around our allotment site today to see what was going on and check that everything was okay. We had just watched the site on TV as we featured on a BBC2 series called the Great British Garden Revival. I filmed with Dermuid Gavin a feature on wildlife gardening. It was a strange experience seeing our allotment site on the screen but even stranger seeing our own plot being used as an example of a wildlife friendly garden.

For today’s wander we arrived during a period of sunshine with a clear blue sky over our heads, but by the time we were half way around the clouds had arrived and we were subjected to light but very cold rain. The pure white catkins of the Violet willow in the Spring Garden sit like droplets of rain water after a storm. They are bright enough to be visible from a long way away. They draw attention to themselves very well!

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Probably the brightest of winter colours on any veg plot is provided by Swiss Chard especially the cultivar called Bright Lights. Light catches on the textured leaves emphasising their undulating surface. The other crops still in evidence are sprouts that have overwintered and the new fresh foliage of the Globe Artichoke. These leaves now just a few inches long will expand to a massive few feet in length and the plants will reach a good nine or ten feet in height. Their purple, teasel like flowers will delight our pollinators the butterflies, bees and hoverflies and the seed heads that follow will be a magnet to greedy Goldfinches and Linnets in the autumn. Perhaps the strongest pattern of all was found on Tom’s plot, where he has set out all the old clay drainage pipes that he dug up from his plot.

Both the male and female catkins glow purple on the Alders in the Autumn Garden where their neighbours the Buddlejas are showing fresh foliage with their texture like reptilian skin.

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Last year’s plants in the meadows and borders are now skeletons of their former selves. There is a strong structure linked with subtle beauty in these spent seed heads.

The wildlife shelters sitting in the orchards and meadows hide so many hibernating creatures. They shelter creatures from the winter cold and house anything from the tiniest insects up to amphibians such as frogs, toads and newts, birds like Wrens and Dunnock and mammals including our confident Weasels. A lost glove adds a splash of colour! In our “Dedge” the bright colours of the various Lichen, yellows, chartreuse and greens, glow however dull the light is.

A few spring flowering bulbs are showing spears of green piercing the cold soil. Some are even flowering such as the diminutive Iris reticula and Snowdrops.

Variegated foliage always looks good in the winter when the silver or gold stripes, spots or squiggles shine against deep green backgrounds.

Perhaps it is only right that the most colourful and interesting garden of all at the moment is our Winter Garden. The coloured stems of different forms of Cornus and Salix give us reds, oranges, greens and yellows and even black. The white stemmed Birches are now over 20 feet tall and they dominate this garden. Euphorbias and Hellebores give colour at close to ground level, while the Viburnum bodnantense “Dawn” and Cornus mas provide pink and chartreuse at eye level. Both these shrubs are also powerfully scented.

Elsewhere the coloured stems of a Salix in our Withy Bed shines gold and the Cornus “Midwinter Fire” glow like flames.

Our tour finishes off with a look at this year’s major project, our wildlife pond. We inherited this large farm pond in the summer and are busy tidying up around it in readiness of the work that lies ahead.

This little character is hidden for most of the year under a patch of Chrysanthemums grown for cutting but in winter he appears to cheer us all up.

I shall finish this post with a couple of bright jewels.

Tags allotments, birches, Bowbrook Allotment Community, Bowbrook Allotments, communal gardens, community gardening, cornus, dogwoods, fruit and vegetable growing, salix, scent, scent in the garden, scented plants, willows, winter, winter garden, winter gardening, winter gardens

architecture climbing plants colours garden buildings garden design garden furniture garden photography garden seating gardening gardens gardens open to the public hardy perennials irises kitchen gardens light quality National Trust ornamental trees and shrubs outdoor sculpture roses The National Trust trees walled gardens Winter Gardening winter gardens

Croft Castle month by month – January – part two

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 20, 2015
2 Comments on Croft Castle month by month – January – part two

Welcome back to Croft Castle where we were about to find out what lies beyond the blue gate. We entered the space beyond the gate and found immediately to our right one of the gardeners’ buildings from the days when the walled gardens were a productive fruit and veg garden. Today it is a children’s discovery room complete with nature table. A board showed the gardening tasks for the month. Close by hung an old pruning saw.

