Tag: clematis

What our visitors saw in August

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date August 19, 2016
1 Comment on What our visitors saw in August

We open our garden a few times a year both by appointment and full open days so I thought it would be interesting to wander around our patch just after a group left, taking photos as I went, thus giving a visitors’ eye view of our garden. The date was early August.

Salvias featured strongly as did clematis and roses. Colours in the garden were strong and lively, helped by the sunshine when it occasionally came out to play.

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The added bonus of wildlife always delights our visitors. We will soon be hosting our final visit by a garden group for this year but we already have groups booked to come and share our Avocet patch with us in 2017.

I now invite you to come with me and my camera lens for a wander around our garden by navigating through this gallery. I hope you enjoy the journey. As usual click on the first photo and navigate with the arrows.

Tags August, clematis, colour in the garden, garden wildlife, gardens, roses, salvias, summer, summer gardens

birds climbing plants colours flowering bulbs garden design garden photography garden ponds garden pools garden wildlife gardening gardens grasses hardy perennials house martins light light quality ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs roses Shropshire shrubs spring bulbs spring gardening succulents swallows water in the garden wildlife

My Garden Journal in May

Just as I completed my journal for June I realised that I had not yet posted “My Garden Journal for May”, so here it is now for you to enjoy! The June journal report won’t be far behind!

Summer creeping in can only mean that our May garden is changing by the day. Exuberance in every border with things growing before your eyes. A month of excitement! I began my May entry in my garden journal by writing,

“May means exuberance! It is the month when our garden shows us the ability it has to surprise. It shows off its strength and its artistic talents. Growth is so rapid and colour so exciting, that we are aware of what our garden means to us and also aware of its power that Mother Nature possesses and uses with pride and to excess!”

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I then turn to looking back at my original garden journey recording the first few years that we have lived and gardened at Avocet.

“Looking back in my garden journal that recorded the early years at Avocet, I read a paragraph that shows just how similar May is now.

“The garden is bursting with life – butterflies including Holly Blues, bees and so many birds. Suddenly the garden is alive with birds giving extra colour, sound and movement. There seems to be so many finches – Goldfinches, Chaffinches and Greenfinches. Swifts, Swallows and House Martins swoop overhead especially in the evening.”

Sadly though there are far fewer Swifts, Swallows and House Martins overhead. So many have not survived their long migrations. What does the future hold for these beautiful acrobats?”

Turning over the page of my journal and we see the next two pages feature Acers and Roses.

“Acers are one of the many stars of the May garden, a month when their foliage and stems are delicate and colourful.”

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“May means Roses and by the middle of the month we have many buds and pioneer blooms. Reds and pinks dominate at the moment. Yellows and oranges are still to come.”

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I moved on to look at one of the climbers we enjoy in our garden and at the grasses that have now started to grow rapidly.

“Think of climbers early in the summer garden and Clematis is the first plant to spring to mind.”

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“Grasses are growing quickly now and the myriad shades of green move skyward in our borders.”

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Turning over again and succulents are discussed. These are a recent interest and I have only been growing them and propagating them for a few years.

Succulent plants are an interest that has grown over the last few years. Beginning with Aeoniums and Echeverias I soon branched out.”

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“Troughs of succulents grace the Rill Garden in May and on into October when the risk of frost mean that they retreat to the warmth of our greenhouse.”

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When we turn over next we see that I talk of Hostas and in particular those growing in our Bog Garden. The bog garden is so full of life at the moment with plants growing appreciably by the day.

“Hostas are one of the more subtle of our garden favourites both their foliage and later in the year their flowers. The Bog Garden next to our Wildlife Pond and snuggled up to it is a place of rapid growth in May.”

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White is not a colour I particularly appreciate in the garden and as a result I do not use it much.

