We have known Christine for a long while now and often visited her large garden up in the Welsh Hills beyond LLanrhaeadr. A stunning garden with beautiful meadows to one side, a large pond being developed and an original looking veg garden. Closer to the house were several beautifully planted borders and corton steel troughs.
Circumstances changed for Christine and late husband John meaning a change of location and a smaller house and garden became the order of the day. They lived temporarily in an apartment in Shrewsbury before settling for a townhouse on the outskirts of the town. John didn’t live to see the new house, cancer preventing him from doing so.
So Christine moved into the new house on her own and turned it into a home and turned her new small patch of land into a beautifully designed and planted garden. This garden was at a much lower altitude and a fraction of the size of the hillside garden.
Christine invited our Shropshire Hardy Plant Society mini-group to view her new horticultural creation. The four photos below were taken on the kerbside and indicated what a treat we had in store.
We had to walk through the house to get to the garden which we could see was already coming on well. Winding gravel paths meandered between borders, allowing us good views of the planting.
There were carefully positioned pieces of sculpture throughout the garden and one area had a small pond under construction planned to be good for wildlife. Many of Christine’s plants will also be explored by wildlife of all sorts.
Interesting sculptural pieces pop up just where they are needed giving a chance to stop and get a really good look at each piece.
As with any garden whatever the size, it is the plants that matter the most.
We all know that Christine’s favourite colour is orange. She is rarely seen without orange somewhere within her outfits, so it was no surprise to see this glowing orange Kniphofia in the garden.
Every garden needs plenty of places to sit and relax or enjoy shared refreshments. Christine had invited us for refreshments as well as discovering her garden. This calm welcoming table surrounded by plants awaited us.
We knew that Christine had not been creating her beautiful garden for very long and she claimed that there wouldn’t be much to see but at least we could have some coffee and cake. In fact we found so much to enjoy in her garden and the refreshments were good too!
greenbenchramblings 