Our first frost this year came late and it was a one off. The following night stayed well above freezing. Never before can I remember a season so late. First frost in late November is just unheard of. The light that arrived with the frost made everything in the garden look extra special.
Needless to say my camera called to me! Come around the garden – join me in my gallery. Just click on a photo and use the arrow to move on.
Near one of England’s most beautiful landscapes, the Malvern Hills is the village of Colwall, where we found the National Collection of Asters. The Picton Gardens and nursery which snuggle in beneath the hills is the place to go if you like Michaelmas Daisies. If you are already a fan you will become a bigger fan when you realise the vast range of flower colours, and how many different sized and shaped plants there are. If you were not a fan and went there you would come out a lifetime fan!
Even the gate welcomes you with a daisy!
Now follow us around as we explore this 2 acre autumn garden. The first set of photos were taken within ten minutes of starting out and already we had discovered the huge range of colours asters are painted in. But this garden is not just a collection of Michaelmas Daisies but a beautifully designed illustration of how good a garden can look in October. The yellows of Helianthum, Kniphofia and Rudbeckia all contrast with the pinks and purples of the Asters and grasses such as Miscanthus provide a perfect foil.
We had already come across Cotinus and Rhus which gave rich jewels of deep coloured foliage adding structure to the borders. Shrubs and trees featured more as we moved on, enticed by this gently curving pathway. Acers, deciduous Euonymus and Cornus fwere the stars here before the path led us out of the trees, with the woven apples sitting in the border, to the next section of the garden.
This area featured smaller shrubs punctuated by taller trees such as a rich gold and bronze Sorbus amid areas of perennials, a large percentage of which were of course Asters.
Beneath the peeling trunk of an Acer griseum these two woven youngsters were enjoying leisure time in the garden, the young girl quietly absorbed while her brother concentrates on perfecting his hand stands.
Even though we were emerged in Asters we could not help but be impressed by the incredible variety of texture in the bark of the trees.
The only way to finish this post is to indulge in a rich mix of Asters.
September is the month when the first signs of autumn creep in and there is something special happening to the light. Misty mornings give the garden a fresh atmosphere. Darkness comes too early each day. Fruit picking is the order of the day and we get out our pruning kit, secateurs, pruning saws and loppers large and small to tackle the trees and shrubs.
Grasses begin to change colour, some flowers and seed heads are turning redder and more purple others towards the pale tints of biscuit.
The Blackberry vine is so heavy with fruit that it blocks the pathway and apples hang in thick bunches but seem slow to ripen. At last colour is creeping into the greenness of the grapes. Fingers crossed that the weather is kind to them and therefore kind to us.
This Buddleja is a special one with purple flowers at the tip of each arching branch. The out side of each individual flower is dusty purple-grey but the rich bright purple inside provides a beautiful contrast. Buddleys lindleyana is a very special shrub. A real favourite! And it looks even better alongside a bright orange neighbour in the guise of a Crocosmia. While we are on the subject of bright flowered Crocosmia the yellow one nearby is gentler but still a true bright beauty.
Shrubs and trees are thinking ahead to the winter and painting their leaves in reds, oranges and yellows. The first two photos are of a special Ribes which will give us yellow flowers in the winter. These are followed by deciduous varieties of Euonymus and Cercis “Forest Pansy”.
On the gravel garden, our Beth Chatto Garden, grasses are starring alongside the autumn stars, Michaelmas Daisies.
Bulbs usually mean late winter or early spring but these cyclamen and tulbaghia are showstoppers right now.
So off we go into autumn!
So here we are back on our August garden visit day with the Shropshire branch of the Hardy Plant Society. I left you as we were on our way to a woodland garden created by two of our kindred hardy planters, Joe and Wendy.
Members had been asked to bring along some finger foods and some plants they had propagated themselves. The food was to become a tasty spread for all to enjoy – we know the hardy planters make mighty good picnics. The plants stocked a plant stall to help raise funds for the society. The picnic and the plants were tempting and looked really impressive. We were tempted into indulging in both, enjoying homemade cakes and bakes, freshly picked salad crops and peaches. Most members returned for refills at least once! We took home too many plants as well, being drawn to a deep orange crocosmia, a white flowering phlox, and a couple of plants new to us.
This combination of photos appealed to me – can you spot why?
But, I digress, the main purpose of the afternoon was to revel in the delights of this woodland garden in Penley, a little village in north Shropshire. Joe and Wendy have created a garden that invites the gardener’s feet to follow paths around corners and through arches to discover secrets and special plantings around every corner. Joe is one of those gardeners who can name any plant presented to him and just as we expected there were labels everywhere and we will admit to needing them. There were so many plants we didn’t recognise. Joe comes to our rescue on our group outings whenever the name of a plant alludes us or we come across a new discovery.