“White is not my favourite colour in the garden. I particularly do not like white painted garden furniture or white painted fences, trellises or walls. We tend to paint our seats in ivory or cream which are much softer colours particularly on bright sunny days. Our fences we paint in browns and trellis work in gentle shades of green which acts as a great foil for our plants. I think this dislike of white is to do with our weather as it can work so well in other countries. Where flowers are concerned I appreciate them most in May when white can look good with the brightness of fresh foliage. Below are photos of a few particularly good white flowers, Viburnums, Cornus, white Bluebells, Iberis and Camassias. Some of these are the purest of white where others have gentle hints of colour. The Camassia has a green tint to it and the Iberis the gentlest hint of pink.”

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As we leave May behind we can look forward to the longest day, the time when day and night share equal number of hours.

Tags acers., aeomiums, bog garden, bog plants, clematis, climbers, climbing plants, Echeveria, echeverias, gardens in May, hostas, May, ornamental grasses, roses, succulents, the garden in May, white flowers, white in the harden

autumn autumn colours colours fruit and veg garden design garden photography gardening gardens hardy perennials Shropshire

Aiming for an all year round garden – our garden in September 2

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 4, 2014
2 Comments on Aiming for an all year round garden – our garden in September 2

From the beginning to the end the month of September saw great changes as autumn began to show its glory. There may be fewer flowers out in this month but every one seems richer in colour and texture, and the greens of the foliage gets paler making way for yellows, oranges and reds to creep in.

Enjoy a journey around our garden in the final few days of September. Just click on any image to enter the slide show and click on the right arrow to move on through.

Ricinus still in full flower with Miss Wilmott’s Ghost.

Almost there! We will soon be in a race with the Blackbirds to get to the grapes first.

The whispy seedheads of mixed grasses provide a perfect foil for Geranium Rosanne. Behind our Chestnut beings to yellow.

The tiny daisy flowers of Erigeron contrast with the dark stems of the purple Sedum.

Papaver rupifera glows whatever the light is up to.

A view of the Chicken Garden through Miscanthus flowers.

A second view of the Chicken Garden through Persicaria amplexicaule Alba.

Sedum and Hypericum in the Chicken Garden.

Honeysuckle and Clematis – a perfect Sepyember combination.

Another Crab Apple with smaller red fruit.

The Chicken Garden in all its autumn glory.

Tags apples, autumn, autumn colours, clematis, foliage, garden photography, gardening, grasses, hardy perennials, ornamental trees, September, trees

climbing plants colours garden design garden photography garden ponds garden pools garden seating gardening gardens grasses half-hardy perennials hardy perennials Hardy Plant Society HPS National Garden Scheme NGS ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs roses Shropshire The National Gardening Scheme" water in the garden Yellow Book Gardens

Aiming for a year round garden – our garden in June – how our visitors saw us.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date July 16, 2014
5 Comments on Aiming for a year round garden – our garden in June – how our visitors saw us.

This year, 2014 will be the year we open our garden under the auspices of the National Garden Scheme, so we saw our garden details published in the famous Yellow Book. This is a landmark for any gardener in England and Wales, albeit a pleasing one and a worrying one. So many questions pour into your mind when you see the description of your garden in print.

I had to provide 9 photographs of our garden taken in previous years at the same time of year we are due to open. It was hard to choose shots that gave the right “feel”. We wanted to give a taste of what our plot is all about and these pictures give further ideas for the visitor after they have read the paragraph we presented to the NGS. Luckily I could look back into the archives of my blog. To check out the photos I selected go to the NGS website, http://www.ngs.org.uk, click on “find a garden” and type in Avocet where you are asked for a garden name.

We have also been asked by a couple of garden groups if they could visit. So the first of these we set for mid-June and we felt it would provide a practice run for the big day in August. The group were the Shrewsbury Mini-group of the Shropshire Hardy Plant Society, so we knew them already which made the day a bit less daunting. I took a series of photos in the morning of the day they were coming to give an idea of how they would see our little quarter acre of garden.

This post also serves as part of my series on “Aiming for a Year Round Garden” where I look around our garden to see if our aim to have interest throughout he year is working.

The first photos show how we welcome visitors as they find our gateway and look up the drive.

