Tag: cornus kousa

The Place for Plants – East Bergholt Place Gardens

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date February 23, 2017
3 Comments on The Place for Plants – East Bergholt Place Gardens

As we move towards the end of February it seems a good time to share with you a visit we made to a beautiful garden in the summer.

The gardens at East Bergholt Place, otherwise known as “The Place for Plants” was one of our chosen gardens to visit when we spent a few days down in Suffolk. It is situated in the Stour valley on the border between the counties of Suffolk and Essex. We had high expectations of the gardens as they are affiliated to the Royal Horticultural Society, usually a guarantee of a garden well worth a visit. The garden includes an arboretum and the National Collection of deciduous Euonymus, my favourite family of shrubs.

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East Bergholt is a garden with a calm atmosphere full of peacefulness and contentment. Just to walk its grass paths seeking out specimen trees and shrubs makes the visitor feel calm.

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Varieties of Cornus kousa with their showy bracts add patches of colour beneath the collection of unusual mature trees.

Cornus kousa “White Dusted”

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Cornus kousa “Satomi” with its pink bracts.

Down in the valley bottom a string of small lakes provided good habitats for a collection of Hydrangeas which grew beneath a large specimen of the Wing Nut Tree, Pterocarya fraxinifolia, a member of the Walnut family, with its long green “catkins” growing up to 60cm long.

Wandering back towards the nursery and cafe we came across a lush valley with a stream winding its way through, its richly planted banks.

We always enjoy finding quality pieces of sculpture placed carefully and shown to their best advantage and this figure was situated close to the stream in the short-mown grass.

The brightest plant of all was this orange Tiger Lily, looking so fresh amongst the lush rich greens of the trees and shrubs.

I would like to finish off with a selection of photos illustrating the variety of plants beginning with a couple of interesting trees followed by other flowering plants found throughout the Place for Plants at East Bergholt.

An Aesculus in full flower,

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Staphylea pinnata,

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and Nyssa sylvatica “Wildfire”.

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Definitely a place for plants!

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Tags cornus kousa, East Bergholt Gardens, garden sculpture, garden trees, Hydrangeas, ornamental trees, outdoor sculpture, sculpture, stream garden, The Place for Plants, trees and shrubs

colours garden design garden furniture garden photography garden ponds garden pools garden wildlife gardening gardens gardens open to the public hardy perennials lakes light light quality ornamental trees and shrubs outdoor sculpture sculpture shrubs town gardens water garden water in the garden wildlife woodland

Winterbourne House Gardens – a city garden

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date July 22, 2016
5 Comments on Winterbourne House Gardens – a city garden

You don’t very often find yourself travelling into the centre of a major city to find a beautiful garden but that is exactly what we had to do to find a garden that had been on our bucket list for years, Winterbourne House Gardens. We travelled along three motorways, the M54, the M6 and finally the A38M into Birmingham until we found the street we were looking for and just 600 yards down there we found the entrance to the garden. Putting up with the motorway journey and the city traffic was soon lost from our minds as the entrance was so welcoming and we knew we were in for a wonderful day.

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Obviously we started our visit by obeying the sign above! The only downside of a visit to this garden is the tearoom being much too small for a wet and cold day. But the garden itself was a beauty with views, pathways and archways to invite us to explore further.

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A botanical garden though is all about special plants and the way they are grown together. There were plenty for us to study at Winterbourne and to help take our minds off the dull skies and increasing threat of heavy showers.

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Little features that draw the eye added extra points of interest to our wanderings.

An unexpected treat was found as we took a path through woodland, a shaded walk alongside a large lake. The light was very special there. Looking out over the lake we could see the skyscrapers of the city. This was the only time we were aware of our city centre location during our wanderings.

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After enjoying our lakeside promenade we followed the winding path through the water gardens where the giant leaves of Gunneras and Dalmeras dominated and the wide ranging colours of Primulas added interest to the greens.

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We love to see sculpture in gardens so were delighted to spot these beautiful slate pieces inviting us to read their words. We were amazed to discover that one piece was based on a clock – beautiful!

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So we discovered another garden that we enjoyed so much that we have added it to our favourite list. A great garden in a great city.

Tags Birmingham, city gardens, cornus, cornus kousa, garden sculpture, hard, outdoor sculpture, primulas, sculpture, water gardening, water in the garden, Winterbourne House Gardens

ornamental trees and shrubs shrubs

Our Delightful Dogwood

Cornus kousa chinensis “China Girl” is one of those shrubs that we look forward to with great anticipation every year. It gives its special performance almost every year but does occasionally have a year off. It is as far from the house as it can possibly be so we have to wander down to see what it is up to.

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It is a shrub that keeps on performing with wonderful white bracts early each summer followed by raspberry-like fruits in early autumn and red leaves each autumn.

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In this post I want to share the special show that the bracts give. The two pics above and the first batch of pics below shows our own shrub in our Japanese Garden.

When the bracts first appear they are pale green with deeper green bosses of flower in their centres. Slowly the green changes as it prepares to transform to cream, then to the purest of whites.

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On a visit to Winterbourne House Botanical Gardens in Edgbaston Birmingham we came across two particularly beautiful specimens of Cornus kousa, a pink bract variety known as var. chinensis Miss Satomi and one of the best white bract-bearing varieties Norman Haddon.

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