The final pic in the next set is a plant we have only seen a couple of times before and it is a real beauty – the only yellow flowered weigela.
Joe’s real speciality is hydrangeas and we found them throughout the 4 acre garden. Here are a few the last pic is of a new variety called “Chocolate”, named after the colour of its leaves.
Right in the depth of the woodland we came across an opening that contained a delightful surprise, a pool with boardwalk surrounds. Grasses softened the wood and chain sculpture while splashes of colour were provided by the deep blues of agapanthus.
But this lovely garden was far more than trees and shrubs as Joe and Wendy have found space for some fine plantings of perennials.
We were really pleased to find this stunning plant which features in the next batch of photos. We thought it as a rudbeckia but with its deep red stems, beautiful dark foliage and such delicate flowers we didn’t know which one, but what we did know was that we needed one for our garden, imagining how well it would sit in our hot border. So I took a couple of photos and went to seek out Joe who I confidently felt would proffer its name without even having to think about it, but when I showed him the photos on the back screen of the Nikon he referred me to Wendy as she was better at the non-woody members of their garden. So off to find Wendy who looked at the photos and also looked blankly, her memory having failed her. But being organised she had a planting list for each border and we soon discovered that it wasn’t a Rudbeckia at all, it was a Heliopsis “Summer Nights”. So it is down to us now to seek it out for our hot border.
So there we have it, a great day out in a great garden with lots of friends to share it with.
On a blustery, heavily overcast day last weekend we visited two gardens on a day out with our friends from the Shropshire Branch of the Hardy Plant Society. Bumping down a narrow south Cheshire lane that twisted and turned a little too much for comfort, found us at “The Rowans”, a one acre garden loosely based on an Italianate theme. The elements reminiscent of the Italian styled gardens appeared in the structured garden rooms and the use of ornament especially sculpture, but I felt the theme of happiness was much more in evidence.
There were signs scattered throughout the garden to inform and delight.
Humour was potently presented in ornament and statuary. Animals dominated!
But not all the entertaining was performed by animals – there were lots of varied bits and pieces to find amongst the plantings and hanging from the branches of trees.
The planting was not of rare or desirable plants but quite ordinary plants well grown and well put together.
We particularly liked the dense planting in an old wheelbarrow and a miniature pool in a blue glazed pot. Oh, and of course we enjoyed seeing how someone else grows their veggies!
We enjoyed a refreshing cup of tea or two before leaving and left with a promise of some seeds of two plants we liked. The kindness of gardeners shows no bounds.
We then took off back down the bumpy lanes to find our afternoon treat, a woodland garden that is the province of two of our Hardy Plant Society friends. So in my next posting you should find us there enjoying a tasty Hardy Plant Society lunch.
A new nursery that has opened this year on the outskirts of Shrewsbury, emailed Jude, the Undergardener recently inviting members of our allotment community to visit them one evening after closing time for a tour of the nursery.
So earlier this week 20 of us arrived in the car park of “Love Plants” and gathered together anticipating an enjoyable evening talking plants. They have a very classy sign!
Susan spotted an interesting plant before she even reached the door. There were so many treats inside. Although we primarily went for a tour behind the scenes most of us were tempted by a few specimens each. Mrs Greenbench, the Undergardener managed to fill a trolley with Hemerocalis, Achillea and Echinacea.
Tim, the Plants Manager, gave us a quick talk about how the garden centre came about. We were delighted to know that plants were supplied by our favourite nurseries, The dingle and The Derwen, both near Welshpool and part of the same company. The Dingle is a pure nursery and its partner The Derwen more of a small garden centre. With these three outlets close by we have access to plenty of quality plants.
All the perennials were laid out in alphabetical order and they were impressive specimens. Likewise the shrubs. The first area visitors find is an area featuring plants currently in flower or with good foliage colour.
There is a good selection of seeds, herbs and fruit and veg plants.
The nursery is sited within a caravan sales centre and even between the caravans meadows have been sown. Topiary specimens impressed as did the new shade area.
Before leaving I spoke to Tim about the possibility of a joint venture where Love Plants could sponsor a new garden within our communal gardens back at BAC and the three linked plant centres supplying the plants. This looks like being an exciting project. Watch this space!
“What is a mini-group?” I hear you asking. Well they are area groups within the Shropshire branch of the Hardy Plant Society. We live just south of Shrewsbury so fit into the Shrewsbury Mini-Group but we could equally belong to the South Shropshire group. Perhaps we ought to select the most interesting sounding visits planned by both groups and have extra gardens to visit.
