Dark side of the bloom

* 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 is a garden for music lovers, and was designed by Antony Massie who admitted to once being ‘a moody teenager with smudged eyeliner, a guitar in hard and dreams of becoming a global rock star, not a gardener.” He also said that his 18 year old self on hearing that he’d fall in love with plants would probably turn up the volume, and laugh.

But his younger self’s loss is our gain as this garden is fabulous, using deep purples and moody foliage (and at least one of those was another band wasn’t it?) and a winding path in the shape of a bass clef are more nods to the music the designer loves.

His garden reimagines the pace he might have designed as an aspiring rock star - dark, dramatic and full of creative energy. Enjoy!

Isn’t it a delightful space?

* 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 have.

Barnsdale Gardens, a special place

* I was invited to a press visit at Barnsdale Gardens earlier in the summer, so my posts from that visit will be marked as 'Ad’ though as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

As we’ve already explored some of the flower and vegetable gardens at Barnsdale I expect you’re wondering what else there is, well there’s plenty - and plenty more flowers and vegetables that I haven’t shared, and like many gardens they’re best explored in person. This press visit was my second time at Barnsdale, we’d visited before when we were staying close by - and as we’re less than an hour away I’m sure it won’t be my last visit either. If you find yourself close by then it’s a garden (or many gardens) that are definitely worth a visit, and like other independent gardens it has a completely different feel to the National Trust gardens, which are also fabulous and favourites of mine to visit.

When Geoff Hamilton was the Gardeners’ World presenter on TV he used Barnsdale as his TV garden, and there’s a very distinct separation between the TV gardens and the non-TV parts of the garden - and this sign gives you a big clue, and reminded me of those notices that we are used to seeing now which notify you you might be filmed. Clearly there’s no filming for the programme now, but it’s a nice part of history to keep that distinction.

Immediately you pass the sign you’re in, quite literally the Apple Arch (garden number 25), which featured on many of the programmes and continues to be popular with visitors, me included. Here it contains 26 different varieties of apples and pears and was originally created to show how its possible to grow a wide variety of ‘top fruit’ within a restricted space.

And given it’s beauty it’s easy to see why it’s still maintained - and fruitful - today.

I couldn’t finish this series of posts without sharing a picture of the bronze bust of Geoff Hamilton, which was sculpted by his youngest son Chris. It takes pride of place, on its reclaimed plinth, in the Memorial garden (garden number 3), and amongst the flowers surrounding it is the David Austin ‘Geoff Hamilton’ rose - what else?

But there is more, this is the view the bust looks out over, a wildflower border with Geoff’s favourite tree, a Katsura - and isn’t it just the most calming spot?

I also want to share more about the Artificial Rock Garden (garden number 7) pictured below. It looks like an ordinary rock right?

Wrong. The rock garden was created by Geoff using artificial coir-based rocks, inspired by the rapidly disappearing of natural limestone. They’re very realistic and are made from 2 parts coir, 1 part sharp sand, 1 part cement and some yellow cement dye.

They look - and feel - just like rocks, but also help save vital natural habitats. Clever hey?

The Japanese Garden (garden number 15) is a rare share of such a garden here for me, and Barnsdale are open that it doesn’t adhere to any formal ideas for gardens, and so is very much their interpretation of a traditional Japanese garden - and maybe that’s what appealed more to me, I’m not sure. Those upturned ‘bamboo’ pipes as an edging especially caught my eye.

It seems a calming end to this series of posts, and a great place to end a busy and photo-heavy day at the site. I know I’ll be back, and I hope you can get along if you ever find yourself nearby, I know you’ll be given the warmest of welcomes whatever the weather.

* With thanks to Barnsdale Gardens for inviting me to the gardens, and to Nick Hamilton for leading a tour through a selection of the gardens available. It’s a great space and I’m pretty sure I’ll be back to visit again.

From Sewing to Sowing

* 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 is the perfect name for a garden isn’t it? I think the designer Annabel Davies should win a prize solely for that, and I’m sure she’s very happy with the Gold award that the judges gave her, but even so - or should that be sew?

But anyway, the garden reflects Annabel’s journey from sewing film costumes to gardening after she discovered a love of growing flowers and vegetables in 2020, which sounds like the perfect lockdown distraction too. And I think I’d love to see her costume designs if this is what her garden’s look like, don’t you agree?

But I digress, the garden is inspired by Arts & Crafts gardens and combines ornamental and productive planting - so no doubt another reason why it scored so highly for me. The show notes said that the garden uses a ‘varied textures of flowers and vegetables much like fabrics bring life to a costume design’.

And looking at this garden again a month or two after the show, that totally makes sense - the dense planting (another favourite of mine) meshing together to form the fabric of the garden.

All the while the plants are struggling to be contained by the raised beds and so spill over the edges with abundance.

It really is a garden, with planting that’s full of joy. Sigh.

* 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 have.