When we arrived at Scampston Hall we discovered that there are actually twelve gardens within the walled garden, which is way too many to share in one post so I’ll share some here, some later and some of them in individual posts, like I did earlier in the week with our look at the Potager.
The individual gardens also form a rough route around the garden, though we didn’t follow the gardens in number order as well structure is good, but gardens are best wandered through, right?
But let’s start with a wander down the Plantsman’s Walk which led us along the length of the garden, along an avenue of limes and plenty of flowers, colour and glorious sunlight - and it was a great way to introduce us to the garden.
The garden notes suggest there’s plenty to see in spring, summer and autumn - and that’s one of the joys of a well planted and thought out garden, and one of the worries I have for my own garden. Scampston looked great when we visited in the autumn and I’d be keen to visit again to see it at other times of the year.
As we turned the corner of the Plantsman’s Walk we got our first glimpse of the second garden I’m sharing in this post, the Drifts of Grass. There’s swathes of grasses which form the design of the garden, and when you’re centre on you can really appreciate the symmetry of the garden, and elegant though it was after the Plantsman’s Walk it did feel incredibly minimalist.
After enjoying the grasses, and admiring the wooden boxy chairs (you can just see in them in the bottom of the photo above) we headed around to the left and into the Cut Flower garden passing by with the greenhouse behind us.
The cut flower garden wasn’t as I expected, it had many circular flower beds stretching down its length, and on the edges were the most laden of fruit trees. I hadn’t expected it to be so, well park-like - I’d expected something much more functional, so I was pleasantly surprised.
It seems that Scampston too was enjoying a lot of fruit on their trees, it wasn’t just my little crab apple tree that was heavily laden, which was reassuring. As well as plenty of pears, there were damsons and apples galore - it was going to be quite a harvest, and quite a year for crumbles, jellies and jams I’m sure.
The dahlias were still out, and these dinner plate sized ones were just spectacular. I do really need to make sure I add some of these to my plant wish list, as every time I see them I’m smitten.
I told you we were lucky with the weather, and especially the sun - but how glorious does this Cosmos look bathed in the sunlight?
So there’s our first exploration of the walled gardens, though we’ve only covered three of the gardens today, four in total with the Potager - I thought we’d see more today, but don’t worry we will in a week or so. Until then, let’s hope we get similar sunlight (albeit spring sun) into our own gardens.