Last month our little group visited two of our member’s gardens plus a garden of a neighbouring house. They were all in the little village of Ruyton-XI-Towns. It is a village we have driven through but never stopped in and once parked up we wandered down looking for Jill’s garden, our first stop for the day. In fact we were parked only a few metres from there. We passed through the front garden which was small but packed with plants with lots of colour and texture and then around the side of the house where again every possible place for a plant had plants in it. Pots and interesting containers were everywhere we looked.
As we reached the end of the house the view that met us stopped us in our tracks. This was going to be a real treat! The garden was full of colour and had strong design elements, with paths that invited exploration, arches and frames to encourage you to go through them and pieces of sculpture and interesting natural objects to stop the eye.
Jill is a gardener who can put plants together beautifully taking leaf texture and shape into consideration alongside flower colour. When we looked in more detail at the planting we discovered a few special plants, ones we couldn’t recognise and a few of those that you have to dig deep into the recesses of your memory to recall their names.
From Jill’s garden we all wandered down the village street to a neighbour who had a garden that was best described as long, thin and wriggling, never more than a couple of metres wide and often only wide enough for a plant fringed path. Despite of this the gardener had packed in dozens of fragrant roses and clematis clambering up any surface or tall plant. This will be the subject of my next post where we will also enjoy the third garden we visited that day, where we ended the day with tea on the lawn. How civilised is that?!
This week is my week to trim all the box bushes in our garden, the cloud prune hedge and the more regular shaped specimens used as the cones and balls to mark entries and exits to different sections of the garden.
My preferred tool for the job is a pair of “sheep shearers”, the traditional topiarist’s favourite. They are not very kind though to arthritic joints in your hand so I need frequent stops. But what I do appreciate about these shears is that I find they help get a rhythym going which is essential if my creations are going to end up with satisfying curves. I prefer not to use any lines or formers to get accurate shapes. It is hard to explain but I just follow my instincts and react to the plants. I listen to what they tell me and let them guide my hand and eye. This does mean that the cloud hedge in particular looks slightly different every year.
In this first series of photos we can see the box right at the beginning of their haircuts.
When time comes for a break, to rest my hands and eyes I retreat to the summerhouse for a coffee, and watch Jude, the Undergardener clearing the pool in her leaky waders!
So now for a look at the finished product.
The stars of June h to be the alliums this year, which is rather odd because roses should be outshining them by now. Everything in our garden though is a good month behind this year after a strange start to the year where weather was concerned. Our roses usually begin to bloom in May and peak in June but they are just beginning their show now.
The front garden is almost over full this year with periods of warmth and wet weather creating ideal conditions for plant growth.
So the borders look lush and extra green. The gravel garden looks fuller than ever and we are pleased to see the return of our “purple flowered wild carrot” which we planted as a very small specimen last year. The first of the photos below shows this umbellifer in front of Euphorbia griffithii and the second a self-seeded achillea, another umbellifer growing through the same euphorbia. This promises to be an interesting colourful patch soon.
The stump garden is looking particularly pleasing just now and close up we can see tiny little sedums growing in the dimples of the old oak wood.
In the last few days we have given the Seaside Garden a tidy up.We painted the fence, removed old woody plants, added a few new ones and put up some cleaned netting which was some recycled fishing net originally used off the north coast of Scotland.
We also needed to revamp our little scree bed – it is odd how if one patch in the garden needs a re-vamp there always seem more. We had to replace all the wooden edging which had rotted and many of the plants had outgrown their spaces. We top-dressed the bed with fresh slate chips, a by-product of the slate mining industry and added a few new alpine plants.
Let us wander around now using a gallery – just follow by clicking on any photo and use the arrows to navigate. Enjoy the journey!
June’s Hardy Plant Society garden visit took us to two little town gardens. The first garden was truly tiny and the second slightly less tiny. They were perfect if very different examples of what it is possible to achieve in such small spaces. The secret to them both was wriggly paths leading the eyes and feet around to discover hidden secrets.
The tiniest of the two had planting at all levels from tiny specimens right by your toes to trees above your head and the borders were full of unusual plants. Little surprises.
The gardeners here even found room for an alpine house, a fruit cage and a couple of little water features.
Humour is essential in any garden however small.
Humour reigned supreme in the second garden we visited that morning. There were interesting arches, grottoes, seating areas all surrounded in lush planting.
Hidden throughout this little patch were containers planted up skilfully to give surprises wherever we turned.
Deep in the heart of this little paradise we came across a cool enclosed garden where we found ourselves in for a real treat – a little glimpse of the Far East.
This garden was tightly fitted within a group of houses close by the town’s main church and occasionally we caught glimpses of these other buildings through the foliage.
Atop one of the many little outbuildings lived a very healthy and happy green roof.
This was a very special garden – a place to relax and become engulfed in plants. In the afternoon we met again as a group to enjoy a very different garden in a very different setting. We found ourselves out in the open high up on a hillside with big skies above a wide view. This garden features in my next post.
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