At the weekend Richard and I took some time off from the allotment to visit a Plant and Garden Fair at Browsholme Hall near Clitheroe. It's an annual event which Helen and I went to last year at this time but didn't get to see all of the gardens. So this year we were determined to stay longer and see as much of the gardens as we could.
The first priority though was to look at the plant stalls outside and the artisan stalls in the barn. I bought a trollius plant for the bog garden at the allotment, a lovely coppery pink geum called Leonard's Variety and an allium. In the barn were various craft and food stalls, but the one which caught my attention was the lady selling her own British grown flowers. There were some lovely hand tied bunches and I just had to have one. It's given me ideas for my own flower growing in the garden and allotment.
Having spent too much money, we left the plant stalls behind and started off along the garden path. There was a a lot of water running through the grounds and our first area to look at was a stream area with a bridge, little waterfalls and a pond. Any water features are of great interest to us at the moment as we have just built a wildlife pond and bog area on the allotment. I was interested in the planting around the stream and pond. Although it is early in the year yet for much to be in flower, I could see new growth emerging and recognised rodgersia, irises, primula.
The stream went off across the fields and we continued along the path which led towards a woodland area and a big lake (more water).
We walked around the lake stopping to look in the boathouse.
Up some well worn steps and we came to a row of trees which had red bark and some interesting gnarled trunks and branches. They looked very old.
Browsholme Hall is having another open garden day and plant fair on 5th July for the
National Gardens Scheme, so if you are in the area it's worth a visit.
