NGS Herons Mead

A very enjoyable Sunday afternoon was spent visiting the garden of Angela and Ron Millington in East Burton near Wool in Dorset.

Chattel House from where the refreshments are served

The garden is long, very long in fact. I thought I was near the bottom of the garden, when Ron informed me that I was only halfway down. The garden has lots of sections to it. There are fabulous herbaceous borders at the back of the house, leading to a rose arch, which wasn't in bloom when I was there but I expect looks beautiful when in flower.

Rose Arch

Rose Arch taken from the other side

The refreshments were served in the Chattel House by some of the ladies from the local WI. They were rather young and fun, not at all the archetypal WI ladies, with not a hint of tweed in sight. (Although I think my view of the WI is probably rather dated)

Anyone for cake!

Inside the Chattel House
There is a lovely old Walnut tree next to the Chattel House, which then leads into the vegetable garden.

Mrs Scarecrow

After the vegetable garden, you wind your way down the garden through the most abundant herbaceous borders, where I spotted a quote from Gertrude Jekyll propped up against a seat.

A quote from Gertrude Jekyll

The planting overflows onto a narrow path, which you have to take single file, through to an archway in the hedge to a beautiful woodland garden.

Looking out from the woodland garden to the herbaceous border

The woodland garden offered a lovely cool relief from the heat of the afternoon, with large Eucalyptus trees, under planted with Euphoria's, Geraniums, Rhododendrons and lots of Aqualigas.

A quiet sitting place under the Eucalyptus tree

Shell mobile hanging in the woodland garden

Nora Barlow

Geranium

After a garden came the tea and cakes. I sampled the Victoria Sponge, as per the last two gardens I have visited and this cakes sponge was so light, it nearly flew off the plate!

All the proceeds from the refreshments, goes to Dogs for the Disabled. Jenny Clarke who has started her company Woofability, is training a puppy called Furzil to do tasks for her like take the washing out of the machine, pick things up, take off socks; small tasks which would be hard for Jenny to do, as she is in a wheelchair after an accident 25 years ago.

She came to the garden with her husband Andy, her daughter and her dog Farrah.

Jenny with Farrah

Farrah waiting for her command and then a treat

Farrah is absolutely gorgeous and Dogs for the Disabled is such a worthy cause. Jenny gives talks to groups to raise awareness of the charity and to raise the profile of Woofability.

I really enjoyed visiting Herons Mead. Not only is it a lovely garden, with lots of fabulous plants but the people I met whilst visiting the garden were such fun. Angela and Ron the hosts, Jenny and Andy and the ladies of the WI, all made us feel so welcome and if you would like to visit the garden, they have another two open days on 28 June and 20 Sept - well worth a visit.

Love in a Mist

Nectaroscordum Siculum

Sisyrinchium Striatum

Angela and Ron Millington

NGS Knowle Farm

Last week, my NGS photography project took us to Knowle Farm in Loders near Bridport. An absolutely beautiful Dorset village, with cottages of the most gorgeuos buff coloured stone.
John and Alison Halliday, also run a bed and breakfast at Knowle Farm http://www.knowlefarmbandb.com/ and a photograph of their cottage was featured in a national newspaper recently, due to the amazing Wisteria covering the front of their cottage.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dorset/content/articles/2009/05/13/wisteria_uploders_feature.shtml

Knowle Farm B & B

The weather was glorious if you were visiting the garden but for a photographer, the light was really harsh and completely bleached all the colours. Luckily Andy is becoming a dab hand at being my assistant. I took a diffusing umberella with me this time and my 'assistant' held it over the plants casting a dappled light over the plants, which did the trick!

                                            

                                                 

          Peony

                                                 

                                                                           Centranthus ruber
                                               

              

                                                                                Black Iris

                

                                                                                Yellow Iris

The garden is set in 1 acre and gently slopes down to the river Asker, which regularly floods every Winter. This is hard to imagine when you see it bubbling softly on a sunny day in May but Alison assures me that as it's a flood plane, the water drains very quickly and the plants which border the river come to no harm. The badgers which visit the garden, do more damage to the garden, by digging up the bulbs!

River Asker

A quite sitting place by the river

The garden has a lovely restful feel to it, with lots of lovely shady places to sit.

When John and Alison moved to Knowle Farm 10 years ago, the garden was just a grassy slope down to the river and over time they have made a most wonderful garden, with lots of areas including a kitchen garden, meadow, orchard and an area for their chickens.

                                                

             meadow

         

stone archway

                                

               chickens

                    

I purchased a couple of plants from the plant sales and after all the photography and retail therapy it was time for tea and cake.
The spread  looked absolutely delicious and had been kindly baked by a group of ladies calling themselves Stitch and Bitch. They are a group of ladies who live in the village and like to stitch and no doubt lots of gossiping goes on, hence their title. I tried a most gorgeous looking slice of Victoria Sandwich baked by Betty Wilde. It tasted absolutely scrumptious. Her secret ingredient being Mascapone cheese instead of cream and oh my goodness it tasted yummy. All the proceeds from the tea and cake sales goes to the Mountjoy Special School in Bridport.

                                                               back of the cottage
                                                        

                                                                   Bettys' cake

                                                              Alison and John Halliday

John and Alison where extreamly hospitable and we spent a lovely afternoon looking around their garden.
You will have to wait until next year if you want to visit their garden under the NGS but it's one to circle as soon as you get next years yellow book.

NGS Garden Wincombe Park

As we walked down the leafy lane towards the house, I felt a little bit daunted. It was the first garden of my project and I didn't know what to expect. I wasn't at all worried about photographing the plants or the teas but I was concerned at how the portrait would go. My biggest concern was the fact that I didn't want to get in the way, when the garden owners could potentially be feeling stressed and very busy and therefore feel irritated by my asking them to pose but my concerns were totally unfounded as I found out later that afternoon.

