greenbenchramblings

As promised we are back after leaving the walled garden. In this post I will share a gallery of my photos taken on the pathways through the way-marked woodland walk.

We walked through the orchard on our way to the main woodland area. Here it was good to see young families enjoying exploring the fruit trees and picking up fallen fruit. We were amused to spot three mums pushing a set of twins each in double pushchairs and also a picnic table displayed as a “Wind in the Willows” picnic.

Off now to enjoy walking beneath beautiful mature deciduous trees seen from the woodland walk pathways.

So there we have it! Two posts sharing our woodland walk at Attingham Park a place we visit often so it probably won’t be long until we share a follow up post.

Because of Covid-19 restrictions we have not visited Attingham Park for quite a while so have not been able to follow the woodland walk paths. But towards the end of August we drove the short half-hour journey and after coffee we walked the “Woodland Walk” for the first time for months.

The woodland had a definite late summer look to it with early fruits, seed heads on wildflowers and the birds were silent during their moult time.

After wandering slowly along a bark chip path beneath mature deciduous trees we walked through the walled garden which was looking neat and productive again now that volunteers are back working.

From the main section of the walled garden we went through a gateway into the smaller area where the cut flower beds, cold frames and glasshouses live. Here there are beautiful wildlife borders to give an extra dimension and the wildlife attracted here become predators and pollinators to support the crops.

In the second part of this post I will share a gallery of the photos taken as we left the walled garden via the orchard and then explored the woodland walk.

We made the short journey southward into Powys, our neighbouring county across in Wales to visit the garden of plantswoman and nursery owner Claire Austin. We always enjoy the drive into Powys as the countryside in Shropshire merges into the countryside in mid-Wales.

We parked up in a hummocky field and took the rough driveway up to Claire’s oak-framed house with its formally structured front garden.

We really enjoyed the front borders full of healthy perennials as one would expect from someone who specialises in producing such plants which are sold through her massive online nursery.

We moved around the back passing these two on the way. The design here was much softer and the planting more varied in height and wider plant choice.

We expected to see such good irises included in the planting as iris and paeony are her specialist plants.

The Paeony Field and Iris Field were next up. Neither of us are fans of paeony and don’t grow them at home but we rare iris lovers. We did however have a quick look at the paeonies.

We moved through some other mixed borders as we went to look at the few remaining irises in bloom. We were a bit too late in the season to see them at their best.

We reached the collection of bearded irises and enjoyed the out of season blooms. Here is a small gallery of iris portraits.

We left the irises behind after giving them plenty of admiration and made our way back up to the house before making our way homeward.

Moving into the second half of the year the garden continues to flourish despite the crazy weather extremes which are coming our way almost on a daily basis. After starting with bright days alternating with wet days, high temperatures have been the biggest factor controlling our gardening activities as some days we have only been able to garden in the evenings.

On the first page I wrote, “With the coming of July we move into the second half of the year. Confused weather was the pattern for the first week with alternating bright days and wet days. I began the new month by trying out a new way of air-layering, a propagation technique that has always fascinated me.”

From top left along the top row of photos we have “The tools of the trade”, “Both halves of the sphere are filled with damp sphagnum moss” and “A propagating knife notches the branch.”

The words for the two photos above say, “The two halves of he sphere are clipped together.”

On the opposite page I wrote, “There were plenty more jobs to be getting on with during the month.”

We bought lots of plants for redeveloping parts of borders, I pruned the vine, took lots of succulent cuttings and Ian, our garden help pruned the Malus “Butterball” working largely from the inside!”

Over the following couple of pages I featured climbers that we grow in our garden and which flower in July. I wrote, “Our climbers have come to the fore this July especially the roses and clematis, which are so floriferous and vigorous.”

I then shared eight photos of climbing and rambling roses, “Bobby James”, “Summer Wine” and “Enchantress” in the first batch, followed by “Warm Welcome” and “Mutabilis Odorata”.

The clematis above are “Durandii”, “Comptesse de Bouchard” and “The President”.

On the top of the next page I wrote, “But there are plenty of other climbers flowering away in July, honeysuckles, jasmines and eccremocarpus, even a climbing fuschia and Hydrangea petiolaris.” I also shared six other photos of these climbers.

I featured a sketch of our front garden looking towards our Shrub Garden. I used watercolours and Japanese Brush Pens.

Another colourful page sat opposite where I shared photos of a selection of our many hemerocallis, Day Lilies. I wrote, “As we move into the second half of July, our hemerocallis, Day Lilies, add rich colours to all our borders.”

I shared a batch of nine photos of our hemerocallis to illustrate the wide varieties of colours we have.

