greenbenchramblings

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

flowering bulbs garden photography grasses ornamental grasses roses Winter Gardening winter gardens

12 Christmas Garden Delights

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 25, 2016
1 Comment on 12 Christmas Garden Delights

As a Christmas greeting to everyone I thought I would go out into the garden here at Avocet and take 12 photos that depict the delights of our patch on Christmas Day.

A dozen December delights!

xm-15 Out of season – Rosa Raspberry Royal.

xm-10 Cyclamen coum

Sarcococca confusa

Euphorbia wulfennii

Hebe Great Orme

xm-09 Jasminum nudiflorum

Cornus Midwinter Fire

Carex elata aurea

xm-14 Winter Cyclamen

xm-12 Betula albosinensis Septentronalis.

xm-16 Physalis alkekengi (Chinese Lantern).

One of our many ferns, Arachnoides aristata.

We have had a great year in our Avocet Garden with so much to enjoy, so many visitors to share our patch with and plenty of wildlife to share it too!

Tags cyclamen, Cyclamen coum, December, shrubs in winter, winter, winter cyclamen, winter garden, winter gardening, winter gardens

colours garden photography gardening ornamental trees and shrubs photography Piet Oudolf Shropshire shrubs Winter Gardening winter gardens

Simply Beautiful – 4 – ugly name beautiful flower

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 22, 2016
1 Comment on Simply Beautiful – 4 – ugly name beautiful flower

Late in the year little surprises appear in the garden to stop you in your tracks. These are often out of season flowerings but beauty can also be found in the way plants gracefully fade away at the year’s end. Piet Oudolf reckons that to be a good garden worthy plant, a plant must die beautifully. When you visit any of the gardens designed by him in the winter you can identify with his idea and he is excellent at using such plants.

These little sparkling garden gems were brightly coloured a few weeks back with cerise and metallic blue colouring but they remain beautiful in their new winter colours. It is the shrub called Clerodendrum trichotomum var. fargesii. Ugly name but beautiful plant!

Tags berried shrubs, changing colours, Clerodendrum, colour in the garden, flowering shrubs, ornamental shrubs, Piet Oudolf, shrubs in winter, trees and shrubs, winter, winter garden

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 garden photography light light quality ornamental trees and shrubs photography trees

Simply Beautiful 3 – Cedar Lights

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 11, 2016

The autumn light can be very special at the beginning of the day but even more so as the days draws to a close. As we ended a parkland walk in late November we watched as the last rays of the sun tried to seek a way through the heavily needled branches of this huge and very ancient Cedar. Simply beautiful!

Tags ancient trees, autumn, autumn colours, Cedars, garden in autumn, late autumn, light, light quality

autumn autumn colours colours flowering bulbs gardening Shrewsbury Shropshire

Cyclamen for Autumn

Jude, aka the Undergardener aka Mrs Greenbench, and I love special plants that give extra interest at their own specific times of the year. The Cyclamen we plant in pots each autumn fall into this category and they give exceptional interest with their flowers and their foliage despite their diminutive size. We also grow their relatives in our open garden. They are all tuberous plants and enjoy being grown in partly shaded patches of our garden. We have to make sure the soil is enriched in organic matter so we ensure the areas around them are well-mulched each spring.

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Flowers and foliage are both unusual to look at, with unique colours, shapes and patterns. There are no two leaves the same on any plant, as they vary in shape, size, texture, colour and variegation. Their flowers appear like those of no other plant with fly-back petals giving an inside out look to each flower head. Can-can dancers!

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We plant them in all sorts of containers with various partners to give added interest and then position the containers where they can be seen from our windows or doors during the colder months. They are there to cheer the garden up and make us smile!

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Visitors to our garden are greeted by seasonally changing plant boxes and cyclamen always find their way here in the autumn. They partner up with the smaller growing grasses particularly well increasing the beauty of both plants.

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Again they give warm welcomes to visitors as they arrive at the front door of Avocet.

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Alongside the driveway we grow them in galvanised containers with bronze-leaved grasses and variegated leaved ivies.

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Where more of our Cyclamen grow than anywhere else is in the Rill Garden where we get good views of them from the garden room double doors. Great big smiles on dull overcast winter days.

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In the borders we grow both Cyclamen coum and Cyclamen hederifolium in lightly shaded areas to give bright patches of colour, with C.coum blooming in the spring and C. hederifolium in autumn. A few plants will suddenly stop you in your tracks when you realise you now have a spreading patch.

