Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
We were at Winterbourne House and Garden long after the wisteria had finished dripping flowers over and along the walkway, but a long row of towering foxgloves made sure we had no grounds for regret. It is a wonderful garden to visit in Birmingham, close to Edgbaston Cricket Club’s stadium. Continue reading “Foxgloves Add Their Magic to a Colonnade at Winterbourne Garden”
Great Dixter’s spirit is as multifaceted as any fine garden. You’d need to visit, often – or better still, live or work there to understand the effects of sunrise stealing over the garden, those late summer sunsets, and all weathers and seasons playing out.
Continue reading “Great Dixter: An Arts and Crafts Garden with Holistic Planting”
We were fortunate to be able to visit Bridgewater after a night of snowfall this week. As we didn’t win the garden visit lottery by having a bright blue sky too, my pictures are a little sombre – some, even Gothic. Continue reading “Winter Gardens: Visiting RHS Bridgewater on a Snowy Day”
I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me if I start with a digression.
While I welcome the Royal Horticulture Society spreading its presence in the North of England, I wonder if I am alone in seeing signs of failure to understand and fully celebrate life in the north, especially when I visit the young, still-developing RHS Bridgewater.
Perhaps the RHS’s powers-that-be are too far away or too used to a life of plenty to appreciate the creativity and fun in us – our type of fullness. An old Punch cartoon showing a BBC documentary film crew on location in the north comes to mind (even with the watermark you’ll get the gist).
Continue reading “Hebden Bridge’s Tiny Gardens: Pocket Planting as Folkart”
Harlow Carr is no longer the Royal Horticulture Society’s only northern garden, and not the biggest, but has the benefit of an extra 70 years or so of continuous cultivation. Highlights for me include wonderful collections of primula and meconopsis, typically in flower around mid June to early July. The collections mingle in naturalistic drifts, their bold colours sparkling like jewels in their stream-side setting. Continue reading “RHS Harlow Carr: Candelabra Primulas, Blue Poppies And Other Treasures”
Today, I’m featuring gardens that use birch trees to great effect. Flower lovers sometimes overlook trees, but if you can imagine these gardens without their chalky trunks, you’ll take away more than you might anticipate. Our eyes would hunger for them, were they absent. Continue reading “Using Birch in the Garden for Light, Rhythm and Texture”
Susan Rushton 