Art, heritage and nature grow together in the Artist's Garden

* I was invited to this year’s Gardeners’ World Live preview and provided with a pair of tickets for the show, therefore all my posts will be marked as 'Ad’ though as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

This garden designed by Denise Rice for Derby College absolutely has a unicorn in it. I don’t think I was the only one at the show to do a double take, but what a glorious addition - and one I’m sure my great niece would wholly approve of. This garden reflects over seventy years of creativity and shared heritage and weaves imagination and craft into the gentle charm of a cottage garden.

There’s plants I have, and absolutely enjoy having, in my own garden notably the lavender and the foxgloves. I’m not sure about the rustic arch for the roses in my own space, but it works perfectly here. I do like the mosaics made from fine china, and it would have been great to see the others in the garden in greater detail. I think in my garden though I’d spend more time than was appropriate or necessary trying to think of meaningful but short words that I’d be happy with living every day - though joy would be a good starter.

At the heart of this garden is productive planting and a peaceful orchard inviting reflection while also displaying a commitment to sustainability with the reclaimed pathways, and the mosaics.

And while I like this garden, and it had a great feel to it - and I know it’s a show garden so space is restricted - it felt a bit too busy to be truly relaxing. I know that I’d be pushing my chair from that bistro set way into the borders to get some space, and people that know me won’t be surprised by that either as I’m forever sitting away from the garden table when we’ve finished eating.

So this garden has taught me something, or at least reminded me, that space and the ability to stretch out without feeling ‘enclosed’ for a better word is something that’s important to me. Space (inside and out) was high on my list when we moved from London, so it’s not something new, but it’s strange how looking at these pictures of a garden I enjoyed looking at have reminded me so clearly of my own preferences.

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for once again inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was another great show! I’ll be sharing more from my visit to this year’s show throughout the year - I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Vineyards on the ramparts

It’s been a while since I left you admiring the ‘outer’ gardens at the Chateau D’Angers, so today we’re heading inside, and as you can probably guess from the title there’s vineyards and so much more to see on the ramparts.

But let’s start at ground level, in the Court Gardens which was created in the middle of the 20th century when the castle was open to the public. It’s design follows the rules of the medieval monastic gardens, but also takes inspiration from the Italian Renaissance.

The yew trees which meet to form an arbour is a great feature and very striking, but what’s also interesting is that this garden uses manual or thermal weeding and biological control in its maintenance - and with those box borders that’s quite an achievement. They use Lacewing larvae to eradicate the caterpillars of box tree months, which can snaffle a box plant almost overnight, as well as using pheromone traps to attract and catch male moths, and so prevent breeding and egg laying. While box looks great, is slow growing and a joy to cut it isn’t something I’d have in our garden again as without this rigour it can be gone in a number of weeks, as we learnt in our last garden.

But let’s head up to the ramparts, well let’s first admire the Acanthus, which I would absolutely have in my garden here.

I told you there were vines here, and while I know we were in France, I’m not sure I expected to find them here in the ramparts, but here they are indeed. The first planting of vines again took place after the opening of the chateau to the public in 1961, and it was replanted in the 90s with the Chenin Blanc variety of grape, which can be used to produce sweet, dry and sparkling wines.

There’s 150 vines spread over 5 rows and at each end there is a rosebush which acts as a barometer to the health of the vines, and like the Court Garden below it’s maintained by biological control.

There was so much more than the vines though, including this more natural area and beehive, and the orchard which I could only see from above.

The area was closed off to the public but it looked an interesting place to have a nose around, as often the more private parts of public gardens do!

I wasn’t surprised to see the medieval looking medlar in the grounds, though given that the interior gardens generally seemed to have had a facelift when the castle opened to the public, it might not be as old as you first thought. I was pleased to spot plants, like the smokebush, which I do already have in my garden and the magnificent rosebush in flower.

And I love to see other gardens with naughty plants - as I don’t think this one was supposed to be there.

But for me it’s not just the grand scale of the gardens, or even the plants - it’s often about noticing the little things, like the plants growing amongst the slate quite happily, which given the temperatures they’d had for a few weeks before our arrival was amazing. And of course slate holds the heat, so those plants must have been baking.

I’ll end with some valerian obscuring or enhancing the view from the castle walls of the Loire, and despite the clouds it wasn’t a bad day at all.

Thanks for joining me for this latest post on our train trip to Paris, Angers and Tours - please check out my other posts from our trip.

Strandlines by Julia Wright

I’ve just time to squeeze in one last post from the 2025 Knit and Stitch show in Harrogate before it takes place again! I’m heading back to the show on Thursday week and I’m hoping to discover as much as I did last year, but before that I’m sharing one final exhibition gallery.

This one once again shows my favourite textiles from the gallery, and once again I’m amazed at the pieces the artists have made. Each are evocative of the shorelines to me, which is reassuring as that’s the intention. The gallery showed a collaboration between three UK- based artists - Julia Wright, Beverley Caleno and Bryony Jennings, though it seems I was most taken with the pieces by Julia Wright as the majority of my photos are of her work.

Each artist works in distinct ways but they all share connections to the natural world and the shifting of the sea; these pieces use cloth, stitch and reclaimed materials and explore transformation, fragility and resilience.

DALES AERIAL, JULIA WRIGHT

CARBIS BAY, JULIA WRIGHT

I think for me it’s the colours she’s used in these pieces, the stitches and the textures that result. It’s no surprise to me that I like the deep earthy greens, but the one above has much more of a seashore feel to me - perhaps the attraction is being able to relate it to a place in nature?

CHIROPLAST, JULIA WRIGHT

I find each of them fascinating and even looking back at the pictures now my eyes are roving over the photos and the individual threads, following their journey and wondering where it goes next. I think to have pieces like this would be great to have and would be great to calm a busy mind, as you could quite literally get lost in them, couldn’t you?

JETSAM, JULIA WRIGHT

SEA LETTUCE, JULIA WRIGHT

Next time I’m at the beach, or the river edge I know I’ll be looking more closely at the textures, as with anything, the more you look, the more you see.