After a good peruse among the dusty artifacts and sharing our memories of nature tables at primary school we moved on to the old, wooden framed greenhouse which until now we had viewed from the gate. On this visit we went inside. We were delighted to find the old iron mechanisms that controlled the windows and vents still intact. We both find these fascinating and are amazed by the ingenuity shown by the greenhouse designers of that era.

We were pleased to find a colourful line up of watering cans and a very healthy looking Cobaea climbing up wires and flowering profusely. It was easy to see why it is graced with the common name “Cup and Saucer Vine”.

Outside the greenhouse we found a stack of apple trees heeled into a pile of compost awaiting the time when the frozen ground allowed them to be planted. Further old buildings hugged the walls – they were ina tumbled down state. The old window attracted me and my camera but I remain undecided if it is best as a colour or monochrome picture. Any thoughts?

We continued our tour of the main walled garden following the herbaceous borders to discover ancient apple trees beautifully pruned ready for fruiting next season. Their trunks and branches were encrusted with lichens and mosses creating miniature landscapes. Clumps of Mistletoe decorated several of the trees. This is a common parasitic plant in the orchards of Herefordshire. A Mistletoe Fair and market are held in December every year in the nearby market town of Tenbury Wells. They are famous for their mistletoe auctions.

Along the third and fourth walls mixed borders included many shrubs which were well pruned in readiness for new growth when spring arrives. In the central area among the grass willows had been pruned too, cut into low pollarding and coppicing to encourage fresh, long new wands to cut and use around the garden as plant supports or sculpture.

I enjoyed a play with this pic on Photoshop!

We were attracted to the opened seed pods of a Paeony with its four sections of woody shell. I certainly enjoyed playing with the image on Photoshop! Here you can select your favourite of three versions.

The sweet scent of the pink flowers of Viburnum bodnantense reached our noses long before we spotted the shrub itself. Next to it in the border was the giant stalk of the biggest Lilly we can grow in the UK, the statuesque Cardiocrinum giganteum.

In the growing seasons there are some lovely features within the walled garden like little garden rooms, including a pool garden and a rose garden. In the winter they are so cold and bare! But an odd Rose bloom was trying hard when we visited. It sadly offered no scent though, unlike the neighbouring Rosemary with its gentle aroma coming from the tiny china blue flowers and the Lonicera frangrantisima, the Winter Flowering Honeysuckle.

The gardeners have been busy making a huge “bug hotel” which is now almost complete. They have been having fun!

Reluctantly leaving the walled garden through a stone archway, we found small courtyard gardens linked by interesting textural paths. We gained views of the rear of the castle building and its huge water butt!

A further archway in a stone wall took us to a quartered courtyard garden with white benches and heavily pruned rose bushes. A strong wind blew through this area, making life difficult when I wanted to take a photograph of a Primrose flowering well out of season, resulting in a blurred close up of my scarf. Oh dear! But I did manage in the end. Definitely better without the scarf.

Rounding the next corner we could look out over the low stone wall across the meadows towards the lake and woodlands. The weather was not right for exploring these areas, so we decided to save it for warmer times. Above the corner tower an unusual wooden bell tower peered. Against the house wall we found a second scented Viburnum bodnantense heavy with blossom.

The tiny garden surrounding the estate church is often colourful but in winter colour was total lacking. The tower of the church was covered in scaffolding and it looked as if restoration work was well under way. I will share some pictures of this lovely building when the scaffolding is down later in the year.

We finally reached the front entrance to the castle, the massive door protected by stone-carved dragon sentinels. As we retraced our steps along the herbaceous border and stone wall we looked back to get views of the whole castle frontage.

