We were so lucky with our choice of day for our monthly visit to John’s Garden in April because we had choosen a day when John was holding his first ever plant fair. It was far more than the usual plant fair because there were 19 specialist nurseries attending and the sales pitches were spread out around the garden. We could enjoy the garden and the plant fair. A great two for one day!
We arrived just before the plant fair was due to open and were surprised to see the queue to enter was a hundred yards or more long and slowly growing into the car park. So we sat and enjoyed a tasty coffee while waiting for the queue to abate. Once there was no-one queueing we simply walked in to enjoy our day.
And we certainly enjoyed our day. we bought some amazing plants some of which we had been searching for a few years such as Paeonia daurica subs.”Mlokosewitschii” commonly known as ‘Molly the Witch’ and a shade loving perennial Disporum longistylum “Night Heron”. We met lots of plantaholic friends mostly fellow Shropshire Hardy Plant Society members and nursery owners we hadn’t seen for a while.
We were also there to have a look at John’s Garden for our monthly visit leading to this series of blog posts. I was taken by the colourful fresh growth on these conifers in ‘Adam’s Garden’ which seemed odd as neither of us are great fans of conifers in general.
From Adam’s Garden we passed through a wooden gateway into the main garden where we found lots more interesting nursery stalls as well as the usual rich assortment of plants. John always has a special way of planting in the shade seeing them as an advantage as opposed to problem areas.
We always find some plants that we do not recognise at all so need to turn to our iPhones for help such as this most unusual of Rhododendron with its finely cut pink petals. We discovered it was Rhododendron stenopetalum ‘Linearifolium’.
We are always impressed at the number of different Berberis here which show so many different bright foliage colours. I particularly loved this bright orange cultivar which shone out against bare soil and would be a great partner for so many other plants to enrich or contrast. The labels told us it is Berberis thumbergii ‘Orange Ice’. One to look out for!
The area in front of John’s home is a place for containers giving a great opportunity to play with bright colours, foliage and flowers alike.
Now that I have looked closely at individual plants or plant groupings I will finish off with a selection of wider views of the garden.
Our next journey out to John’s Garden at Ashwood Nurseries will be on a Saturday in May.
greenbenchramblings 