Tag: garden photography

A Wander around the Allotments in August

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date September 6, 2012
6 Comments on A Wander around the Allotments in August

August is when the busy harvest period begins. As land is cleared green manures are sown and compost is spread across empty spaces. Plans for next year’s gardening are beginning to form.

Another amusing sign has appeared on a plot in recent weeks. Doreen and Phil have a corner plot and it has been christened “The Naughty Corner”. Next to their plot, Gill has hung some vibrant decorations in her fruit.

Wendy’s plot is always full of interest and at the moment the star of the show has to be the glitter ball hanging inside an obelisk up which is growing Morning Glory.

We have had a very successful month where awards are concerned, some for the whole site and others for individual allotment holders. Jude and I were invited to the Shrewsbury Flower Show to receive an award for the allotment site. Chris Beardshaw, author, broadcaster and TV gardener presented me, on behalf of our allotment site, with the award for “Shropshire’s Best Community Garden”.

Bowbrook Allotment Community members also provided plants for a show garden created by the Shrewsbury Residents Association – herbs, vegetables and companion plants. This garden won a medal.

The two daughters of our Membership Secretary entered craft and art classes in the Honey Tent and won many certificates too. Their honey cakes and biscuits looked so tasty.

Jude and I also took part in the Shropshire Organic Gardeners Society stand at the show. Members were asked to provide photos of themselves with a pot plants and these took centre stage.

Dave Bagguley one of our plot holders was awarded Shrewsbury’s “Best Front Garden” award at the show.

Back at the lotties the Autumn Garden, one of the site’s “Gardens of the Four Seasons” is beginning to look really good, with the late summer/early autumn perennials blooming in their hot colours.

The meadows around the site are incredibly colourful at the moment but the early flowering ones are well-past their best. They will soon be due their annual haircut.

We like to leave the meadows’ annual haircuts as late as possible so delay them until seeds are well set and there is an obvious decrease in the amount of wildlife visitor activity. But in the Buddleja Borders the beautiful scented flowers are still bringing in so many butterflies, bees and hoverflies.

This year’s periods of extreme wet have taken their toll. Whole potato crops have rotted on plots and root crops badly split.

As I was finishing writing this post I heard that our site’s entry into the Shrewsbury Town Allotment Competition came out the winner, so well done to Sue and Paul from Plot 40. Here are a few shots of their plot to finish off this post.

Tags allotments, community gardening, fruit and veg, fruit and vegetable growing, garden photography, garden wildlife, gardening, grown your own, meadows, NGS, organic gardening, roses, wildlife

garden design garden photography gardening grow your own meadows National Garden Scheme NGS ornamental trees and shrubs photography roses Shropshire The National Gardening Scheme"

The Garden at Ashley Farm – an NGS garden.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date September 5, 2012
4 Comments on The Garden at Ashley Farm – an NGS garden.

On a very wet weekend we decided we needed to get out whatever the weather so a quick check in the famous Yellow Book of gardens open under the auspices of the National Garden Scheme and we were off to visit a garden in the neighbouring county of Herefordshire.

Herefordshire is a county of great gardens mostly created on rich red clay soils. Ashley Farm Gardens was described in the Yellow Book as a 5 acre garden designed as a series of formal rooms with the rooms getting less formal as the visitors move further from the house. We were presented with a plan as we entered the garden which showed a very formal layout. As we moved into the garden through farm buildings we could appreciate the way the gardeners had planted imaginatively and boisterously within the formal structures.

The old farm buildings were interesting and beautiful in themselves and featured some fascinating artifacts reminding us of the farm’s cider producing heritage. The buildings are softened with plants and interesting collected and found objects.

We made our way past the formal pool through blue borders and made our way towards a wildlife pool in woodland.

Seating around the pool encouraged us to sit, look and listen, although on closer inspection they looked a bit algae-covered and far too rickety to risk.

Through the trees along the edge of the wood the neat and tidy kitchen garden came into view.

The next stage of our garden wander took us through an interesting and very varied assortment of garden rooms.

Beyond the formal garden rooms we encountered meadows growing within orchards, a nuttery and unexpectedly a rose garden linked the garden to the countryside.

We moved back into the main garden where more rooms awaited us and a wonderful arbor made by a local craftsman in local oak. It was so tempting to have a seat and look in detail at the wood working skills.

Tea was served in an outbuilding constructed of wooden beams and stone. Inside were artifacts aplenty. The chocolate cake was excellent!

We explored the old farm buildings after our tea break before calling it a day – a really good day.

Tags fruit and veg, garden photography, gardening, grown your own, Herefordshire, meadows, NGS

garden photography gardening ornamental trees and shrubs RHS

The Tulip Tree

Over the years we have seen Tulip Trees with just a few flowers on them. Every time we see them we are amazed by them. How can a tree have flowers like tulips? But they are indeed just like big green, pale orange and lemon coloured tulip flowers.

On a summer visit to Devon’s RHS garden Rosemoor, we were astonished to come across the biggest Tulip Tree we had ever seen and it was covered in bloom from top to toe. It must have been near maturity as it was about 100 feet tall, which is its maximum size.

