Tag: Yellow Book

Three Welsh Gardens – Part Two – A Garden on Top of the World – Bryn Llidiart

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date July 7, 2014
1 Comment on Three Welsh Gardens – Part Two – A Garden on Top of the World – Bryn Llidiart

Of course the garden we visited wasn’t really on top of the world, but it certainly felt that way as once more we made our way into the hills of Powys the other side of Welshpool, travelling along narrow single track lanes up steep hills and around sharp bend after sharp bend. It seemed to take ages to get nowhere and the journey did actually take twice as long as we had anticipated. We had to go in Jude’s little car as I had been in hospital the day before having a minor op on my hand so I couldn’t drive. We should have known better and Jude could have driven mine as its more powerful motor wouldn’t have minded the hills so much.

Once we got there however we knew we were in for a treat. Anyone brave enough to tackle the making of a garden in these harsh condition must be a very determined gardener indeed. As we neared our destination we turned up a very narrow lane where the hedges virtually touched the side of the car and we climbed steeply until the lane came to a halt. A gate in the stone wall was open on our right and a sign indicated that this was where we had to park up. On the left another track of rugged slate took us through fields grazed by sheep towards the garden.The gnarled old hedgerow Hawthorns were bowed over and twisted from years of being wind battered on this exposed hillside.

After a steep knee-aching walk across fields we realised we were getting close as the close cropped sheep pastures were replaced by recently planted flower meadows with neatly cut gently winding paths.

After walking the meadow edges we glimpsed the house ahead of us. From this distance it already looked tantalising.

We found it to be a modernised and extended Welsh longhouse with its garden wrapped around it and just as well designed. Coffee and cake were enjoyed in an out building where plants from the garden were for sale. Only a few different plants but very well grown.

As we started to explore the garden it immediately became obvious that an artist was at work here. The planting with carefully selected combinations of texture and colour and scattered artifacts had the feel and look of the artist’s hand and eye at work.

Moving further from the house, closely mown paths enticed us through meadows of white daisies to a curving bench of slate encircling a fire pit and on further to a small but neat productive patch.

Moving back around winding paths towards a pool in the lower part of the garden we found more borders and this metal sculptural bird feeding station. Beyond every border were distant views of hillsides.

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The pool and the stream garden running into it was a new venture and still in the early stages of development. We could see such possibility and vowed to return to see developments.

Slate paths through raised beds let us discover further interesting plant combinations. We were impressed in particular by the different Astrantias.

Gardens wrapped around the complex perimeter of the buildings and here more gentle plantings helped root the new building extensions into the land.

As we left the garden behind and anticipated the beauty of the meadows we noticed a green roof under which we must have been seated while enjoying our coffee and cakes. Wandering the close cut grass paths through the meadows was a very gentle way to finish off our visit to this developing garden. We looked forward to returning in the future.

Tags fruit and veg, fruit and vegetable growing, garden photography, gardening, NGS, pond, Powis, Powys, trees, Yellow Book, Yellow Book Gardens

colours flowering bulbs fruit and veg garden buildings garden design garden photography garden ponds garden pools gardening gardens grow your own irises light light quality ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs Shropshire shrubs succulents water garden water in the garden

Aiming for a year round garden – early summer.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date June 4, 2014
4 Comments on Aiming for a year round garden – early summer.

Number four in this series of posts concerning our aim at ensuring that our garden all year round sees me and my trusty Nikon wandering the paths of our garden in the last week of May. so come with me and see what you think. Are we still on track?

As usual we shall begin our wanderings in the front where right by the front door we find our personalised trug and our climbers growing in the old galvanised container. Opposite the front door the Freda Border is looking full of interest.

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Round the front of the house the Chatto Garden seems full of chartreuse highlighted with brightly coloured Irises.

Our mixed borders are full of many different textures, shapes and colours provided by the herbaceous plants and the shrubs.

As we move into the back we find our lush colourful planting in the Secret Garden and the Chicken Bed. On a sunny day you need sunglasses to appreciate these areas.

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Down by the pool the Japanese Garden is dominated by the Acers but in the Bog Garden the big leaves of the Rheum and Hostas pick up any shaft of sunlight.

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How about this for a self-seeder, an Anthirinum in the deepest pink possible with tiny splashes of yellow and orange growing alongside a red leaved Acer.

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Looking from the Summerhouse the garden looks full of, so is now a lovely place to sit with a coffee and enjoy our hard work.

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Moving back towards the greenhouse we can take a look at the Crescent Bed and around the Rill Garden. Just look at this little flower hovering above the leaves of the Aeonium.

From the Rill Garden we can see the Seaside Garden which we recently revamped.

We often miss out the mini-gardens on our wandering blog posts so we shall have a look now at the Fern Border, Shed Slate Garden, the Salad Beds and the Slate Scree Garden.

So there we have it, our garden in early Summer. We hope it is still looking good. The next post in this series will be in mid-Summer when we shall be fast approaching our first ever opening under the National Garden Scheme. Seeing our own garden in the famous Yellow Book certainly makes you look closely at our garden.

Tags foliage, fruit and vegetable growing, garden photography, gardening, grasses, grown your own, National Garden Scheme, NGS, ornamental trees, Shropshire, shrubs, Yellow Book

community gardening fruit and veg garden photography gardening gardens open to the public grow your own hardy perennials Hardy Plant Society herbs HPS kitchen gardens Land Art meadows National Garden Scheme NGS outdoor sculpture Shrewsbury Shropshire

Allotment Open Day 2013

Sunday July 14th was the day we opened our allotment community gardens for everyone to come and have a look at what we get up to, and to help raise money for charities under the auspices of the National Garden Scheme. We are proud to be part of this great scheme and we love seeing our lotties featured in their famous Yellow Book.

