CALKE ABBEY - Gardens - Derbyshire

We paid a visit to Calke Abbey Gardens, which is not far away from us.
It is a National Trust owned property and the main building is also open to the public.
But we just visited the gardens, which were really nice again this year.
The combination of Helicrysum and Heliotrope together is spectacular.
The Silver leaves and the Purple flowers work very well indeed.
The Heliotrope is also known as "Cherry Pie", as its scent does actually resemble it!
Away from the main flower garden are the organic vegetable and fruit gardens, which are also well worthy of a visit.   The pumpkin patch and archway with its climbing squashes are quite inspiring. They grow some very good produce there and the fruit trees were loaded!
The old gardeners storage buildings were interesting too, with the drawers for the seeds and old tools too. Very much a time warp is Calke Abbey, same as the main building interior.
But I can recommend these gardens for a visit.

Very peaceful and there is also a Deer park very close by , where we saw stags and fallow deer grazing in the fields. Picnic area, National Trust shop and Tea Room also in the grounds.

THE COTSWOLD LAVENDER FIELDS- Snowshill -Cotswolds UK

Just a short drive from Broadway in the Cotswolds, near to Evesham, is Snowshill Village, which has the Cotswold lavender fields very close by. In fact before you see them, you can smell the lavender in the air!

Seeing such a brilliant lilac colour over so many fields is really spectacular.

The entrance fee of £2.50 is well worth it to walk around the fields and take in the scent of the various varieties of Lavenders they grow. During August they harvest the flowers to make a big range of Lavender products to sell either in their gift shop or online. From soaps to creams and oils to lavender bags. Also they sell small plants of the different types they grow.

So you can take home a few to start your own fields at home!!

Best time of year to visit is between mid to late July when the flowers are fully open.

GARDEN TRELLIS & ARCHWAY FEATURE

This is my most recent garden feature project that I constructed for one of my gardening client/ friends.

The idea was to split up the rear garden into two, which I think was achieved with this trellis & archway.

I made the the trellis & arch by hand, as buying the correct sizes from a builders merchant would not have been possible and offcuts would waste too much wood.  Besides, I think making your own is much stronger than buying trellis put together with a nail gun, as is often the case with ready made trellis work.

I also dug a couple of flower borders for roses & clematis to climb up the trellis.

Compost was added to the soil as it was quite a heavy clay type and needed breaking up a bit.

As the plants get more established the trellis will not be noticed so much and will create a sort of hidden garden effect.

Wildflower Patch

This year we have set aside a piece on our garden for Wildflowers, which include Poppies and Cornflowers. There are many different types of wildflowers among the mixture, which are currently looking very nice.
We just put two packets of Wildflower seeds over an area we did'nt really use and up they all came.
I think it also helps attract the bees which are in decline lately here in the UK.
We are also getting a Hedgehog visiting our garden at night, so we put food and water out for him too.
Its so important now to attract wildlife to your garden and to stop using things like slug pellets which kill Hedgehogs and Birds, etc. Much better to have a garden without any chemicals & poisons being used.

THE ALLOTMENTS ON FILM -July 6th 2013



Allotment Views



BUCKFAST ABBEY- Devon - June 2013

Buckfast Abbey

Lavender Garden

Sculpture & Fruit arch garden

Sculpture "The Family"

 

Just back from a short break in Devon, where we visited among other places, "Buckfast Abbey" which has lovely gardens tended by the Monks. Mostly perennial planting as you'll see from the above photos. One garden is a mixed variety of Lavenders, others gardens are roses and mixed perennials lanted within tall hedging, so they are contained. They have a few sculptures in the gardens too which fit in very well.

On my own garden now its a time for feeding a lot of my containers and the greenhouse Tomatos and Cucumbers. They flowers are now appearing on those which is the correct time for feeding. I use "Tomorite" for the greenhouse and containers. On the allotments I use "Growmore" which is a general fertilizer you spread on the soil to hoe in. I don't use horse manure as i think it contains too many nitrates from the horses feed.  Besides we use our own poultry and rabbit manure which is composted at home . Its proving very effective this year too.

At Home with The Ducks...The Hens....The Rabbits...and Guinea Pig.

A video of most of our rescue pets here at home, except "Parsley" The Cat.

Its always entertaining to watch the Ducks splashing around in their water.

We have 9 Ducks , 4 Hens , 6 Rabbits and a Guinea Pig.....and a Cat.

THE DOROTHY CLIVE GARDEN- Shropshire/North Staffs/Cheshire Borders UK

Set amidst glorious countryside where the borders of Staffordshire, Cheshire and Shropshire intersect, this beautiful 12 acre garden has continually evolved since 1940. In that year Colonel Harry Clive began landscaping a disused Victorian quarry into this garden for his beloved wife Dorothy. It really is a garden to visit and in different seasons. Very scenic and planted in a natural way too. I have added a short Video I filmed there on the day we visited. June 16th 2013.

BLOOMING JUNE

Honeysuckle

Cottage Garden

Tomatos & Cucumbers

Patio View

Iris

Campanula

Everything is growing very well lately now that the warmer weather is here. We had a few heavy showers last week that helped a great deal here and on the allotments. In a few days everything grew quite a lot. Also the weeds!....so I have to keep on top of those too. I trimmed the privet hedge with my shears, which usually gets done three times a year.  The Tomatos have flowers on now so i've started feeding everything in the greenhouse, including the Cucumbers. The Honeysuckle is a mass of flowers now and very scented also. The Pyracantha bushes are in full bloom too, so maybe we'll get loads of red berries this winter. So all in all, things are looking very promising this summer.