The next page features two other types of lily, Martagons and Asiatics, where I noted, “More colour was provided by two types of true lily, both martagons and asiatics, in the front garden.”

The first set of photos are of martagons while the second set are asiatics.

The final page shows an i-Pad sketch I created to show the view looking up through the planting on our roof garden atop our woodstore.

This return to look at my garden journal marks the end of the first half of the year, another one living under the effects of Covid. Plenty happened in the garden and we had enjoyable tasks to perform.

I began by writing, “June began with hot dry weather often with clear blue skies. On several days this summer peacefulness was interrupted by showers. It was good weather to encourage our bog garden primulas to flower.”

On the next page I feature three drawings I did of some of the lichen found on a dying branch of our Cercis siliquastrum. I sketched them in watercolours, fibre pens and Japanese brush pens. It was quite a challenge!

On the following double page spread I showed some of our irises and shared nine photos.

above the first group of nine photos I wrote, “Irises in several forms brighten up the garden from the “Chatto Garden” to the ponds and bog garden.”

At the top of the second page of irises I wrote “For big bright blooms we look to the Bearded Iris so called because of the fur on the falls often of contrasting bright colours. They are also known as Iris germanica. The buds of iris flowers have a beauty all of their own.”

Turning over to the next pair of pages we consider the gardening tasks we do in this busy month. I wrote, “June is a very busy month with plants putting on a lot of growth and flowers opening to give us colour throughout.“

The second page looks at me revitalising a terrarium which I was rescuing for my daughter and son-in-law, Jo and Rob.

“I had fun re-vitalising a failed terrarium for our daughter and son-in-law Jo and Rob. It is strange gardening in a scaled down patch.”

My entries for June end with two pages with eight photos of views of our front garden. I wrote, “As June comes to an end, I take a journey around our front garden with my camera.”

I added a set of eight photos of views across parts of the front garden.

For our second Hardy Plant Society mini-group visit for this year we drove just 5 miles to a nearby village, Hanwood. A dozen or so members visited another garden of fellow members Richard and Mavis. This was the first time we had visited their patch so we looked forward to surprises.

This lovely combination of potentilla and lavender greeted us as we walked into the front garden. Nearby a similar effect was achieved with a combination of lavender and Alchemilla mollis.

We soon realised that this was a garden that achieved a balance between aesthetics and attractiveness to wildlife. It felt so welcoming and peaceful, made even more so by its outlook.The land sloped down to the Rea Brook a small river inhabited by brown trout, grayling and chub.

The lower garden featured island beds of wildflower meadow planting, each with a different set of grasses and flowering plants. This area regularly floods, so much that the potting shed is raised high above ground level.

We ended our afternoon enjoyment of this absorbing garden with coffee and cakes on the terrace which overlooked the lower garden and the natural area around the brook.

We have visited the arboretum at Arley on the banks of the River Severn several times over the years as it is our local arboretum, but we had never explored it in May. Thus, when the easing of lockdown rules happened, we arranged to meet our sister Penny and brother-in-law Tony at coffee time in readiness for an enjoyable wander along the pathways between and beneath the trees.

Just a few minutes into our walk brightly coloured azaleas and rhododendrons gave us a lively patch of colour beneath tall mature trees.

These subtle two-toned yellow and white daffodils reminded us it was really still spring. We wandered along the path at the edge of the arboretum as it skirted the Severn Valley where we heard the sounds of the vintage railway and saw early diesel engines pulling their rows of vintage carriages following on along the valley side.

This darkly barked betula was a strong contrast to a nearby whitebeam. We saw the bright white bracts of Cornus kousa Eddies White wonder from a distance and wandered over for a close look – so beautiful.

The spring colour of the fresh foliage of Acer brilliantissima gave little brightness to the dull day.

We left the main arboretum plantings and entered the more formal areas consisting of colourful mixed borders.

Back near the cafe polytunnels were home to more delicate plants, aeoniums, pelargoniums and echeveria. This oriental bloom livened up an old brick wall and deserved a close up look. We had a very colourful end to our tree orientated day.

This year seems to be going so quickly with the complications of changing Covid complications and such mixed up seasons.

Rapidly changing weather patterns have confused the garden with the plants and the wildlife being confused and impossible for us to predict.

I began my May entries into my garden journal by writing, “May arrived loaded with strange and widely varied weather. Within the first ten days we had experienced sunny warm days interspersed with storms of rain, snow, frozen rain, hail stones and thunder and lightning.”

However looking around our patch revealed many effective plant partnerships. Here is just a small selection.

