The Blue Garden

One of the small gardens within the Walled Gardens of Cannington is the Blue Garden and that's a challenging choice, as 'true blue' is a relatively rare colour among flowers.  You might immediately think of cornflowers, irises and periwinkles, and maybe even the more purple blues of lavenders and pansies.  And I'm sure there's more, but they don't roll of the tongue easily, do they?

WHAT OTHER COLOUR BENCH WOULD YOU EXPECT?

The cobalt blue benches were striking on the wet and grey day we visited.  With more blue flowers in the garden I'm sure it would be a fantastic space.

You forget that rosemary has small blue flowers, but it does, and they were starting to make themselves known.  I bet the garden is also one of most fragrant spots what with the rosemary and lavender.

BLUE FLOWERS STARTING TO SHOW ON THE ROSEMARY

The water feature, which somehow I've cut the top off in my photo, was designed by a student and creates a modern interpretation of a conifer tree.  It's been modified though as it seems that the design also soaked visitors.  As you'd expect the stone wall that it sits around it matches the theme of the garden - blue lias stone - and was quarried in Somerset.

THE BLUE GARDEN WATER FEATURE

THE SILVER BLUE LEAVES OF LAVENDER

There's a lot of rosemary in the central part of the garden, and it was a good reminder of how it can be used sculpturally, adding shape and height.  It also gives me hope for my future rosemary hedges over on the plot.

ROSEMARY USED IN SWATHES OF BEDS

Given that our visit was the middle of March we did well to see the blue flowers we did, especially given the cold weather.  The irises were starting to make themselves known and yet again reminded me that I need to add some to my garden.

DWARF IRISES ADDING A PURPLE BLUE TO THE GARDEN

The board in the garden says it's been designed for year round interest, and it'd be great to see it throughout the year, wouldn't it?

The Memory Garden at Compton Acres

Today I'm sharing a small part of a garden in Dorset which I visited last March. Compton Acres is in Poole and is one of the most amazing spaces I've been to in a long while.  I've shared little of it here so far, I'm not quite sure why - maybe because there are so many photos to wade through, or perhaps because it's full of plenty of stunning gardens and I want to do it justice.

But I can't do it justice without starting so I'm doing just that and starting with one of the most poignant spaces and that's this small memory garden which was dedicated to the owner's three children in the mid-1950s. 

GARDEN OF MEMORY

AND WITH THE MORN THOSE ANGEL FACES SMILE WHICH HAVE LOVED LONG SINCE & LOST AWHILE

The names of the children, Dick, Elizabeth and Anne are engraved in wooden benches in the small circular space. The son was killed in 1942 while flying in the RAF and the daughters died of polio.

It's believed that their mother arranged flowers from the garden in what I fist thought was a bird bath, but is in fact described as a font. It is, of course, made from local Portland stone and somehow the reflection of the trees in the water echoed the poignancy of its origin.

For me this space proved you can have the smallest of spaces, but it can still be moving and as beautiful as anything larger and full of plants.

Cannington's Cacti

Did you know that at approximately one fifth of the Earth's land surface is desert? No me neither, but nearly 10 million square kilometres (or 3.9 million miles) is true desert, where rainfall is extremely low. I learnt this, and more, in the Arid Zone in the Botanical Glasshouse at the Walled Gardens of Cannington.

As we know deserts aren't devoid of plants, but the plants have adapted to their conditions to store and make the most of the water available. While I know very few of the cacti names, that doesn't stop me admiring them, that means in this post there's few, if any, plant names, but there are some great plants.

See what I mean?

The symmetry and patterns from cacti are fascinating. As are the succulents, I couldn't resist shoving my phone almost into the succulent below to capture the texture and colour.

I was pleased - and amused - to spot more Cowboys' Bums, which still has to be the best plant name ever.  Perhaps it's a coincidence, but I last spotted them in Cornwall, so are they a South West thing?

I wasn't expecting to be hit with this lime green-yellow flower though, it's as exquisite as any cactus in this biome, it's stunning isn't it?  

There were plenty of cacti to follow, the one below doing its best to blend in to the gravel, no doubt another survival ploy.

And don't be fooled, these look fluffy, but are far from fluffy.  I tried.

We had the glasshouse to our self and it was great to be able to get up close to the plants, capturing the water drops on the cactus below.

As we were leaving and even I thought I couldn't take any more photos of cacti, I proved myself wrong, as I spotted this snail snoozing quite comfortably in the prickliest of places.

There were six biomes - or areas - in the glasshouse and this post covers just one of them. There is another photo I'm sharing on my Facebook page today which really made me smile. It's not a great photo, but pop over there and maybe it'll make you smile too.