When we reached the house, Mrs Fortescue and her helpers were setting out the tables and chairs and adorning them with chequered table clothes and vases of bluebells, freshly picked from the woods. I introduced myself and Andy (I introduced him as Andrew my partner, which sounds better than Andy my boyfriend and far more fitting for this occasion and our age!) and left them to set up, whilst I went off to photograph the garden to the front of the house, before all the visitors arrived.

Closeup of wild garlic

Wild Garlic


Closed Hydrangea Buds

Pink Hydrangea

Cow Parsley

At the back of the beautiful house was a wonderful walled vegetable garden, with a lovely iron gate at its entrance.

I've have a passion for walled gardens, especially those with vegetables growing in them for a long time. When I was a child, I had a Ladybird book called Rapunzel and one of the paintings in the book showed a walled garden belonging to the witch. It had rows of delphiniums and lettuces (which Rapunzel's Mother longed for) and that image has stayed with me ever since, so whenever I am in a walled garden, I have happy memories, although the story itself is rather dark, as with most fairy stories.

When I walked through the gate, I was not at all disappointed. The beds were neatly laid out and the young vegetables were thriving.

Walled Vegetable Garden

A little room tucked away in the wall

Orange Tulips

Side view of the house

After photographing the walled garden, I went to partake in a very vital and enjoyable part of the afternoon which was sampling the tea and cake. There were plenty of cakes to choose from and all looked equally as yummy. Serving tea and cakes at these events, enables lots of money to be raised for the NGS and charities of the garden owners choice. In this case it was Riding for the disabled.

Lastly came the portrait. Mr and Mrs Fortescue posed with their two black Labradors and their wonderful cat in front of a backdrop of spring plants.

Mr and Mrs Fortesuce

If you wish to visit this garden, you will have to wait until next year but I heartily recommend it. For my first garden, it was a photographers dream and I am sure my next garden will also be fabulous. I am visiting Knowle Farm at Uploaders near Bridport on Saturday. Lets hope the sun is shining but maybe not so brightly!

A Well Needed Rest

We have just returned from a holiday to Tenerife. I have never been before and I chose Tenerife because it had guaranteed sunshine (which was sorely needed) and I found a cheap holiday in a lovely hotel, flying from our local airport, 15 mins away, so this added up to to be a winning combination, well it would have been, if only I had been more impressed with Tenerife (we were situated down the south which was a bit touristy, the north of the island seemed much more to my taste) but it was fit for purpose, a nice rest!

On our travels around the island I saw some beautiful wild flowers, growing in the most inhabitable conditions. The island has a dormant volcano, Mount Teide, situated in the middle, which last erupted in 1798, so the soil is very poor especially around the volcano, which is mostly lava and with minimal amounts of rain I'm surprised anything grows.

I left written instructions with my children, on how to water my garden, especially the seedlings, whilst we were away and so when I returned, everything looked good. I had left my garlic and legumes outside to harden off, so they were planted into the beds on my return on Sunday.

The garlic had a good root system, so I am hopeful that I will have better success this year.

My new bed which has potatoes growing, now has legumes growing up wigwams of bamboo canes, has had the sandy soil improved by compost but it still isn't in the best condition. Growing legumes will help because they take nitrogen from the air and fix it to their roots, which will help next years plants.

This summer I am undertaking a photography project, with the consent of the National Garden Scheme, to photograph a number of gardens in Dorset, together with a portrait of the garden owners. 7 garden owners have given their permission and Sunday was the first garden I photographed.

It was totally amazing, a photographers dream. I need to edit the photographs, so in the meantime I leave you with some flower portraits from Tenerife. (Taken on my little Lumix)

Cactus Flower

Echium Wildprettii


Echium Wildprettii Flowers

Marigold

Pennisetum

Unknown pink flower



Unknown yellow flower growing in the lava fields

Busy In The Garden

When I walked up the stairs at work today, I felt as stiff as a board - the after effects of a weekends toil in the garden.

The past two weekends have been a very busy time in the garden. Firstly digging out a new veg bed in the garden (actually that was Andy's hard graft) and this weekend it was shaking the soil off the mountain of turfs removed to make the way for the raised bed. We removed quite a lot of soil, which we put back into the raised bed, which now needs enriching with eco compost.

Last weekend I sowed, four types of tomatoes, basil, peas, runner beans, climbing french beans, sweet peas, chillies and lots of different cut and come again lettuces. Also to add a bit of colour to the veg beds, companion plants; marigolds and nasturtiums. My legumes have burst up through the soil in no time and the tomatoes are just starting to peep through.

Gardeners' World is back on our screens and from a new location; Greenacres.

At first I was a bit sceptical about Toby (I was a bit miffed that Carol wasn't asked to take over as head of the programme) but I am really loving this new series. It's all about going back to basics and although I have been gardening for many years, it's good to be reminded especially when it comes to vegetable growing which I am relatively new at and gardening needs to encourage new young blood.

I have been to my local garden centre Haskins and bought some lovely plants for my new Herbaceous border. Some plants caught my eye, planted in coir pots, which biodegrade (you plant the plants in their pots) with a reduced peat content. I bought Crambe Cordifolia and a Verbascum. I would have been happier if the soil did not contain any peat at all and can't wait for the day when growers ditch the use of peat. I went to B & Q and bought a Peony, a plant which I have never grown before, so I am very excited. When reading the planting instructions, it said to plant in peat free compost (gold star) but reading further it stated that it was planted in 75% peat! Oh B & Q you nearly got a house point, just try a little harder next time!

In the garden this week

Carex Pendula

Strawberry Plant

Garlic

Pea Seedling

Legume Seedling