Visitors were greeted by committee members Di and Jill, who took the entry fees and gave out tickets, trail sheets, children’s quiz sheets and competition voting forms (more about that later).

The allotmenteers had been busy the week prior to our opening mowing the grass, edging and weeding the communal borders and ensuring their own plots were looking at their best. And it did look good! As chairman I felt proud of what was achieved that week.

Bunting was hung from sheds and a pair of galvanised watering cans planted up with diascias and blue fescue grasses decorated the entrance to the central grass pathway. We made sure all information signs were clear and visible.

Some members even provided extra little sitting areas alongside their plots with shade over comfy seats. Phil and Doreen created an outdoor lounge. It looked brilliant and drew many admirers and many visitors stopped off for a rest and a chat.

A popular part of our day is the tea shop which we create around our communal huts enhanced with gazebos and an assortment of tables and chairs all brought in for the day by lottie members. Sherlie, an allotmenteer and florist, added beautiful floral decorations to the centre of each table. Members bake all week prior to the event and the array of cakes is stunning and oh so tempting.

A feature of our open days is the involvement of our visitors in selecting the winners of our annual site competitions. Each year we hold a scarecrow competition and the theme this year was occupations and as always our members’ imaginations ran wild. We were treated to the sight of a scarecrow undertaker, a pilot, a school crossing lady, a farm labourer, a lumberjack, a nurse, a doctor a tractor driver

I had the rather over-ambitious idea that I could make a “Biggles the Pilot” scarecrow, which was quite a task and needed the help of gardening mate Pete to put it up on top of our central arbor. Pete is a good foot taller than me!

We persuaded one of our newer members to open her shed for all to see as it has such a beautiful interior. We call it the “Chic Shed”. It is painted all white inside with a storage bench with padded seat on top, a lovely dresser and even colouring books, pencils and crayons etc for her granddaughter.

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Another competition this year was a new one and again we asked our visitors to choose the winners. It was for land art/sculpture and it proved to be very popular with lots of pieces for our guests to consider.

Jude the Undergardener won this competition with her woven twisted willow.

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For the children on our site we held a competition where we asked them to plant up an item of footwear, and we saw colourful flowers grown in slippers, boots and wellies. In the pictures below they are shown lined up in front of the two mini-allotments grown for display in the town square later.

As well as the tea shop we had a plants sale table where Jude, aka Mrs Greenbench or The Undergardener, sold plants she had raised from seeds and cuttings, both herbaceous perennials, herbs and vegetables. We had a display from Linton, one of Shropshire’s Master Composters who answered visitors’ queries concerning their composting.

So just how successful was the day? We had lots of visitors many of whom stayed all day and obviously enjoyed their walk around, helping us choose our competition winners and indulging in the offerings of the tea shop and the plant stall. We raised £1065 to send in to the National Garden Scheme, a figure of which we are most proud.

Tags allotments, community gardening, fruit and veg, gardening, land art, master composters, meadows, NGS, outdoor sculpture, scarecrows, Yellow Book

garden photography gardening grow your own hardy perennials ornamental trees and shrubs photography Shropshire

The National Garden Scheme and our Open Day

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date April 20, 2012
3 Comments on The National Garden Scheme and our Open Day

In mid-July each year we open our allotment community site for charity, which we do under the auspices of the National Garden Scheme. So we appear in the famous “Yellow Book” of gardens open throughout England and Wales. Our first opening was in July 2011.

The weather was exactly what you would choose not to have on an open day particularly in mid-July. Strong winds and heavy rain! But we had to go ahead and lots of volunteers spent the morning preparing for the afternoon, creating a tea shop out of Hut 2, putting up gazebos and putting up direction signs, car park signs. toilet signs, tea shop signs – lots of signs! Throughout the previous week members had been tidying up their plots and cutting the communal grass areas. A working party the previous weekend made the green spaces look spick and span.

As the time drew near Jude the Undergardener and Di, a fellow plotter, set themselves up to sell the tickets.

We nervously awaited the time to open and the weather just kept getting worse so we were worried that no visitors would turn up. But at the time of opening our visitors started to arrive. It was too windy to use umbrellas so they wandered around braving the wind and rain, stopping for frequent cups of tea and home-made cakes.

We judge the site’s scarecrow competition on the day and the entries give extra interest for the visitors. The fine couple in the photo were modelled on one of the plot holder’s parents! For 2012 our scarecrows will be based on the Olympics and/or The Queens Jubilee.

In the end we sent about £460 to the National Garden Scheme treasurers, so we were quite pleased. We hope for better weather this year when we open on Sunday 15th July.

In the Spring each year all the gardeners who open their gardens meet to launch the new season of openings, and the Shropshire gardeners meet at the home of the County Organiser Chris Neil at Edge Villa, close to where we live. We all meet up again to chat, find out about how successful the county’s gardens were the previous year and have a glass of bubbly and nibbles (extremely tasty ones they are too!). This year Chris announced that 2011 had been a record year with over £60 000 being raised.

At the end of the formality Chris and her husband, Neil invite us to wander around their own garden. So come with me and share in some highlights.

To find out more about the famous Yellow Book and the National Garden Scheme look up http://www.ngs.org.uk. And to find our entry in it look up Bowbrook Allotment Community in the Shropshire section.