Wrest Park

We went down to Bedfordshire recently to visit our daughter and family. She suggested we went to visit Wrest Park which is not far from where she lives and was also a place she had wanted to see. I'm always glad to visit anywhere with a garden.

Wrest Park is a Grade 1 listed mansion house and gardens.  The present mansion was built  in French style for  Thomas de Grey in 1834-39. There was a wedding on that day so some of the rooms in the house were closed to the public, but the rooms we were able to see were quite magnificent.

There are over 90 acres of gardens with parterres, woodland, long avenues, statues and sculptures, lakes and canals.

 

The gardens were modified between 1758 and 1760 by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown.

A cold February day was not a good time to visit but the gardens were vast and a good place for the grandchildren to have a good run around to keep warm. Although I am not a fan of formal gardens I was quite impressed by the parterres and I'm sure that in the summer months when the borders are full of flowers, they will be even more impressive.

There was plenty to see as we wandered around. From the parterre, long tree lined walkways fanned out leading us to statues, pavilions and follies. We didn't count how many statues there were, but there were a lot.

The children enjoyed the woodland, especially when we found the big tree which had massive pine cones and was perfect for climbing.

Wrest Park would be a good place to visit at different times of the year to see the seasonal changes.  On that day the cold weather got the better of us and we didn't stay to explore the whole of the gardens.

Other garden things

Much as I love the allotment, I do feel that I need a break from time to time. A break to do something different, not always completely different, because I love anything garden related. Helen told me about a plant fair and open gardens at a local historic home. That sounded good, a garden to look around, plants to buy and out in the local countryside.

The place was Browsholme Hall in the Ribble Valley. The hall itself is open to the public but on this occasion we were a bit short of time so opted to just have a look around the plant fair and the gardens.

There were stalls from specialist nurseries and being a person who is constantly filling the garden with more plants, it was good to see plants which were not always available in the local garden centre. The plants cost a bit more than I would normally pay in the garden centre, but I couldn't go to a plant fair and not buy a plant. I bought a centaurea montana 'amethyst dream'. I have the blue ones in my garden but this one is in a lovely shade of purple/red.

It was a lovely place to be, the plant stalls were in front of  the magnificent hall. Around us were sweeping lawns looking for miles across the Ribble Valley. The grandchildren were totally bored by the plants, but they found an exciting bit of the garden to look around, a stream, a bridge and hidden paths. That's all they need to keep them occupied, some interesting features and a place to run around.

Away from the hustle and bustle

I wanted a break from all the madness of Christmas, the shopping, the Christmas songs, fighting your way through the crowds. So we went to RHS Harlow Carr. I wanted to see winter interest in the gardens, autumn and winter foliage. I wanted to see what they can still manage to grow in the kitchen garden at this time of year. But I still wanted a bit of Christmas without the crowds.

We had a lovely walk around, it was really peaceful, not many people, and there was still plenty of interest in the garden with colour from foliage and seedheads.

We also found some lovely rustic Christmas displays in the summerhouse and greenhouse.  The shop was a pleasure to walk around, listening to lovely classical Christmas music and  there were twinkly lights too.

Garden visiting

I love visiting  other people's gardens. Partly because I'm nosey but also because I can steal ideas. So throughout the summer at weekends, when I'm not too busy in my own garden, I'm often to be found visiting NGS gardens, with whoever I can cajole into coming with me. That's usually either my husband or my daughter, but sometimes I go on my own.

I always bring ideas back from my garden visits, even though  the gardens may be much, much bigger than my own. It might be just a seating area,  a colour scheme, plants which I've not used before or an unusual container arrangement.

There are some wonderful gardens in the National Gardens Scheme and they are not all big gardens. Last weekend we went to a village where a group of cottages were open. There were 4 cottage gardens, and they were amazingly beautiful. Two of them were small, long narrow gardens. The design of these 2 gardens was quite inspirational as to what you can do with a small area.  The owners had divided their gardens up so that it gave an illusion of space, like going through into different rooms. The other 2 gardens were bigger and also had their gardens made up as different spaces, so that you didn't see the whole garden at once.

All 4 of the gardens were real cottage gardens, packed full of plants which tumbled over the edges of borders in a lovely informal way. I love this style of planting and try to create it in my own garden. There were a lot of oohs and aahs and gasps of admiration coming from me as we walked round.

I also loved the way they all had surprises around every corner, like a little seating area, a statue, bird bath or some other interesting feature tucked in amongst the plant foliage.

Visiting gardens like these could make me feel a little envious, but on the whole I return to my own garden bubbling with ideas and it often gives me a new enthusiasm to go off and create something new.