Tag: colour in the garden

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A Tale of Two Gardens – Part 2 – Esme’s Garden

After enjoying a couple of hours and fine refreshments at Nancy’s home town garden we drove a short way to her other garden which is dedicated to her mother-in-law, Esme.

Through a gap between two rows of terraced cottages we discovered a narrow grass pathway between hedges on one side and gardens on the other. An open gate within the hedge invited us to enter the magical world of Esme’s Garden.

We thought Nancy’s home garden was something special but what awaited us at Esme’s was simply amazing, a large beautifully designed space packed with interest. Again the planting was beautifully and thoughtfully put together and the use of foliage exceptional. A network of paths, arches and path junctions directed us around borders packed with trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials.

 

There were Gothic touches throughout the garden and Nancy herself had created a great folly at the bottom of the garden, which impressed us all.

There is so much to enjoy at Esme’s Garden that I think the best way to share the garden with you is to create a gallery of my photos. As usual click on the first pic then navigate using the arrows.

 

 

So now I have shared both of Nancy’s gardens with you and I now presume like me you think she is one amazing gardener. Just thinking about creating and maintaining two gardens makes me breathless!

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Bodnant Garden – a magical place in North Wales

For my last post of 2016 I thought I would share a visit we made to one of our favourite gardens, Bodnant Gardens in North Wales. A great way to celebrate our garden visiting exploits in 2016 and to look forward to visiting many more wonderful UK gardens in 2017.

Bodnant Gardens, a National Trust Property in North Wales, is described as a “glorious garden nestling in the Snowdonia foothills of North Wales and one of the world’s most magical gardens. With its dramatic scenery, historic plant collections, Champion Trees and myriad horticultural styles, it will capture your heart and live in your memory.”

It is just possible for us to get there, enjoy a day wandering and then return on the same day. So this is a day trip we have made many times over the years in different months but never before in November. We were not sure exactly what to expect but our expectations were definitely high. We were not to be in for the slightest disappointment!

After a two hour drive we arrived as mist and drizzle did its best to hide the garden but after our usual half hour sit for a coffee and cake we were  pleased to see the beauty of the garden revealed as the autumn sunlight brought the garden to life before our eyes setting the scene for an afternoon of pure magic, which we will share with you in a couple of posts.

Firstly this post will be all about the special nature of the light and how it added extra magic to the scenes unfolding before us.

After showing our membership cards we left the reception and upon entering the garden itself we only managed a few steps before the special light stopped us in our tracks. A long border running alongside a tall stone wall was on fire with the rich colours of late perennial flowers and the red and orange leaves of shrubs. The overnight dew was still hanging on the grass and every droplet became a jewel.

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From the path running along the centre of the hot fiery bed we could look across towards the main garden where the light caught Acer foliage and wispy perennials.

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Individual flowers among this beauty, shone like jewels in a jeweller’s shop window display. Water droplets sat on the red blooms of this Fuschia and Salvia.

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We had plenty of choices of pathways to follow but the choice was an easy one – go where the colours shone the brightest – off in to the newly created Winter Garden beneath a halo or red glowing foliage.

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With so much colour and texture surrounding us it was hard to home in to see the special beauty only to be found by looking closely and deeply searching for the detail.

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Bodnant proved itself a most worthy contender for garden visiting late in the year and could well join the little group of special places we visit annually. In part two of my Bodnant posts we will share other parts of the garden with you, the places further afield than the Winter Garden.

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Simply Beautiful 8 – Subtle Shades

What an unbelievably subtle and beautifully understated little flower! Checking over the greenhouse today and there on one of Jude’s mixed Primula auricula seedlings was this one little beauty. How clever Mother Nature is, thinking of pairing cinnamon and lemon yellow. she then considered texture and added a dusting of castor sugar and a light sparkle of frost crystals. Into the centre she dropped a trio of circles in shades of green forming a little bull’s eye.

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Taking a peek behind the Auricula’s bloom the same colours appear but in a very less organised fashion. The light on the stems catch the whiteness of the farina which turns it into silver dust. Simply beautiful!

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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!

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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.

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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.