Through the Garden Gate -- August 2024

The garden has needed very little work doing to it this month. I have pottered around deadheading, cutting a few plants back and cutting flowers for the house. Now at the end of the summer it could probably do with a good tidy up, but I'm reluctant to cut back too much yet. There are some mare's tail weeds growing at the back of the borders just where it's difficult to get at them without trampling over plants, so I'm trying to ignore them and I will tackle them later in the autumn.

We still haven't had any real summer weather, but are hoping for something better in the autumn. 

As the summer flowers go over the late flowering ones are the hydrangea 'Limelight' which is full of big flower heads and the Japanese anemones. 

In the back garden are a clump of pink ones and the shady part of the front garden is lit up with white ones. 

At the beginning of August we went on holiday to Wales to a lovely part of south Snowdonia. We stayed in a cottage on a farm with a river running by and mountain views all around us. The scenery was beautiful.

We always like to visit a garden when on holiday and the nearest was Plas Brondanw near Porthmadog. The gardens were created by Clough Williams -Ellis who built Portmerion. which we have visited a few times in the past. I had never heard of Plas Brondanw before but was keen to visit. 

The views of the Welsh mountains were all around the gardens providing a borrowed landscape. The gardens are a bit Italian in style with a lot of structure from stone walls, paths, buildings and statues and are divided into rooms. 

We enjoyed looking round the gardens so much we went round twice! Although we had never heard of Plas Brondanw before it is obviously well known as Gardener's World did a feature on it recently. It was nice to see it again on TV when we returned from holiday.

I am linking this blog to Sarah's blog at 'Down by the Sea' for her monthly 'Through the Garden Gate' post. 

Through the Garden Gate--July 2020

July was quite rainy and cooler—not summer weather at all, we are longing for some better weather. I thought there didn’t seem to be much change in the garden from last month, but when I looked back at last month’s blog photos, I realised that of course the garden does look different. The borders are full and colourful.  The mid to late summer colours are appearing now

bright yellow and orange crocosmia

more orange from the heleniums

 Can you spot Holly the cat under the grass below the heleniums? She's lying next to the cat mint getting very drowsy.

deep magenta pink phlox.

purple buddleia

My gardening jobs for the last few weeks have been just deadheading and cutting back.  It’s been very relaxing to just potter about in this way. It’s that time of year when you can relax and enjoy the garden, just a pity that we haven’t had the good weather to sit out more.

 The sweet peas are only just starting to flower.  They are what were left over from the allotment, I put some to scramble through the climbers on the archway and others to grow up an obelisk in a grasses bed. Although there aren’t many yet to cut, there are more each time I cut them.

I planted a few sunflowers in pots, these are a dwarf type called 'Choco sun', I'm looking forward to seeing them in flower, they look nice and bushy.

 With not as much work to do in the garden we have started to go out more to places which we feel have good safety measures in place now that COVID restrictions are being eased.

We went to RHS Harlow Carr, see my blog about it here https://margaretspatch.blogspot.com/2020/07/getting-out-and-about-at-last.html  and last week we visited an National Garden Scheme garden near Skipton in the village of Carleton-in-Craven.  The house and garden were called The Grange. It was a big garden to walk around with some wonderful herbaceous borders.

I am linking this post to Sarah's blog at http://downbytheseadorset.blogspot.com/2020/07/through-garden-gate-july-2020.html 

Matshead Lodge

Last week we visited our first garden of the year under the National Garden Scheme. Matshead Lodge garden is at Bilsborrow, about 45 minutes from where we live, but was well worth the visit. The garden is not far from Barton Grange Garden Centre and the instructions were to park on the car park there and walk to the garden. We weren't told how far the walk was, just that it was along a public footpath, over the railway footbridge and along by the river. I was hoping it wasn't going to be too far. We both have stiff, achy joints.

It was a lovely little walk apart from the noise from the traffic on the M6 nearby and it was only under a mile, so quite manageable. As we walked along the path we met people coming the other way who told us the garden was well worth the walk. That spurred us on and  I'm pleased to say that they were right, it was worth it.

The garden is about 2 acres and has many interesting features. There was a  little Japanese garden. I didn't go over the bridge, I wasn't sure if I would be allowed. It was safely guarded.

The pond below has a crocodile living in it. Can you see it?

Throughout the garden there were many rhododendrons in bloom, providing lots of vibrant colour.

We wandered around the pathways, through archways and walkways dripping with wisteria and clematis. There were a lot of archways which gave a sense of wanting to know what was beyond, where did they lead to?

There were plenty of seating areas too, which I liked. I always like to try them out, to see what view there is from that particular point.  I love an enclosed sitting area which you just come across in a secret little area. This one was quite special.  We sat on the sofa for a while, thinking it would be good if someone brought us a drink and a meal, but no one did.

Another seating area

Another archway

When we visit open gardens we nearly always come away with an idea to use in our own garden. Our visit to Matshead Lodge made me want to plant more clematis in my garden.  Perhaps I will do that, although I don't have the space for so many archways.

There were no plants on sale at this garden, but back at the garden centre where we had parked the car, we went in to look around. Barton Grange is a big place and the plants are a bit pricey, so I don't buy from there unless there is something I can't get from a local garden centre. But I couldn't resist buying a terracotta bowl and some alpines which I planted up when we got home.

A break from gardening

The last few months we seem to have been gardening non stop, working hard on getting our new garden finished and keeping up with the allotment. So I decided that now the weather was improving it was time to have a break from doing the garden and do the next best thing-- do some garden visiting and have a look at other peoples gardens. It's good to look at other gardens whether they are big formal gardens or small private ones part of the NGS. We often get some good ideas for our own garden from them.

Last weekend we visited an NGS garden called Hazlewood which is in the village of Bretherton near Leyland in Lancashire. This is the sort of garden which I like because it was made up of different garden areas so that you can't see all of the garden at a glance. 

The garden was  one and a half acres in size and included a hardy plant nursery. When we arrived we were pointed to the start of the garden which was  a small enclosed area.

Shrubs, trees and a wall gave the feeling of being completely separate from the rest of the garden. There was paving and gravel, a seating area and lots of plants in lovely terracotta pots. 

I do love a gate.

and steps

One plant in the border caught my attention. It looked like a phlomis with a smaller leaf and pink/lilac flowers. I learnt later that it was a phlomis, but wasn't available in the nursery to buy so that's one to look out for. There were interesting features as we came out of the gravel garden.

A folly with a bottle wall.

The Victorian fern house made me want to go out and buy lots of ferns.

Moving on to the rest of the garden we walked along  a wide path which had big rose arches and herbaceous borders. The new wooden arch in our garden was nothing compared to these. 

In the main part of the garden the borders were very cottagey. Beds of blue salvia, campanula, geraniums and nepeta, lovely gentle colours.

Across the lawn we followed a woodland path over a stream past the pond.

At the end of the path we found this massive spider's web made out of wire.

Out of the woodland we admired the pond.

There was a beach garden with a hammock. It looked very inviting but I don't think we were allowed to try it out.

Finally at the end of the garden was the hardy plant nursery where I bought a pink hardy geranium--'Russell Prichard'

I always get ideas from the gardens we visit, things I can do in my own garden, plants I could use, planting schemes, colours. I loved the pastel shades in some of the borders. I loved the many quirky things we spotted around the garden using old rusted gardenalia. One thing I liked was a rustic arrangement of little terracotta pots in a bigger terracotta bowl. It was so simple but looked really good.So now I know what to do with all those little pots I have at the back of my potting table.