Next we take a quick wander around the front garden to view the gravel garden (The Beth Chatto Garden), the stump circle and the driftwood circle, as well as the mixed borders around the lawn.

We have worked hard this year to make the drive and the side of the house more welcoming using antique galvanised containers planted up with Dahlias and Calendulas and brightly coloured Pelargoniums are planted in the hanging baskets and other containers.

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The next “port of call” is the Shade Garden followed by the “Fern Garden” and then into the “Seaside Garden”. I always seem to follow a set pathway around the garden when taking photos but I have to admit that I designed the garden to give visitors choices and so have created a situation where no two people wandering around need to follow the same route. I want each section of the garden to be viewed and approached from several directions. So although I am trying in this post to show our garden from our visitors’ viewpoint it is in reality just my own personal route.

And so to the back garden which has a different feel to it altogether as the individual garden compartments are all hidden in some way. It is a garden where you have to go looking – you cannot sit and look and take it all in in one go. Unlike the front, where from the seat under the arbor you can view most of the garden borders in one go, there are parts you can’t see so you are enticed to go to them for a close look.

In the back garden we find the water feature among Hostas and Toad Lilies on the end of the Shed Bed and from there you can look down the central path with arches draped with trained apple trees, roses and clematis. Another arch to the side of the main path affords glimpses of more borders.

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From the central path we can peer over the cloud pruned box hedge into these borders, which hopefully will entice the visitors to explore further.

By turning right off the central path visitors find themselves between the Chicken Garden and the Secret Garden and after a mere half dozen steps must choose which one to look at first.

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Within the Secret Garden alongside a comfortable cream coloured seat visitors can enjoy our latest creation, the Alpine Throne.

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If however our visitors chose to go left at the central path they would find further choices, the Japanese Garden, the Wildlife Pond and Bog Garden to the right or the Long Border and Crescent Border to the left.

Back closer to the house we can find the “Pollinators’ Border” complete with insect hotel, the Shed Scree Bed and the new Tropical Border.

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So there we have a quick tour of our garden in mid-June just as our first group of garden visitors saw us. We enjoyed the kind comments they left and felt it had been worthwhile, particularly when several said they would be back when we opened for the NGS in August.

The only downer was that the Bearded Iris had given us their best show ever, a true extravaganza for the three weeks or so prior to the visit. On the day just one bloom remained to show everyone what they had missed. Gardeners always say “You should have come last week.” and for us this may well have been true, at least where the Iris were concerned.

Our next big day is our NGS Open Day on the 3rd August so we are hoping we can maintain interest in the borders until then. A second mini-group of Shropshire Hardy Planters will be visitors a month after that so we will have to be “on our toes” for a while yet!

Tags clematis, foliage, garden photography, gardening, grasses, Hardy Plant Society, NGS, organic gardening, ornamental trees, Shropshire Hardy Plant Society, Yellow Book, Yellow Book Gardens

climbing plants colours garden photography gardening Hardy Plant Society photography village gardens

Clematis Photoshoot

I was seduced once again by the beauty of Clematis when we visited a couple of small village gardens in late late June. The visit was with the Shropshire Group of the Hardy Plant Society. Please enjoy my Clematis Gallery. Thanks to Amy for growing such wonderful clematis.

Tags clematis, climbing plants, Hardy Plant Society

fruit and veg garden buildings garden design garden photography gardening gardens gardens open to the public hardy perennials kitchen gardens light light quality meadows ornamental trees and shrubs trees walled gardens walled kitchen gardens woodland

A Wonderful Walled Garden – Cerney House

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date July 1, 2014
4 Comments on A Wonderful Walled Garden – Cerney House

Both Jude and I love walled gardens whether they keep up the tradition of providing the ideal environment for fruit and veg growing or if they house decorative planting within their walls. On an uncharacteristically hot day in May we spent the afternoon in the walled garden at Cerney House on the edge of the Cotswolds between Cheltenham and Cirencester.