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Garden Cyclamen have an unusual relationship with our garden ants too, which adds to their mystique. We notice seedlings appear in the strangest places often several feet from parent plants and it is hard to find any pattern to their distribution nor rhyme nor reason to their chosen new homes. Ants are the force behind our moving Cyclamen. The appearance of fresh plants in bizarre places show that some other force is at work as the plant itself could not possible have the power to send their heavy seeds so far. The Cyclamen coats its leaves in a sweet substance that is irresistible to ants who carry them off several metres resulting occasionally in their sudden appearance in hanging baskets, containers and odd corners of the garden. This relationship between ants and cyclamen is called “myrmecochory”, a suitably bizarre word for a bizarre phenomena. The photos below show four of the Cyclamen plants that have been seeded by our garden’s ants.

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Although it is primarily the crazy pinks and reds of the flowers that make us buy them, they are also great garden plants because of their unusual foliage. It is often quoted that no two leaves of these plants are ever the same! Below is an assortment of foliage belonging to our Cyclamen.

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Sadly the cyclamen growing in the wild are endangered following exploitation by ruthless bulb hunters who flooded the plant markets of Europe and America with them. They are now protected and this wild hunting is banned. New methods of propagation means that we now have so many beautiful variations available to us and the wild populations are increasing once again. So their future is bright – bright pink!

Tags autumn, autumn colours, autumn gardens, autumn plants, cyclamen, Cyclamen coum, Cyclamen hederifolium, Tubers, winter cyclamen

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 landscapes light light quality National Trust ornamental trees and shrubs photography Shropshire The National Trust trees Winter Gardening winter gardens woodland woodlands

Simply Beautiful 2 – woodland light

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 3, 2016

If the light is right in the autumn and you are wandering around woodland stripes of light and shade will appear painting the woodland floor before you. Simply beautiful!

Tags autumn, autumn colours, beauty, deciduous trees, garden in autumn, garden in November, garden trees, late autumn, light, light and shade, light quality, November, ornamental trees, shadow, simple beauty

architecture buildings community gardening the sea the seaside the shore the South

Southwold – a seaside town with added flair!

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 29, 2016
3 Comments on Southwold – a seaside town with added flair!

Southwold has been recommended to us as a seaside place worth a visit a few times so when we found ourselves just 20 or so miles away we simply had to go and see what made Southwold so special.

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We parked the car right in front of the pier as a suitable parking space presented itself and on opening the doors we were greeted by the sound of the song “The Good Ship Lollipop” being broadcast rather too loudly! This was to be the first of several surprises to come!

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The pier was full of such surprises none more impressive than the metalwork pieces along its length beginning appropriately with the gateway. To follow were seat arms of metal eels, two rather “Heath Robinsonesque” creations, a clock and a telescope.

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On the back wall of the main entrance building this huge mural is a tribute to writer George Orwell to whom Southwold was home during various periods of his life. Liz Ewing describes Southwold as “…… a place he returned to time and time again,to study, to work, to write, to paint, to fall in love and to convalesce”.

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Walking the promenade afforded wide sweeping views of long sandy beaches and looking out to sea the rather beautiful sculptural village of wind turbines.

From the end of the pier we spotted another favourite seaside feature, a row of beach huts, for which Southwold is famous, but this is the subject of another post all about the seaside at Southwold (published 22\11\2016) . Here are a couple to whet your appetite!

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Back to search for other aspects of this interesting little seaside town that is Southwold, we wandered very slowly away from the pier towards the old town itself.

Leaving the bright plastic of beach toys behind us we discovered these interesting little garden cameos with nautical hints, and also an inland lighthouse of all things. This strange and extremely tall building was hundreds of yards from the sea itself and hidden in the back gardens of the village cottages. Strange! You will spot it snuggled into the town centre in one of my pics below.

After being surprised by the beauty of the pier and the beach huts were then delighted to find an equally beautiful little town.

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It appears that at one time in the past Southwold was a busy productive little settlement with its own brewery, distillery and cottage industries. Today the brewery remains integrated into the village with its premises nestled among the shops and cottages.

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There was obvious pride in this lovely little place with community spirit riding high and a very warm welcome for its visitors.

We left the inland secrets of Southwold behind and ambled back along the promenade looking out over the beach and the sea itself, a perfect end to a day of finding a new favourite place. A great discovery!