Tag: garden seats

Are you sitting comfortably? Part 12 of a very occasional series.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date June 7, 2017
1 Comment on Are you sitting comfortably? Part 12 of a very occasional series.

So back again with another selection of garden seats discovered on our visits and wanderings around gardens of all sizes. Every garden however small needs one seat, but every garden deserves as many seats as the design allows. Gardens are to be enjoyed, by the gardeners themselves first and foremost but also by guests and visitors.

At the end of April we visited two spring gardens, The Weir near Hereford, a National Trust property, and a garden open for the Hardy Plant Society 60th Birthday celebrations.

The Weir Garden is an unusual design as it runs in a valley alongside a river, with its paths following the valley side. There are so many points of interest and viewpoints but only a few seats to invite the visitor to sit and take it all in.

Conversely our second garden in Stafford was a medium-sized town garden but had seats to help appreciate the beauty of the plants and design features.

More seats to come in “Are you sitting comfortably – Part 13”. We will be on the look out as we visit gardens for more fine examples of places to relax, sit down and enjoy the views.

Tags garden design, garden furniture, garden seating, garden seats

Another Yellow Book Garden – Hill House Farm

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date April 19, 2017
2 Comments on Another Yellow Book Garden – Hill House Farm

We love to visit our fellow Yellow Book gardens and then sharing them with you. In this post we will share our visit to Hill House Farm, another Herefordshire garden gem. We visited back in July. We liked the description presented in the NGS book, which enticed us to wander slowly down a long gentle slope through shrub and tree plantings in grass with closer cut paths marking the way down to a wildlife pool 200 feet below. Knowing that the garden had been developing for 40 years already gave added interest, as these gardeners were obviously thinking about and doing things in their garden. All good gardeners will never stop learning!

We love a garden with a warm welcome, inviting paths and steps especially when one flight of steps surrounded by aromatic herbs leads us to a good cup of tea and homemade cakes! Beautifully designed and thoughtfully placed seats help too!

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As soon as we arrived we knew we would enjoy the plants as they seemed to be placed in the best possible places to catch the light to absorb it and increase the intensity of their colours, whether bright or pastel.

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This garden definitely did not disappoint and delivered extras we were not expecting but always enjoy, outdoor sculptural pieces. I have shown a few pieces from different directions and distances to show how well they sit in their garden environment.

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Stone walls, some tall, tough and imposing others tiny, simply visually supporting and complimenting the plants, created a partnership with wide green swathes of grass pathways led our eyes down the garden invitingly – we just had to follow.

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A stream appeared alongside the path we followed downhill and it accompanied us right down to the pool as the planting changed to reflect the damper air and ground. Rambling wild roses and native shrubs added plenty of colour and texture to the hedges.

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The pool edges and margins were still being developed but there were already interesting plant groupings going on.

This amazing ever-moving glass and metal sculpture hung over the water surface reflecting every moment that a breeze moved the air. I have put 3 pics in so that you can select the one you like best.

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Jude the Undergardener always likes a swing in the garden so this poolside play piece delighted her, hanging as it did below a huge ancient oak.

Wandering back up the slope slowly afforded us views of the garden slope and the farm bulding in the distance high up.

And to top it all off this unusual informal garden had a lovely productive garden and the finest views. a great day out indeed!

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Tags garden pond, garden sculpture, garden seating, garden seats, garden walls, Herefordshire, Herefordshire gardens, NGS, NGS gardens, outdoor sculpture, Yellow Book, Yellow Book Gardens

autumn autumn colours buildings colours garden buildings garden design garden photography garden seating gardening gardens gardens open to the public National Trust The National Trust Wales

Are you sitting comfortably? Part 11 of a very occasional series.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 29, 2017
2 Comments on Are you sitting comfortably? Part 11 of a very occasional series.

Here we are back with a new selection of interesting and unusual garden seats, our 11th collection.