The place for parking the cars was on a freshly mown patch of grass within a huge uncut flowery meadow. This meadow provided a wonderful foreground to the mature trees. We were amused to see these two cars which had obviously been parked up for a few days as the grass had been cut around them. Long grass and flowers lapped at their tyres.

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The garden here is on a gentle slope which must have created near perfect conditions for the gardeners to produce fruit and veg. The little gateway into the garden gave a glimpse of what we could look forward to and there were little gems to increase our anticipation.

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Now long mixed decorative borders run along the slope and in the top corner soon after entering through the gateway we discovered a tea shop in the old gardeners’ bothy. A great place to start our exploration and refresh ourselves before setting off.

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There were some lovely old gnarled fruit trees remaining from the old productive garden days, and a lovely old Viburnum still flowering strongly.

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We took a diversion into the edge of the Woodland Garden where the air was scented with Wild Garlic and the ground beneath the trees clothed in a huge variety of Comfreys and Geraniums. The walls here were clothed in Clematis happily rambling along.

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The gardens within the walls were a lovely combination of formal and informal, short smartly cut hedges enclosing frothy perennials.

In the centre of a group of four formal beds we enjoyed looking at four old Quinces in flower.

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The last view of the garden from the car park as we arrived back after our walk was of groups of mature trees, many of which were Horse Chestnut. I was doubly glad to see them. Firstly because they are my favourite late spring tree with their huge spires of white or pink flowers and secondly because I had just started a post about them.

I shall finish with this Aquilegia leaf shadow sharply painted by the sun onto a boulder.

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Tags clematis, foliage, foliage plants, fruit and vegetable growing, garden photography, gardening, ornamental trees, trees, walled garden, walled gardens

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Hide that ugly pipe!

Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best. Recently we saw on a television gardening programme some covers to fix over drain pipes so that you can plant climbing plants to hide the ugly plastic pipe.

So we sent for a pair and then went off to the Antique Centre at nearby Church Stretton in search of an interesting galvanised container suitable for growing some climbing plants in. Success! We found an old cannister hidden in a pile of miscellaneous objects from an old bakers shop. Baking tins, a till, the manager’s desk, enamel signs, and a miscellany of galvanised containers!

We were so pleased with ourselves that we treated ourselves to a coffee at a great coffee house across the road, Ginger Green. They make excellent coffee and an amazing array of cakes! As you see from the pics below they pride themselves in the look of the coffee too! 10 out of 10 for presentation.

When the climbing frames arrived we fixed them up, put the galvanised cannister in place and drove off to the Derwen Garden Centre near to Welshpool. We came away with a clematis, a climbing patio rose and two thymes perfect for planting up our new planter which waited patiently at home. We were also tempted to a Calyanthus a flowering shrub we had been seeking for a long while.

We must now sit back and wait for the summer when we shall find out if our planting works and if the plants will climb the frames and hide the ugly pipe.

Tags clematis, climbing plants, climbing roses, garden design, reusing

diy garden design gardening roses

Replacing the garden arches at Avocet

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date February 20, 2014
6 Comments on Replacing the garden arches at Avocet

We made the mistake when we designed the garden here at Avocet of using metal arches to span our paths and grow plants over. We have 8 arches altogether around the garden with all sorts of climbing plants over them including trained fruit trees. Most of the climbers are purely decorative, different varieties of clematis, rose, honeysuckle and a purple vine so not only do they look good but many are scented to give wafts of their gentle aromas as we pass through the arches. The productive trees are apples, blackberry and cherry.

We soon found out that the windy site here close to the hills of South Shropshire was not the place for metal arches. We get strong winds swirling around the hill behind our house which often distort, break or blow over our plant covered arches. For years we have carefully repaired them and put them back up with the plants mostly intact. This winter we found our garden was attacked by frequent gale force winds and howling storms so we have given up on the metal arches and are slowly replacing them with much more solid wooden constructions.

