The Chinese Streamside Garden at RHS Bridgewater

RHS Bridgewater is the newest RHS garden, located in Salford in Greater Manchester, which opened this May. Which for us was rather fortuitous, as we were close by with our rearranged trip to the Lake District. Once I’d clocked this good fortune - thanks Monty and Gardener’s World - I was straight onto the RHS website booking my timed entry, calculating the distance from our holiday cottage and the time it might take us to arrive after checkout. As it turned out, that calculation was right and we arrived bang in the middle of our slot, more by luck than judgement though I’m sure.

When we left the holiday cottage our swimwear was still wet from the previous night’s dip in the hot tub. It was in a bag on its own so it wasn’t a disaster but the idea of leaving it to fester wasn’t appealing - anyone remember school swimming bags which were a special type of ultra thick fluorescent plastic? Yes, exactly. Well when we arrived and parked up, the sun was out and so I spotted my chance to dry our swimwear. MOH almost disowned me, but not quite - the memories of wet swimwear were strong. And so I set about ‘hanging’ out my washing, or rather draping it over our luggage on the folded down back seats. It wasn’t exactly having them blowing from the aerial, but you know, I’ll admit it’s not normal behaviour. It worked though, a couple of hours later when we were back at the car my ‘washing’ was dry, and I was rather pleased with myself!

But anyway, RHS Bridgewater. It’s a new garden on a historic site - so there’s established trees and a period building and a walled garden, and it’s got a lot of growing in to do, but that didn’t make for any less of an experience. In fact, the opposite, it’ll be great to see how the garden develops over the years and it’d be great to go back at some point and see how it’s grown.

Today I’m sharing the photos of the Chinese Streamside garden, and because it was those photos that ‘spoke’ to me as I looked through the photos I’d taken.

The winding path and the reflective stream instantly give that feeling of calm, don’t they?

The garden here at Bridgewater is a ‘novel fusing of the best of British and Chinese gardening traditions’ which has been made possible by a collaboration between the local Chinese community, horticultural experts in China and the RHS. There’s more to come from this garden which is themed around the four seasons.

The stream forms the ‘spine’ of the garden flowing through woodland and meadowland to Moon Bridge Water.

It’s just one of the magical spaces that will, I’m sure, grow into its space - and those lucky enough to be able to visit more regularly than I will will be able to see grow and establish itself. That in itself is quite magical.

If you want to find out more about the RHS Bridgewater garden I’ve included the RHS video below - it’s only short, and definitely worth a view.

Topiary at Levens Hall

This garden wasn’t on my ‘to visit’ list, but when our hosts said it was a garden full of topiary, well it jumped to the top of my list. It was less than a fifteen minute drive from where we were staying so it seemed a complete no brainer, and we worked out that we could pair it with a visit to the National Trust’s nearby Sizergh Castle, which was on my list, so even better.

This was the view that met us as we walked through the wooden gate to the gardens:

Even though I’d read on the Levens Hall website that the privately-owned house was home to the world’s oldest topiary gardens, I’m not sure I quite expected this. The gardens remain largely unchanged since the 17th century and were truly remarkable.

The garden is a mix of ‘ancient box and yew’ and for someone that, as you know, has a bit of a thing for topiary was breathtaking. I don’t know how my research of the area missed this gem, but I was so glad that we were pointed in the right direction early in our stay!

The gardeners were busy working, but still happy to stop and chat and share more about the gardens. There’s so many shapes to trim that each is only cut once a year, otherwise as the gardener’s said that’s all they’d be doing. And as any gardener knows, there’s always something to be done - while we were there they were fastidiously replacing the bedding plants.

The house wasn’t open on the day we visited, which is a shame as from a at-a-distance-glance-through the windows it looked a great place to visit. It’s a family home which the leaflet we were given assured was one that was free of ropes and barriers for visitors, so as such it felt right to sneak a look rather than peer through the windows!

There was more than the topiary, but clearly this was the main feature - another day I’ll share more from here, and by then we may even have tasted the jar of honey we purchased part-way round the garden. But until then, let’s just enjoy the topiary and the many varied shapes.

Street Art in Sesimbra

After the weather we’ve been having recently I’ve decided I need some sun on here, and unless the weather turns as predicted, let’s face it looking at holiday photos is the only way I’ll get some sun. So today we’re heading back to Sesimbra, which is just outside Lisbon for a look at some amazing street art. At first I didn’t notice them as art, but as we walked past more and more obvious pieces despite the heat we retraced our steps to capture some of those we’d overlooked to start with.

The character of the man in the one above, and its unassuming ‘canvas’ is outstanding. It doesn’t matter what the words mean, to me at least.

We passed fishermen parallel to the beach, which couldn’t be mistaken for graffiti.

The polaroids were also quite unexpected.

And that’s before we saw the whale, which was opposite our hotel and somehow we’d missed as we left the hotel.

But look more closely - yes that’s a gap partway down the body. I told you they were something special didn’t I?

But I couldn’t let a post of a Portuguese town go by without a tile or two - or even a couple of doorways which caught my attention with all their faded glory.

Sigh. We’re not planning to travel abroad this year, but hopefully when things are a little less unusual we’ll be planning a trip somewhere fantastic.