On the following page I considered that old cottage garden favourite the aquilegia and I wrote, “The first perennials to burst into life after the flowering bulbs of spring are often the aquilegias, some of which we plant as named cultivars and others that self-seed wherever they wish. But they do choose good places!”

My painting of a striped tulip was the subject of the following page, which I created using Japanese Brush Pens.

The next double page spread features flowering shrubs and alliums. Concerning flowering shrubs I noted, “Every month different shrubs come into flower to add another layer of interest to our garden and to provide pollen and nectar for our insects.”

“Here is a small selection of our flowering shrubs in the garden in May”

My next page features alliums and I noted, “As the last of the spring flowering bulbs need dead heading, alliums take over, mainly flowering in shades of purple with a few white such as our Allium ‘Everest’ in the gallery below.”

The final double page spread features succulents, firstly a page of photos of a few of my collection and then a coloured pencil drawing of one in flower. Here I wrote, “We created a ‘xeroscape’ garden last year for our ever increasing collection of aeoniums. These special succulents glow in shades of reds, purples and greens.”

The photos below show just a small selection of my collection of aeoniums.

I finished off my entries for May with a coloured pencil drawing of one of our succulents in flower. Gasteria glomerata sends up a single fine stem which displays its delicate coral and green flowers.

And that is it for my May entries in my garden journal for 2021. I shall return to look into it in June.

On a wet dull day in mid-May we made our way to the north of our county, Shropshire to visit the second NGS garden of the year, Pooh Corner owned and gardened by our friend and fellow Hardy Plants Society member, Sue. This is a garden that is well thought of by fellow Hardy Plant Society members and we had wanted to visit for a while. Sadly circumstances hadn’t allowed until now. It is situated on a modern estate in the town of St. Martins and is like an oasis among roads and other houses.

Straight away we found interesting plants often in great plant communities.

The garden with its amusing name showed off the gardener’s sense of humour along the many paths.

Hidden away among plants we were delighted to find some interesting and varied sculptural pieces.

Rain had been almost forgotten by the time we had explored much of the garden and we really enjoyed wandering its many narrow paths taking us amongst the plants.

What a lovely way to spend a disappointingly damp day out. We certainly felt much better for our time in this great little garden.

After living near Shrewsbury for close to a couple of decades, we finally today wandered along the Rea Brook Valley Circular Walk, a guided 3 mile amble.

We began in a large car park next to a supermarket, not the best launch pad for a walk but things could only get better! We couldn’t find any signage to help find the starting point, but did know that we needed to find the station platform of the historic railway, “The Old Potts Way”. We also knew this was to be found near the town’s abbey.

We noticed a footpath sign on the grass alongside the abbey and luckily it pointed us in the direction of the route we wanted to follow. But there was no sign of the kingfisher logo which the walk details led us to believe would guide all round the walk.

We walked in front of the old railway station where the line terminated and wandered along the platform where our start to the walk we discovered to be far from auspicious. We passed a supermarket carpark and the back wall of the building – most uninteresting except for some graffiti. Soon we wandered passed a multi-screen cinema and a few fast food outlets. At least to our left the Rea Brook itself looked a little more promising.

To our right as we wandered along the back of the supermarket the ground sloped upwards and was cover in deep green ivy dotted with clumps of Bluebells just coming into flower. We were surprised when Jude found a nest fallen from the branches of one of the tall sycamore trees. It was a nest constructed beautifully from dried grass stems and lined with a cup of dried mud so would have belonged to a pair of Song Thrushes who would have nested in the ivy covering the tree trunk.

Our first real glimpse of the Rea Brook was to our left as we passed the supermarket where it ran at the bottom of a steep nettle covered bank. These would have provided plenty of food for caterpillars of some of our common butterflies. A little further on we enjoyed the blossom of an ornamental cherry. Soon, after wandering through a pasture field with shiny black cattle in, we found ourselves walking on the site of the Old Potts Railway track and here we found more wildflowers and even the odd reminders of its past.

We also noticed the kingfisher sign for the first time which the walk leaflet said would guide us all the way – at least it did from there on!

The next set of photos is all about whites and greens.

We began to notice that traffic noise started increasing as we approached the first of several tunnels and bridges we were to encounter along the way. These underpasses are such miserable places! When we were met by green pastureland on exiting this dark tube it felt so cheering. We began to get better views of the brook itself too. We found a dried up side stream coming across the grassland and providing a habitat for marsh/bog plants.

Sadly we soon viewed another ugly underpass which our path took us through. It did have some interesting graffiti though.

We were nearing the point where we were to cross over the brook and return to our car on the opposite side. Enjoy my gallery of the return journey.

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