We began with the arch nearest the bottom of the garden which by the end of January was leaning at an uncomfortable angle so we had to duck to get through it and parts of it had broken off. This arch was clothed with a rose called Goldfinch, a small yellow early flowering variety which flowers profusely every year without fail but it also grows strongly so has to be pruned extremely hard, so hard you feel cruel doing it! On the other side of the path climbs a purple leaved vine which looks amazing when then the sunlight glows through its foliage. It also flowers and fruits some years producing tiny dark purple grapes which are very bitter – even the birds turn their beaks up at them.

First job was to prune the climbing planting carefully and even more carefully unwind their main stems from the remains of the arch. Then we extricated the arch. It looked a sorry sight lying on our lawn.

Once pruned the rose hung limply without support until we carefully bent it sideways and tied it onto the wooden support for our cordon plums.

We had three arches delivered and luckily they came in pieces as they were so heavy. At least we could unpack them and move them to where they were to be put up one piece at a time.

Once the plants were pruned and tied out of the way we could get on with digging out 12 inch deep trenches to fix the uprights into.

Once the hole was dug out to the correct depth we then spent a while with a metre long spirit level making sure the upright piece was vertical in both planes. We then poured in the post fix concrete mix and left it to dry.

Once the concrete had set we could fit on the top decorative pieces and the job was done. Just the easiest part left – re-tying the climbers back in place. They should now be ready for the spring. Just seven more arches to go!

Tags clematis, climbers, climbing plants, climbing roses, garden arches, garden structures, gardening, roses

autumn autumn colours birds climbing plants colours garden photography garden wildlife gardening gardens grasses hardy perennials migration ornamental trees and shrubs poppies roses trees wildlife Winter Gardening

A Garden Bouquet for December

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 14, 2013
1 Comment on A Garden Bouquet for December

Already we are almost at the end of the year so here is my December bouquet from our garden,the final chapter in 2013.

It is only mid-December and while in the garden we are treated to the beautiful repetitive piping call of a Song Thrush, already making his territorial proclamation. He must have found a mighty fine territory which he is making sure no-one else can take possession of.

The skies seem full of passing flocks of Redwing and their larger noisier cousins the Fieldfare on migration, escaping their cold food-less summer homes in central Europe. Below them exploring the trees and shrubs of our garden mixed foraging flocks of finches seek out the last of the seeds and berries while amongst them groups of Titmice, Great, Blue, Long-tailed and Coal arrive in hurried flight to explore every nook and cranny of dried stems, tree bark and shrub branches for insects especially spiders.

A few delicate looking soft coloured flowers still hang on determined to be the final blooms of the year. It seems amazing but the odd big bumbling Queen Bumble Bee appears to feed on them.

Berries on shrubs and small trees add extra sparkles of colour but the resident Mistle Thrushes guard them from the migrant thrushes. They are the larder for the colder days to come. The red fruit of the Cotoneasters, Hollies and Rowans will be eaten first and most will have been devoured by the thrushes and Blackbirds before the month is out. The creamy-yellow berries of the Cotoneaster rothschildiana will stay longer being mere second choices. The last to go without fail will be the white berries of the Sorbus, so we can get to enjoy them against dark winter storm clouds before the birds eat them.

At this time of year we can enjoy the dessicated seed heads and old flower heads that have managed to survive the wet times that autumn invariably brings. This year has been so wet that we seem to have fewer still standing than ever before. But a few are putting on a display for us and when covered in a frosty layer or when donning a hat made of snow will look even better. Within them are the remnant autumn leaves as yet to be blown from their branches by blasts of wind.

Signs of next year’s growth are already in evidence like this adventurous bud found on a clematis snuggled between stem and petioles.

Patterns become important in winter as they emerge from seasons hidden away behind plants. So that is the end of my year of garden bouquets for 2013. Perhaps they will return for 2014.