To start with I will share with you a selection of garden seats we discovered in the wonderful huge gardens at Bodnant, a National Trust Property in North Wales and then move on to another of their properties but this time much nearer home in the West Midlands, Hanbury Hall. All these seats were discovered within a week in November. We hope you enjoy the selection we have chosen for you.

Bodnant Garden

These three simple slate benches are beautifully placed matching their background of strata slate layers and the grey stone paving. They look very different whether they are wet or dry. They are pale greys when dry but much darker and glossier when wet. Their chunky design fits their place so well.

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Inside the garden we wandered through the new Winter Garden and down towards the dingle, a wooded steep valley with a stream running through it. All the seats were quite ordinary designs manufactured from wood, including one that is reminiscent of an Edwin Lutzen’s design, but they were made special by their placements either raised up, surrounded by harmonious plantings and all giving beautiful views across the garden. These view points allowed us to look at close up garden plantings, larger borders or even long views along the valley or over tree tops.

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These last two pics show seating deeper in wooded areas and illustrate how well seats sit in their environment when manufactured in the natural material of the place itself. Special secretive seating where birdsong shares the space with you.

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Hanbury Hall

Again the seats at Hanbury were often very simple and ordinaary in design but they are situated in very special places, special buildings, within special planting.

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So we have shared with you our selection of garden seats that we enjoyed in November. We hope you enjoyed sharing them with us. We enjoyed trying most of them out!

Tags Bodnant, Bodnant Garden, garden seating, garden seats, Hanbury Hall, Natiional Trust Gardens, National Trust, North Wales, Welsh gardens

garden buildings garden designers garden furniture garden seating gardens gardens open to the public Yellow Book Gardens

Are you sitting comfortably? – part ten of a very occasional series

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 22, 2016
3 Comments on Are you sitting comfortably? – part ten of a very occasional series

Here we are – with the tenth post in my very occasional series looking at my collection of photographs of garden seats we discover as we explore the gardens we enjoy visiting so much. We have many seats in our own garden to allow us to sit and enjoy it. Equally we look for seats in every garden we visit to help us sit and fully appreciate what we see.

Here is a selection from a Shropshire Yellow Book garden, Windy Ridge. They show how important it is to place seats in suitable places so that they are in harmony with the plants themselves.

Windy Ridge is a small family garden visited by hundreds of gardeners every year. We will now look at how a much larger garden uses different seats in different ways to suit its own particular circumstances. Hestercombe is a large garden designed partly by Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll which is open to the public attracting thousands of visitors each year. The famous Lutyens benches obviously feature strongly as expected. This seat design must be the most famous and recognised of all garden furniture. As well as these benches there is a wide range of unusual ones to be explored, including several in buildings of many styles plus a few in a huge tent shaped like a shuttlecock.

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Where will our next selection of unusual, wonderful and strange garden seats come from? We are already searching them out!

Tags garden benches, garden features, garden furniture, garden seating, garden seats

garden buildings garden design garden furniture garden photography garden seating gardening gardens open to the public

Are you sitting comfortably? Part 9 of a very occasional series.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date August 5, 2016
3 Comments on Are you sitting comfortably? Part 9 of a very occasional series.

So here we are back in Devon to share more garden seats with you. In this collection of seats found and tested on our travels we will share with you those we discovered at the RHS garden at Rosemoor.

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When at Rosemoor this February we were delighted that our day coincided with an exhibition of outdoor sculpture. At times it was hard to tell if a garden seat was a piece of sculpture or if a piece of sculpture was a seat.

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This seat with its carved ends all made from wood from the same tree was a great place for its two owls to settle. It lived beneath an iron framed arch which would be clothed in climbing plants a few months hence. Close up the carved creatures were so full of character.

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We were both amused and amazed when we spotted this comfy looking armchair from a across a wide garden border. Closer to we realised it had been created from handmade bricks, joined together by silicone.

The wooden seat in the photo alongside the armchair was home to a Buddah carved from a single piece of wood joined to a bench of the same species of tree. It gave out a deep feeling of piece.