What made this tree particularly special at the time was that we could find the flowers from every stage of development from bud through to seed head.

Tulip Trees are also known as the Tulip Poplar and the Yellow Poplar. It has a lyrical botanic name – Liriodendron tulipifera. The photo above illustrates that it has leaves of an unusual shape, described by some as “saddle shaped” and these turn yellow and red in the autumn.

Tags garden photography, gardening, Liriodendron, ornamental trees, trees, Tulip Tree, tulips

birds climbing plants garden design garden photography garden wildlife gardening photography Shropshire wildlife

Late Summer Clematis

The Undergardener and I don’t really like the big dinner-plate clematis that flower earlier in the year but we adore the small-flowered, often bell-shaped subtle ones that are stars of the late summer. Every time a tree gets tall enough to support one we plant a new clematis to befriend it, even though every obelisk and arch is already adorned with one. To get double the flowering effect clematis love the company of climbing roses and we pair them up with our apples that we have growing over arches. The apples fruit well and the clematis flower well, and I wonder if this is another case of companion planting in action. Could it be that they benefit each other when grown together?

The flowers manage to attract the harsh summer sunlight giving them the appearance of silk or tissue paper.

They are so amenable too. We treat them as herbaceous perennials and cut them down in the winter. Although they have masses of flowers deadheading is not necessary and instead they can produce wonderful seedheads like whispy white spiders. Many flower more than once a year too.

Wildlife love clematis especially our avian friends. They nest in the jumble of vines which also serve as roosting shelters. Dunnocks nest every year in at least one of our clematis and chaffinches and goldfinches do so occasionally. Goldfinches extract the seeds from the fluffy seedheads in winter, Warblers, Robins and all members of the Titmice family gorge on all the insect life that live in them in the summer and feed on the seeds in winter.

When visiting a garden this August with our fellow Hardy Plant Society enthusiasts we came across the clematis with the tiniest, most delicate flower we had ever seen on a clematis, in the deepest purple hue and to top it all off it had an enticing scent. It was appropriately called Clematis aromatica.

Tags apples, birds, clematis, climbers, climbing plants, garden photography, garden wildlife, gardening, insects

birds climbing plants garden design garden photography garden wildlife gardening hardy perennials ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs photography Shropshire trees village gardens wildlife

A Wander around our Garden in August

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date August 25, 2012
5 Comments on A Wander around our Garden in August

Our garden in August is a bright, colourful place full of lush growth, rich scent and so much wildlife to enjoy. Our wild birds are mostly quiet at present as August is the time when they hide away as they go through their annual moult. They have gone to ground and gone silent.

Above our heads however avian activity is busy and exciting. The Swallows and House Martins are feeding up in anticipation of their migration south. The sky is full of them, but the screaching of Swifts is absent as they began their own long journey a few weeks ago. For a few days there is a gap in the sounds – we miss them for their excited calls and aerial displays.

The calls of the young Buzzards can be heard above the Swallows and Martins, as they excitedly search out thermals and discover the joy of riding them. The Peregrines have reappeared now that their breeding season is over so we can watch the adult pairs rising in ever-higher circles until they disappear from view. Our eyes become incapable of seeing them as they become smaller, become dots and are then gone. They have the luxury of far better long distance vision than us – they will see the movement of their prey from hundreds of feet up in the air. A real treat is to spot them as they stoop, travelling down at speeds of over 200 miles per hour with a pigeon in their sights.

Yesterday when deadheading in one of our borders we were surprised by a low-flying, high speed Green Woodpecker who zoomed close to us, just a few feet away. A real treat!

Insect life is flourishing. On any warm bright day a variety of insects can be seen hunting out nectar and pollen. Butterflies, bees and hoverflies are attracted to Buddleias, Alliums, Salvias, Nepetas, Lavenders and Echinops. There are so many Peacock Butterflies around at the moment but you can’t have too many of them. The Holly Blues are much scarcer and flit continuously rarely seeming to settle.

Bees and hoverflies are attracted to our Lavender hedge which borders the lane which passes in front of our garden.

The ponds are full of life with shoals of young fish basking in the shallows, diving Beetles and Boatmen moving up to the surface and back to the bottom regularly. On the surface Pondskaters pace out the length and breadth of the pond surface. Young newts regularly appear at the surface take a gulp of air and drop back down. When Jude the Undergardener nets the duckweed and blanket weed from the pond she catches newts every time. She is delighted with every newt that graces her net. I am convinced that removing the weed is an excuse for her newt catching exploits. In August the majority of newts Jude catches are youngsters.

The front garden is looking good! So much colour! The Hot Border is HOT!

The “Beth Chatto Garden”, our gravel garden, is full of interest with Agapanthus taking centre stage. These Agapanthus were actually bought from the Beth Chattos Gardens nursery.

Early in August the front garden was dominated by yellow – even Jude the Undergardener was wearing yellow – but after a few weeks all the other colours caught up.

In the back garden the growth in our Secret Garden is exuberant to say the least. The foxgloves are going over but the achilleas, lychnis and alliums are still giving us a full performance.

