The Head Gardener's Office at Scampston

Not only where we able to look around the Gardeners Yard at Scampston Hall, we also got to look ino the Head Gardener’s Office - and while it was set up more as an exhibit rather than a working office, it was still a delight to see.

We made our way in through the Conservatory which was built by Richardson of Darlington in 1894 and restored in 2015 with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund amongst others and now housing a series of exhibition rooms, displays and with a space for community engagement too.

The blue flowered plumbago clambering up the peach wall inside the conservatory definitely drew me in, but turning around the view was just as spectacular and I can see how important it was for the garden to restore the glasshouse to its former glory.

If only all conservatories had this view!

Turning further into the building we found the Head Gardener’s Office, and wouldn’t it just be a dream to manage and plan the garden from here - and I’d especially like that wooden drawer unit to organise my own garden plans.

And while this is a great place for drying onions, garlic and seed heads I think this would be hard to replicate in my own garden setup, and actually I never seem to have much luck with onions anyway, so that’s probably just as well.

But I did see some inspiration on how I could pot up some succulents, isn’t it darling?

Of course I left with some seeds of my own - and actually this post is a great reminder for me to look them out and actually do something with them. I saw some Agastache in the garden centre earlier this week, and I thought it sounded familiar but I couldn’t remember why. Here’s why!

And finally one connection in history that I learnt as we read the interesting information boards around the space. The glasshouse was originally made by Richardson of Darlington, which went on to become one of the glasshouse companies in the Victorian era. It was also the only company to last into this century, rebranding in the 1960s as Amdega. That company finally closed in 2011, but the liquidators sold the brand to Everest the double glazing company, and so the brand lives on with heritage at its heart. I love discovering things like that.

Now I’m off to look out those seeds…

The Gardeners Yard at Scampston Hall

I said in an earlier post in this series that there’s nothing better on a garden gate than a sign welcoming you in, especially when it’s an invite into a working part of the garden, which for me is just as interesting as the more public facing aspects of a garden.

So it was great to be so warmly welcomed into the Gardeners Yard and their polytunnel, which even though it was a proper working space still looked pretty with the pink flowers on the right growing up against the bend of the tunnel’s outer covering.

I’m always interested to see the compost area, and this one was pretty sizeable, as you’d expect for a larger garden. I like the open bay approach to these compost ‘bins’ but clearly I won’t need anywhere near as big in my own garden - and where to site that is a bit of a headache too.

At the far end of the Gardeners Yard was the Arid House and as you can see many of the plants were enjoying the sun when we visited, and with my own growing collection of succulents I was keen to see the leaf shapes, the sizes of pots used and how the pots were organised.

And also I thought to myself that I should keep an eye out for my own stone trough, as these look great in that don’t they?

The Arid House wasn’t actually open but I did my best to get a shot through the window and to imagine the temperature inside.

And as we left the Gardeners Yard behind us I was reminded just how much I love, and how beautiful, the aeoniums are. I need more of these, though I need to learn how to overwinter them properly as my single plant is looking decidedly sorry for itself. There’s always something to learn when we’re gardening though isn’t there?

More from the Walled Gardens at Scampston Hall

I surprised myself at the end of the first post exploring the walled gardens here by how few I’d managed to cover in that post, I’m hoping that we’ll cover many more in this post. Though I’ll admit I’m probably cheating (a bit) as I’ve split out some of my favourite parts, like the potager and the still to come gardener’s yard into separate posts!

But anyway, leaving the cut flower garden behind us we wandered amongst the three metre squares of box, flanked by more traditional herbaceous borders of garden 6, enjoying the decaying flower heads as we went.

When the flower heads get to this stage, they’re still beautiful aren’t they - but to me now almost sculpturally and architecturally beautiful, and they were a great palate cleanser for the Silent Garden (garden number five).

You know how much I like topiary, well after the large three metre squares we’d just walked past, to then come across 24 round columns of yew was a delight. These are permitted to grow to a height of three metres before their tops are levelled.

They certainly have impact.

In the centre of the garden there’s a rectangular pond and the yew columns reflect majestically in this, and their symmetry is divine. It’s clearly a minimalist garden - so while I enjoy it, it’s probably not for me in my own garden - and it exudes calmness, and that low bench was a great place to sit and just be.

Though much of my sitting and enjoying the garden also included trying to work out if that was a plank of wood in the pond - it was - and wondering where it had come from. There’d been a bit of a storm the night before so it was relatively easy to work out how it got there, but it wasn’t obvious where it had come from though I think it had probably travelled a fair way.

We headed back towards the borders with the large box borders, the spaces are edged with beech hedges so you can just imagine how great they look as the seasons turn to winter and as their leaves turn bronze.

I could spy more topiary in the distance, and so as it was calling me we jumped the structured and numbered order of the gardens again this time making our way to garden 11, named the Serpentine Garden. Named so because it has six serpentine hedges of clipped yew - what a joy!

The clover shaped beds as you entered this garden were also full of spent flower heads which gave a hint to their fabulousness when in full flower.

Behind us we spotted The Mount (garden 12) and not one to turn down an invitation to explore further we headed straight up the steps.

And oh, what views across the garden.

The guide to the garden suggests that this is where we should leave the garden, but as we’d skipped gardens along the way that wasn’t our plan. Instead we retraced our route past the serpentine hedges (which reminded me of the hedges at the Thames Barrier park) and garden 10 which had the same three metre squares of box as garden 3, bringing symmetry to the overall garden design.

We walked past the Katsura Grove but didn’t spend much time here, but this picture of the exhausted colchicums (or autumn crocuses) made me smile, and reassured me too as mine in my previous garden always seemed to be more horizontal than vertical.

What drew us away from the Katsura Grove was the showstopper of the garden, even in autumn - the Perennial Meadow, located in front of the Conservatory. The Perennial Meadow, or garden seven, is pure Ouldolf and the naturalised planting has been chosen to give a long season of interest, and that certainly works doesn’t it?

The garden notes told us that ‘the form of each plant - leaf, flower head and stem - is just as important as its colour and scent.’ We also noticed that none of these plants were staked, and that again is down to the choice of plants alongside the maintenance routine in this part of the garden,

And as great as it was on our visit, I can’t help but imagine what it’s like in both spring and summer. No doubt it’s full of butterflies and bees, and it’s easy to see why.

So looking back we have covered more gardens in this second post - seven in total, but there’s still the conservatory and the gardeners’ yard and more to share so look out for more posts on those soon.