Anglesely Abbey

With the flurry of activity surrounding the Hard Landscape portfolio and Bespoke portfolio visits to winter gardens for shots to go into the Soft Landscape portfolio have all but been forgotten. But today, as the sun finally peaked out from the clouds, I felt I HAD to go to see the spectacular snowdrop display and glorious winter gardens at Anglesey Abbey. a quick jaunt up the A14 and back in time for lunch and more drawing(!)

From Collages

The winter gardens wind their way through a huge section of the garden, the path helping to divide the diffeerent section by bending so as to hide the next element. Glorious inter colour in the shape of yellow stemmed Salix, crimson coloured Cornus and ghostly white Rubrus, nestled in alongside Sarcoccoca confusa, Hammemelis, Chosiya, Corylus, Ophiopogon, Carex, Eleagnus and more in fact 150 species to cheer up a dreary English winter and this one has been particularly dreary!. The finale was of course the striking stand of Betula utilis var. jaquemontii. Stark against the rich dark soil, just sprouting daffs(?) beneath.

The snowdrops? two weeks late due to snow and cold weather! so I will have to go back again to see the Viburnums, Hammemelis and Galanthus in their full glory. Really, an inspirational garden for winter colour and interest.

Trentham in Winter

Trentham Estate gardens are a recently restored treasure (2003-2008) with the formal Italian garden plantings being designed by Tom Stuart Smith. In the regenerated formal gardens the planting reflects prairie style so a mix of ornate traditional structure with stunningly modern planting. Apparently they planted 73,000 plants and then there are the spring bulbs. A year round garden? well certainly a 3 season garden.

From Collages

The cold crisp winter day made the most of the structure given by the tall plantings and evergreens. Stunning displays with 'Death' in all it's glory.

And of course the perfect weather and location to play with the new Nikon Lens

Wisley

RHS Wisley

From 2009-10-19

A dreary day with some drizzle greeted me at RHS Wisely which is just off the M25 south of London. Amazingly the car park was half full. School visits and elderly groups making the most of the Autumn fair.

Wisley has its great formal herbaceous borders edging the large formal pool, maybe that should be mini lake(!). Almost gone over after an early frost last week but still some good colours to be had and bulky plantings full of penstemon, dahlia, geranium, verbenas, agapanthus, canna, helichrysum over the structure of the evergreen hedging behind.

My main focus was to head down to the Oudoulf borders beside the Glasshouse. And, although dead they were stunning. The Fagus sylatica, Hakonechloa macra and Sarcoccoca confusa beds were looking wonderful after a drizzle of rain to gloss them up, even minus the fat white alliums of summer, they remain my favorite planting in Wisely.

The huge arch of grasses, Eupatorium, Euphorbia etc that enclose the lake in front of the glass house showed off how well the collapsed death state can be if done considerately. But no doubt a bold gardener is required to bear this state of decay for very long.

Pleasantly surprised by a few of the Acers doted here and there and the overall hue of golden bronzes and purple reds.

The Savill Garden

The Savill Garden

From 2009-10-19

My first trip to Savill just 3 junctions North from Wisley, indeed I have never heard of it before this week! Fabulous visitor centre and plenty of new planting going on. 35 acres owned by The Crown Estates (in other words the reigning monarch) much woodland and several large heavily planted border areas with a good sized glass house.

Though a mere few miles up the road from Wisley they had clearly had much more severe frosts and the huge dahlia displays were frost burnt, much of the borders are tender, canna, dahlia and so on and were looking quite sad. Borders seem to be in colour palette and I imagine a few weeks ago they were completely spectacular, they were still interesting from a combination point of view and certainly a place to come for the summer section of soft landscape portfolio.

One area that still looked good was the gravel/grasses area, a bit wild and coastal but the grasses looked great against the pale gravels and showed off their spreading techniques.

Again big vista up and down the water courses, plenty of Autumn colour. Bit pricey ast £7.50 and not part of the RHS scheme.

Grasses Grasses everywhere.....

Knoll Gardens

From 2009-10-19

A & S visited Knoll in the summer and raved, simply RAVED about the grass plantings, the Roy Lancaster put it in his Top 10 for Autumn in October 2009 Gardens Illustrated so it was really getting into the psyche. With Sunday predicted to be a 'good' day and at least 2 more Autumn garden border sets required for the soft landscape portfolio driving the 7 hour round trip became feasible! A little crazy, but feasible. I picked up AL, almost en route, and we headed down in early morning sunshine for the Dorset countryside.

Neil Lucas' garden turned out to be much smaller than I thought it would be a mere 4 acres. That said it is packed to bursting with grasses and stunning views into the garden and borrowed landscapes.

Autumn is the perfect time to see it with many of the grasses producing fluffy seed heads from the fronds of flowers, a light wind and some afternoon sun helped with the dappling light qualities so desired in plant photographers, at least by me!

It was certainly a lesson in how many and how similar grasses can be, Miscanthus up to this point had been a group fo 4 or 5 plants for me, ha ha ha there were so many in this garden all similar-ish and all different species or variety. Making notes on plant names and image numbers became much more important than usual!

There is a charming set of waterfalls in a far corner, planted with wetland and rockery plants below it, behind a large conifer hedge, is a formal grass and sculpture garden bordered on one side by a tall wisteria covered arch. Sitting down for a moment at the top of the waterfall pools the sun burst from behind the clouds and the view down across the ponds, through the formal gardens and beyond opened up. It shouldn't work this juxtaposition of styles and plantings, but it does and it makes it feel much bigger than 4 acres.

I enjoyed hearing the plant sales team telling a customer how to prune the grasses she had just bought.
"Take it down in spring, to the ground" she said, the customer looked a little dubious and her colleague chirped in
"we do it with a hedge trimmer actually, takes no time at all!"

The customer laughed, having just spent several hundred pounds she was certainly NOT taking a hedge trimmer to them, no way!

Waterperry Gardens, Oxfordshire

After a minor panic about the soft landscape portfolio images for Autumn I rearranged my schedule on the weekend to visit Waterperry Gardens in Oxfordshire.

From 2009-10-10

Recommended for it's borders by CH, wife of Principal D, in her 'Garden of the Month'.

Weather was mixed but thankfully good enough for some dead images certs for the folio. Bumped into at least 2 fellow students, SE and her gorgeous family, TR and saw from a distance NC. We were all out to make the most of our last few autumnal weekends.

The herbaceous borders are all but done although the gone over Eupatorium pupurea and Solidago's were looking as good deceased as they would have full of life set off by the somewhat lively Wisteria which was looking remarkably verdant for this time of year. The simple scale of the borders and plantings was very satisfying.

Rounding a corner or two the grasses (Miscanthus malepartus and Carex ???) alongside Sedum 'Autumn Joy' and Phlomis saria looked equally striking and offered good views back across the aster filled herbaceous borders.

An interesting if odd mix of combinations and as an autumn garden certainly well worth the 90 min trip.

Oh and 2 people go free on and RHS card :)