Elsewhere in the borders of the back garden the seedheads of our Snakebark Acer add rich reds, Crocosmias give every shade of yellow, orange and red, Achilleas add subtlety and the spiky Erigeron flowers provide silver.

In the greenhouse tomatoes, cucumbers and capsicums are adding sweetness and freshness to the cut-and-come-again mixed leaves of ours summer salads.

The world beyond our garden is changing this month as in our borrowed landscape the hay in the paddock has been cut and baled and the wheat fields turn gold and are being harvested one by one. By the time my September garden wander comes around the skys will seem empty as the Swallows and Martins will be on their way to warmer climes, but the garden will be getting busier with mixed feeding flocks of titmice and Goldcrests, and others of mixed finches.

garden design garden photography garden wildlife gardening hardy perennials photography Shropshire wildlife

Plant Portraits – August

This post is dedicated to portraits of the blooms that are starring in our garden in August. The individual stars which shine out of the borders.

Tags agapanthus, agastache, alliums, daisies, day lilies, digitalis, echinops, garden photography, garden wildlife, gardening, hardy geraniums, insects, knautia, lychnis, monarda, poppies

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Mr Buddles Shrubs

Buddleja can be seen as a common and very ordinary shrub especially when we observe how readily it seeds into gutters, between tiles, along railway embankments, river banks and canal sides. These commonest of buddlejas are quite stunning with their long conical panicles of pale mauve flowers which attract bees, hoverflies and are a firm favourite of butterflies and moths. Move in close and enjoy their delicate scent.

I usually spell it “Buddleja” but I am not sure where that spelling came from. I turned to my garden plant bible, the Royal Horticultural Society’s “A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants”, and they refer to it as Buddleja but add syn Buddleia.

I continued to research and have now discovered that it was Linnaeus who named it Buddleja with a “j” and he named it to commemorate Adam Buddle. So I still cannot find out where the “j” comes from. Adam Buddle was an English vicar who worked in Essex and like many of his contemporaries turned to botany to fill his time. He compiled an English flora which was never published but little else seems to be known about him.

In our gardens we can grow buddlejas with flowers from the purest of white to the deepest purple, from pale to deep pinks and even shades of orange. I decided a few days ago to have a wander around our garden to see which ones we had in flower. Most are varieties of Buddleia davidii. Many have rich yellow or orange centres to each of the tiny individual flowers.

This first set of photographs are of the Buddlejas in flower in our garden this August.

On a day in mid-August our Buddleja davidii were attracting butterflies, as we had experienced a few warm, bright, calm days after weeks of cold, wet and wind.

In the communal borders on our allotment site we grow many Buddleja davidiis in their full colour range, but we also grow the orange-flowered Buddleja weyeriana.

On a recent visit to a garden with the Shropshire branch of the Hardy Plant Society we came across this beautiful Buddleja davidii with soft grey leaves and blue flowers.

In another border we discovered a much more unusual variety called Buddleja lindleyana. It’s leaves were much brighter green than the davidiis and the individual florets were further apart from each other. The inside of each floret was a rich bright violet while the outsides were a greyish violet.

Tags August, buddleias, garden photography, garden wildlife, gardening, shrubs

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It’s Lily Time

We particularly enjoy walking around our garden at the moment as the scents are so strong and the colours so vivid. One flower that satisfies both these senses is the not so humble lily. Bright, hot, fiery and warm – the colours of the sky as the sun sets in the west each evening and re-awakens in the east as the day dawns afresh.

Tags garden photography, gardening, lilies

garden design garden photography gardening July photography

Lilies for a Day

Day Lilies are so beautiful in form and colour, and to add to that they are fresh each day. We never see one two days in a row – enjoy one today but it won’t be there tomorrow. Another will be flowering in its place.

So here are the day lilies in flower in our garden one day in early August.

Tags day lilies, garden photography, gardening, hemerocallis

flower show garden design garden photography gardening hardy perennials July ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs outdoor sculpture photography poppies RHS town gardens

Third Visit to the Tatton Park Show

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date August 12, 2012
4 Comments on Third Visit to the Tatton Park Show

The third and final post about this summer’s RHS Tatton Park Flower Show begins by visiting the Back-to-Back Gardens, the small show gardens with masses of interest and appeals. These gardens are full of ideas for gardeners whatever the size of their gardens with inspiration for planting combinations, furniture and features.

There was a group of small show gardens designed around the theme of “The Orchestra” and these turned out to be our favourites. The garden designers had risen to the challenge and seemed to have really enjoyed creating such imaginative gardens. Each one evoked harmony and rhythm and the rise and fall of a musical piece.

But this garden of rhythmic grass was a true delight to the eye. It was very difficult to fully capture its effect with a camera, but not as difficult as it would be to cut the grass!

In complete contrast to the Orchestra Gardens were the Conceptual Gardens, a set of three designs intended to present ideas, sometimes controversial, and make the viewers think. We do not always appreciate such designs but the trio this year were full of meaning and original design ideas.

We always enjoy a wander around the nursery stands at these shows and Tatton always attracts a good variety. We only bought one little plants this time though, an Aeonium that sports leaves of deepest, shiny purple almost black, called Logan’s Rock.