Parts of the garden are a riot; rich with the wayside plants of the Mediterranean and Balkans intermingled with the local and far flung. The Peacock Garden is dominated by bright yellow umbels of great fennel Ferula communis contrasting with the mauves of honesty Lunaria annua, greater meadow-rue Thalictrum aquilegifolium and, I think, dame’s rocket…
Category: Gardens
Audley End
In late March on a chilly day, under a blanket of stone grey cloud, the grand old house is drained of colour. Audley End is a remnant of a much larger palatial country house, a so-called ‘prodigy’ house built at the start of the 17th Century by a courtier to James I, who cooked the…
Sissinghurst Castle Garden’s Sphinxes and Satyrs
Sphinxes and Satyrs are found on some beautiful, turquoise vases that adorn the patios and paths in the Castle Garden. A pair lining the forecourt have Satyrs as handles; these were wild, half-man, half-beast spirits associated with Dionysus, the god of wine and famed for their debauchery and outrageous behaviour. An adjacent pair are decorated…
The South Charente in Late June
Under thundery skies, the herbaceous borders at Boisjarzeau are at their colourful best. The wet spring this year has saved on the watering but the garden meadows are unusually thick with false oat-grass and barren brome with little space for wildflowers. A sward full of yellow rattle would impede the grasses and promote floral diversity…
Sissinghurst on St David’s Day
Having previously visited on a leap day, this is a visit four years and a day later under similarly blustery conditions with the clear light of early spring occasionally lighting up the deep red brick and fattening white magnolias. The place is unchanged. The white garden is green and the other gardens empty apart from…
Kent – 13th May 2023
Saturday was a grand tour of some of Kent’s finest places. The day was bright and breezy and confirmed that May, the month of many weathers, is the best month of the year for wildlife (and possibly gardens). Sissinghurst We checked the plant species in the cottage garden where the colours are always burning hot…
Forde Abbey
Forde Abbey is lost in a wooded valley on the borders of Dorset, Somerset and Devon. The Cistercian Abbey dates back to the 11th Century. Today, it is less of a place of worship and more of a grand country house and well-tended garden with a patchwork of artificial lakes. Beyond the gardens there is…
Autumn inkblots
Like so many country estates, the large back garden at Sheffield Park is a display of the most fashionable trees and shrubs brought in by Georgian and Victorian plant collectors, especially from the remotest and most inaccessible temperate forests in the Far East and Far West; the seeds were as prized as moondust. Gingkoes sit…
Stourhead
The landscaped gardens at Stourhead are a sort of pastiche Greek paradise comprising of a dammed lake surrounded by an assortment of stone structures including temples, pantheon, Palladian bridge and, for good measure, a Gothic cottage. The homage is set within a narrow valley planted with tall, exotic trees. Above the valley, there is a…
Sissinghurst in September
The old place is quiet on a hot day; the struggling borders are fading into autumn. The new Mediterranean garden perfectly evokes a dusty, desiccated island in the Aegean except there is no loud, monotonous rasp of cicadas. Even after a long drought of a summer, there is still enormous inspiration from the the planting;…
Cae Hir Gardens
The gardens at Cae Hir run up a hillside in a quiet corner of deepest mid-Wales; they are a revelation of quiet colours and varied forms with long views under a remarkable diversity of trees and through gaps in hedges and borders; and their establishment is a fascinating story of singular endeavour and creativity.
Summer shades
Sometimes there is no story, no theme to wrap some pictures around, just the rich sights of late summer to enjoy. Bright sun against a dark thundercloud, flowers in morning light, the appearance of the last swifts in the sky and the effervescent and colourful insects; even the irritating paparazzi, the clegs and mosquitoes, and…