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Sometimes a seat can be a perch for a photographer. In this case our friend Pip was getting close to a spout of water pouring from the stone wall. Look closely at the picture alongside and you will see that a scarecrow is sitting comfortably with his picnic by his side and his crop of pumpkins piled close by.

Often garden seats have protection around them to protect the resting gardeners or visitors from the wind and rain. In the photos below wooden posts provide the protection.

Sometimes the simplest designs work best. These two seats are beautifully designed and crafted and are so simple in their design and construction.

Other seats sit beautifully within their surrounds looking comfortable and full of belonging.

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Seats can be works of art in themselves and then they really do become pieces of sculpture.

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This is a very ordinary garden bench which is very common in our gardens, but the placement of an old green lawn roller gives it character and invites visitors to sit down and enjoy the beauty of this garden artifact.

The best of seats on wet days are those under cover, in this case the seat is enveloped beneath a thatched cottage-style arbour overlooking the herb garden. Here you can appreciate the sights and scents in front of you.

Seats can be made special because they have special purposes, to tell stories from or to enjoy a good swing on.

Where Part 10 of this very occasional series will send us we must wait and see!

Tags Devon, garden sculpture, garden seating, garden seats, garden structures, Gardens of Devon, RHS, RHS gardens, RHS Rosemoor, Rosemoor

garden design garden furniture garden photography garden seating gardening gardens Shropshire Staffordshire

Are you sitting comfortably? Part 10 in a very occasional series.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date June 25, 2016
2 Comments on Are you sitting comfortably? Part 10 in a very occasional series.

Here we are back with another selection of garden seats that we have discovered on our visits to two gardens last weekend, one small village garden and a larger garden attached to a nursery. Whatever size your garden is it deserves seats and so do the gardeners. A good gardener chooses seats that fit in where the gardener chooses to place them. Sometimes they simply look good as a point of interest but the best ones provide great places to sit and admire the patch.

This first batch of pics were taken in a Shropshire NGS garden called Ancoirean a small village garden with a big heart.

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A short twenty minute drive away is Ashwood Nurseries where the owner John Massey has developed his own private garden alongside. We were priveleged to be shown around by John and he shared his ideas behind hid creation and explained what it all meant to him. A great couple of hours – inspirational!

The next post in this very occasional series could take us anywhere! Only time will tell. It will definitely be to a selection of beautiful seats in beautiful gardens!

Tags garden features, garden furniture, garden seating, garden seats

garden design garden furniture garden photography garden seating

Are you sitting comfortably? Part 8 of an occasional series.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date February 8, 2016
3 Comments on Are you sitting comfortably? Part 8 of an occasional series.

Here we are back with yet another post in this very occasional series all about garden seating. For parts 8 and 9 we will share with you a collection of seats we found while spending a few days in Devon.

The first set of seats are to be found in the woodland garden of the Stone Farm Cottage Garden and Nursery. This garden boasts the National Collections of Betulas (Birches) and Alnus (Alders). We will look at these trees in a future post.

In the next post in my garden seats series we will share with you the seats we discovered at the RHS Rosemoor Garden.

Tags Devon, garden furniture, garden seating, garden seats

garden design garden furniture garden photography garden seating gardening gardens

Are You Sitting Comfortably? – Part 6 of a very occasional series

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date August 25, 2015
2 Comments on Are You Sitting Comfortably? – Part 6 of a very occasional series

Number six in a very occasional series of posts all about the seats I find in gardens. Use your imagination and have a sit in each and see what you think! I hope you enjoy the view from some – you will have to use your imagination!

A visit to the famous Herefordshire garden, The Laskett, created by the couple Sir Roy Strong and Doctor Julia Trevelyan Oman, provided many unusual garden seats for us to try out and to photograph.

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At the Laskett even the toilet seat is quality!

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We will now look at another C20 garden, the gardens at Preen Manor near Much Wenlock not far from Shrewsbury. This is a garden of many”rooms” and each room seems to have a different style of seat.

