Tag: Gardens
Weekly Photo Challenge: Growth
Bibury is a pretty village in the Cotswolds, the sort of place that is seen as a typical English village by its many visitors from abroad. Travelling through a few weeks ago there were coach loads of Japanese tourists merrily snapping away. On my return journey a few days later it was quieter and I was able to merrily snap, and have been waiting for a reason to show you. I thought I would focus on the growth happening there.
This row of cottages look like they could be swallowed up amongst the dense growth of trees and meadow.
Fruit trees have a good crop bursting with growth and gorgeous roses doing what roses do best in June.
Look how high the river is, it’s no wonder everything is lush and green this year with the amount of rain we’ve had, I’m glad it isn’t just in Devon, Bibury is in the county of Gloucestershire.
Bibury Trout Farm is an attraction open daily where you can try your hand at catching Rainbow or Brown Trout. There is something for everyone and children especially would love the chance to see the fish leap for the food they can throw in. They sell fresh and smoked trout and have a nice café where I stopped for a quick cuppa – so much nicer than a motorway services! There is quite a bit of algal growth on this section of their fifteen acres.
They have beautiful gardens to walk through as well.
This is the Bibury Court Hotel, a Grade 1 listed 16th Century mansion. I haven’t been inside but a friend tells me its divine, having checked the website I believe her, I like the look of their Afternoon Tea, a mere seventeen pounds a head. I imagine that its grounds are a real sanctuary from the visiting hoards outside. I love the dense growth of creeper spreading over its walls, hope it doesn’t have too many creepy crawlies though.
This is a real ‘Chocolate Box’ cottage but I couldn’t get the best photo because too many other people were trying to do the same.
I visited five weeks ago so I think that by now the runner beans, carrots and potatoes have put on a big growth spurt and filled a few tummies. What a pretty veggie patch.
This is my entry for the Weekly Photo Challenge with the theme of growth. I hope you have enjoyed it and will visit some of the others here, http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/weekly-photo-challenge-growth/
Weekly Photo Challenge: Today Take Two
After sharing my misery earlier I had to turn it around, I can never be gloomy for long it’s crazy when there is such beauty around. So, a few mindful photos, click to see a bigger view. Happy weekend!
Weekly Photo Challenge: Blue
Les Jardins Majorelle in Marrakech were once owned by Yves St Laurent and his ashes are scattered there. The garden was designed by Jacques Majorelle in the 1920s and 30s and his father, the artist Louis’s name is given to the bright colour of Majorelle Blue. In the heart of the city, it is open to the public and it’s wonderful to arrive by Caleche. The cobalt blue is everywhere around the twelve acre garden and the day I visited the sky was a close match.
These photos are part of the Weekly Photo Challenge here, http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/weekly-photo-challenge-blue/
RHS Rosemoor, a garden in winter
I’ve been to one of my favourite gardens today, looked after by the Royal Horticultural Society, Rosemoor is near Great Torrington and an hour from home. It’s a garden for all seasons and perhaps best known for its midsummer display of roses. Much as I love roses, it can be a bit busy there for me then and the rose garden is more formal than I like a garden to be.
At this time of the year its heaven, full of the earliest of spring flowers and shrubs and the trees look stunning in their nakedness. There is fragrance everywhere, most noticeably from Daphne, Viburnum and Box with the occasional waft of Eucalyptus. The most common snowdrops are coming to the end of their season but they have many varieties still looking fresh, crocuses are abundant, and the dwarf narcissi and hellebore are exquisite.
Rosemoor is divided into several sections, a winter garden, herbaceous, woodland, exotic and the original garden created by Lady Anne Palmer who gifted the 65 acres to the RHS. To reach Lady Anne’s garden you walk through a tunnel under the road towards the house which is surrounded by a more relaxed style of planting with Mediterranean area and the stone garden.
A very well planned vegetable garden produces an abundance of fresh food for the restaurant as well as seed for research. Right now the espaliered fruit trees are still dormant, but this really shows the skill involved in maintaining them. Strings of last season’s onions hang in a thatched summerhouse along with pumpkins, gourds and dried peppers and everywhere you walk there is an orchestra of birdsong.
Modern water features and ponds can be seen in the formal areas and there is a large lake stocked with Rudd and visited by ducks, and amphibians. The area around the lake has been refurbished since I was last there, smartened up and I prefer it as it was, but no doubt health and safety had to be considered, so it now has an improved path to the edge and a wooden bridge that I do like.
The icing on the cake today was a sculpture exhibition, a wonderful selection of art scattered throughout the garden, and great fun to turn a corner and find the next piece. It was all for sale and for those with a few thousand ponds to spare there were some very desirable things to choose from, my favourite was called ‘Refuge’ and of course was way beyond my reach.
I spent five hours happily wandering, it’s a very peaceful way to spend a day especially as the sun came out after lunch. Perhaps I will go back when the roses bloom or maybe when the vegetable garden reaches its zenith in August, whenever it will always be a delight!
I think I have created a pdf thingy of some of the Rosemoor sculpture photos I took, try clicking and let me know if it works!
January Small Stones # 20
A waft of the most heavenly smell again today, I really love those rich plant perfumes! This one reminded me of a shrub I had planted in my old garden. I took my time to select the perfect variety because of space limitations and at the time my choice was quite hard to find. Mahonias are large prickly evergreens with four inch long tendrils of yellow flowers in early spring and my variety was Buckland. Apart from size, another reason it had to be this one, was that it was first bred by the late Lionel Fortescue, when he lived at the Garden House http://www.thegardenhouse.org.uk/ one of my very favourite gardens to visit, an hour away across Dartmoor. Seeing and catching the scent today made me wonder how my old garden is doing now, if the planting I did is appreciated.
Dartington Hall, a photo blog
For many years I have been visiting Dartington Hall in Devon, twenty five miles from home and have often raved about it to my friends. It’s a stunning place held as a trust began by the Elmhursts, a visionary family since the 1920’s. Part of the estate is farmland and woods as well as a landscaped garden. It’s a major centre for education and performance of arts and until last year was home to Dartington College before its move to Falmouth. Each summer it hosts a literature festival, Ways With Words, when for two weeks the grounds are filled with people relaxing between events. The festival attracts world class writers from all genres and my only criticism is that perhaps it is becoming increasingly high brow. I’ve photographed the grounds in all seasons, there is always something to see.
I think one of my favourite times to visit is February when the scent of witch hazel assails you before you can find it – unless like me you know just where it is.
But of course I’m really fond of snowdrops
Followed by the crocus
While I’m here, this is my dream office, it has the most amazing view of the valley 
and I’m sure I could be incredibly creative here if only they would let me have it instead of filling it with garden tools.
No prizes for guessing the sculptor!
It’s a permanent feature
unlike this one, resident for a few months and that I took lots of photos of.
Dartington has plenty of space for performance rehearsal
and quiet contemplation
The planting is elegant and striking
There’s a restaurant and bar,The White Hart, it’s name may have been inspired by this detail on the ceiling of the hall itself.
Places to climb 
Abundant summer flowers
Sunny benches
Shady walks where who knows what you may find.
But don’t let the gardener catch you doing this!
unless you can think of an excuse very quickly!
Dartington is special, I’ve loved sharing it with you and hope that you get to visit one day.
Shady walks
Lucid Gypsy 