Our next visit will be in February when we will see if anything in the garden changes as the days lengthen slightly and the light values improve. It may be a bit warmer too! Fingers crossed.

Tags greenhouse, greenhouses, Herefordshire, Herefordshire gardens, National Trust, The National Trust, Victorian greenhouses, walled garden, walled gardens

birds buildings fruit and veg garden buildings garden design garden photography garden wildlife gardening gardens gardens open to the public grow your own hardy perennials irises kitchen gardens light National Trust ornamental trees and shrubs The National Trust walled gardens walled kitchen gardens Winter Gardening winter gardens

Croft Castle Month by Month – January

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 18, 2015
2 Comments on Croft Castle Month by Month – January

Welcome to the first post in my series of monthly posts looking at a local garden. Throughout 2014 we traveled northward through the Shropshire Plains into neighbouring county Staffordshire in order to visit Trentham Gardens.

Throughout 2015 we will travel south to Croft Castle just into our neighbouring county of Herefordshire. We live at the northern tip of the Shropshire Hills, with the welcome sign just three-quarters of a mile away. In order to get to Croft we have to go southward through this range of hills, one of the most beautiful upland areas in the UK. We will enjoy our journeys!

At the entrance building a “Tramper” scooter acted as an effective sign. As we wandered towards the garden we enjoyed views of some of the estate’s ancient trees. These old massive Sweet Chestnuts are hundreds of years old and each year another dies. Luckily new ones have been planted as replacements. A natural mulch of leaves and nut casts are snuggled at their feet.

We soon met a much smaller and younger character, placed to help celebrate wintertime. We were to find many more of his friends. Currently there is an evening event on here based on light and these trees were part of it. We vowed to visit one evening!

We were soon on our way to the walled garden, our favourite part of Croft. To get there we followed a long mixed border abutting a tall stone wall. There was not much to see here in January but it looked full of promise. But we found character number two and three both smiling away just like their colleague we met earlier.

The shop, not open in the winter, is housed in an ancient barn and on shelves at its entrance these hedgehogs caught our eyes. More interesting characters!

A gap in the brick wall enticed us into the walled garden. We always enter with great anticipation, perhaps more so on this visit as we had never visited in the winter before. Either side of the doorway there was signs of colour in the narrow borders. The colours of the berries of an Iris, the mauve flowers of Liriope muscari and the silver of the long thin catkins of Garrya eliptica.

From the open doorway views of the walled garden opened up in front of us. We soon espied different types of trained fruit and clumps of textured perennials in the borders.

The textured foliage was provided by silver narrow foliage of Santolinas and in strong contrast the thin strap-like leaves of the Black Grass, Ophiopogon. This is not a grass at all but in reality a Lily!

There were two very contrasting sorts of trained fruit. Ancient beautifully sculpted apples and a much newer array of grape vines, also beautifully trained. It was so good to see the skills of fruit training created at two very different periods of time.

What made this walled garden extra good for productive gardening was the fact that it was on a slope encouraging the sun to warm up the soil to its maximum. Even in early January the difference in temperature was noticeable. We could feel the change as we entered and exited the walled area. The photo of the door in the wall illustrates the slope and shows how steep it is. The plants also illustrate the effects of the walls protective powers. An Iris was in flower and a Melianthus was in bud. Arum italicum “Marmoratum” was in full marbled leaf.

When we were half way along the second edge of the walled garden we reached the gateway leading out of the garden which in the past had been clearly marked “private – keep out” so we were pleased to discover that it has been opened up for us to explore. Jude was soon on her way through! We had always longed to get a close up look at the old greenhouse range.

We will leave you here for now as we disappear behind the beautiful, unusually shaped blue gate where we found out what new treats were in store for us before we returned to the walled garden. See part two where we discover what was going on behind the blue gate as well as in the rest of the walled garden. We also wander around the rest of the gardens at Croft.