Tags autumn, autumn colours, birds, clematis, dogwoods, fieldfare, foliage plants, garden photography, garden wildlife, gardening, ornamental trees, redwing, seasons, song thrush, thrushes, trees, wildlife, winter, winter gardens

bird watching birds climbing plants colours conservation fruit and veg garden design garden photography garden wildlife gardening grasses hardy perennials ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs photography roses Shropshire village gardens wildlife

A Garden Bouquet for August

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date August 31, 2013
5 Comments on A Garden Bouquet for August

It is time I took up my camera and took photos of the delights our garden has to offer. This is a particularly important set of photos as we have decided on August 3rd as the date we are going to open our garden for the National Garden Scheme next year. We keep looking for gaps or places in need of improvements be it little tweaks or bigger tasks such as re-laying our main central path in the back garden.

So I went off around the garden with my zoom lens attached to see what’s what in our patch. As it panned out there was so much to see in the back garden that all this month’s photos were taken there. Please enjoy the journey and feel the damp, cool morning air which acted like a soft lens filter giving a delicate misty blue atmosphere to some of the shots.

In the “Shed Bed” the delicate china blue flowers popping out of the spiky spheres of the echinops provide sustenance for our bees and the apple tree trained over an arch will provide sustenance for us. The odd white flowers come from the gentle creamy colours of the hydrangea heads.

Our tulbagias continue to flower in the new slate garden close by and above them the purple sedum foliage hangs from the old gypsy kettle on our old ladder.

There are lots of plants to look at around the end of the greenhouse where the vine is dripping with grapes awaiting late summer sun to ripen them and paint them in purple and black. The Quince vranga tree has a few fruits hanging at the tips of the branches and the soft pink curled flowers of Sanguisorba “Pink Elephant” brighten the border below.

In the long “Tree Border ” this lilac flowered clematis is dripping with flowers and the thornless blackberry is heavy with young unripe fruits.

The Secret Garden and the Chicken Garden are at their best, blooming brightly with the cordon apples full of ripening fruit acting as a backdrop, many of which are just beginning to develop a flush in their cheeks. The Shropshire Damson tree overhangs one border and its deep purple fruits are weighing down its branches so heavily that the fruits look like they are reaching out to hold hands with the flowers.

A few new plants are waiting, still in their pots, in the Secret Garden while we decide where to plant them. They seem to be the colours of citrus fruits!

Along the central pathway our pears are close to their peak picking time. As I pass each day I look longingly to see if a couple are ready. Surely this is the ultimate gardening experience, eating a juicy, scented pear still warm from the sunshine just seconds from leaving the branch. The few plums look sad and lonely – from all four cordons we have just one clump of fruit. A poor year!

In the greenhouse the tomatoes are producing prolific amount of fruit in shades of yellow, red and purple. We are picking and enjoying them daily and adding some to the store of produce in the freezer. In the late autumn we shall make them into chutney coupled with our onions and apples.

From the greenhouse door I can look out across the “L Bed” and the “Long Border” through an arch draped in richly scented roses and a delicate china blue clematis. This is a herbaceous clematis rather than a climber, but it does enjoy a good scramble over everything in its path.

This strange fruit is a heritage cucumber called Booths Blond, which Jude the Undergardener tells me is very tasty. I don’t eat them, they are one of the few fruits and veggies I don’t enjoy. This variety certainly looks very different to the long straight regimental cucumbers sold in supermarkets.

We have been concerned about the lack of butterflies and bees this year but recently they have come back in good numbers. Honey bees, bumble bees and solitary bees are all feeding furiously on any simple flowers. The butterflies are particularly tempted by the buddlejas and the marjorams. We garden with wildlife in mind particularly in the choice of plants we grow. Our flowers tend to be simple and open, just the sort preferred by pollinating insects. We rely on our insects and birds to look after our garden for us. We garden totally organically relying on wildlife to do our pest controlling and pollinating of our crops.

As I am writing this the sky is full of House Martins and Swallows gathering together in readiness for their long migratory journey to the African continent. There they will find flies to feed on while here in the UK the insect population will disappear with the onset of winter. These acrobatic flying little birds seem to be celebrating a good English summer!

In the shrubs and trees warblers and titmice are busy feeding up after a period of moult. August and September are when we tend to see our warblers, Willow, Garden and this year even a Grasshopper Warbler. Chiffchaff and Whitethroat tend to be with us most of the year.