On a visit to a Yellow Book NGS garden a good mixture of seats can be found, such as these four at Upper Shelderton Hall gardens.

Another Yellow Book Garden, Dovecote Barn in Herefordshire revealed these two seats, one well placed for a secret rest hiding in the polytunnel and the other a little precarious with a bit of a backward slope to it.

So there is my sixth selection of garden seats – I can now look forward to trying out lots more in my search for the seventh selection!

Tags garden furniture, garden seating, garden seats, gardens

garden design garden furniture garden photography garden seating gardens gardens open to the public

Are you Sitting Comfortably? – Part 5 of a very occasional series

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date April 25, 2015
1 Comment on Are you Sitting Comfortably? – Part 5 of a very occasional series

The time has come once again to share with you the latest collection of photographs of garden seats that we have discovered on our visits. This is the fifth in my very occasional series of posts.

The first selection were all found during our visits to Croft Castle in Herefordshire.

This batch of seats all live in the Bishop’s Garden in the grounds of Wells Cathedral in Somerset.

We remain in the South West of England for our next set. In the grounds of the Painswick Rococo Garden we found traditional garden seats of stone, wood and iron in the main gardens but much more rustic seating in the area set aside as a nature reserve.

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I think I can just squeeze in this little blue job from Dunham Massey in Cheshire.

And that is it for the fifth post in my very occasional series about garden seating. One day in the future number six will appear but who knows when? Perhaps when I have found enough interesting seats to sit on that are worth sharing with you.

Tags garden furniture, garden seating, garden seats

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The Botanic Garden of Wales in the Rain – part two.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date February 15, 2015
2 Comments on The Botanic Garden of Wales in the Rain – part two.

Welcome back to South Wales where we were enjoying a very wet visit to the Botanic Gardens. In part one we looked at the magnificent glasshouse before taking a break. In part two we carry on in the heavy rain. Winding paths provided us with interesting routeways through the newly planted gravel and rock borders full of interesting foliage all glistening with rain droplets.

The black seed heads of an Eryngium looked in sharp contrast to the pale blue-grey foliage of the Euphorbia close behind. A beautiful oak bench of the simplest design was far too wet to enjoy sitting on. Wet rocks looked full of colour – in the dry they would have been almost monochrome. Grasses always look so good with rock!

Grass borders with every blade moving in waves like a rough sea are here edged with the neatest of low Box hedging. A bench of modern design looked so good against the Box and grasses. Trees in near silhouette looked good against biscuit coloured grasses.

We got soaked through on our walk towards the walled garden but I was still tempted to stop to take a few shots of grasses and my favourite Betulas and some more simple oak block seating.

Jude, aka Mrs Greenbench aka The Undergardener, thought she looked good in this throne! It was a pity her feet didn’t reach the ground – it spoiled the illusion somewhat! It was hard to get her off it! The throne sat under an oak framed arbor with a slate floor, both local materials. Drawings of dragons were etched into some of the slate.

Once in the walled garden, a unique double-walled garden in fact, we enjoyed seeing what the local school children had been up to on their plots. A beautiful bug hotel, a greenhouse made from recycled drinks bottles and an ingenious method comfrey feed all held our interest in spite of the rain.

Once inside the tropical glasshouse we certainly warmed up but my glasses and camera lens both misted up. It took a while for us and the camera to acclimatise. When we did, we were enthralled by foliage of all shapes and sizes, many patterned and textured. Just enjoy the photos.

The few blooms present were bright and gaudy!

When we last visited this garden these old Victorian range of glasshouses were covered in scaffolding so it was great to see they had been renovated and planted up. While the modern curved glasshouse houses temperate plants we were pleased to have discovered the contrast with these old ones housing their tropical plants. It was hot and very humid! The variety of planting was impressive!

The only trouble with the comfort we felt inside the glasshouse was that when we left we had to return to the reality of the wet, cold Welsh weather.