Calm and swirls in the Mediterranean garden at Houghton Hall

It’s hard to think that it was only four months ago when we escaped to a Norfolk cottage for a short stay. It seems much longer than that at times, and so much has happened since then, mostly Covid-related which needs no further comment. We were lucky that we were still able to go, and while we were there we made the most of where we were.

And that included a trip to Houghton. We carefully planned - or snuck - a visit for on our way home, and I think we covered every blade of grass while we were there. It had been wet, and so we were prepared with our walking boots. Less prepared when we found them in the boot of the car a month or so later, but you can’t have everything all of the time can you?

The main reason for our visit was to see the Anish Kapoor exhibition - which was fab - but I was also keen to spend some more time in the walled garden. This garden - the Mediterranean garden, is part of that, and while you can’t see the walls trust me, they’re there, behind the hedges.

It’s the swirls of the hedges and the tranquility that appeals. The calming colours of the bench, the terracotta pots and the green of the plants, but it’s also the symmetry - it feels the ideal place to sit and while away a stressful day, in the right weather of course.

Though keeping such a space looking so good is I’m sure no mean feat, if it were mine I’d need an attentive gardening team just so I could sit and enjoy those swirls. Not going to happen is it, but a girl can dream!

The hedges at Montacute House

Over the weekend my 2016 photo book arrived, yes a little delayed, but it was a busy year. And a busy year means a lot of photos. One of the things that stood out was our visit to Montacute House in Somerset, and so today, I’m sharing the hedges from there.

Well, you know me and hedges. And these are some hedges.

Ok, I was teasing you there. You might be wondering what is so special about the hedges, but as well as the more traditional hedges, there was also what you could call a cloud or a bubble hedge.

The sheer size of it was amazing. Not just its height, or length but also how deep it was. As you can see from the photo below, I decided I needed a closer look, and not only found a path and another flower bed behind the hedge, you could quite clearly see how much it had been cut, I’m sure to reclaim the path.

The house, which you can see part of in the photo above is ‘a masterpiece of Elizabethan Renaissance’ according to the National Trust website, and the glass in the house and the garden you can see through its windows are pretty special too. Our visit, how it was three years ago I don’t know, was on one of those crisp and clear autumn days, and the dahlias were still full of flower.

The hedge is yew, and the photo below gives you a sense of its size.

I told you the hedges at Montacute House were pretty impressive, didn’t I? It’s definitely worth a stop if you’re in the area, and I haven’t even told you about the windows yet…

The parterre at Helmingham Hall

We’re getting about a bit this week with the posts I’m sharing, so in between quick visits to Lisbon on Tuesday and Italy tomorrow, today we’re somewhere a little closer to home and have landed in Suffolk. In the parterre at Helmingham Hall to be precise. It’s a great garden to visit, another independent garden where you’re never quite sure what you’re going to find.

We visited during our Suffolk break, and I was surprised to see I’ve only shared a single post from our visit so far, and if you’re a fan of knot gardens, then this is worth a visit if you’re in the area. I originally planned to share photos from the Potager, but somehow my fingers had other ideas, but who am I to argue?

While first off this garden might look very traditional, and its choice of plants - box hedging and santolina, it’s not quite as traditional as you’d expect. It’s in good company as that’s the combination used in the formal gardens of Chenonceau too, though the santolina (the light coloured plant) was more densely planted in Suffolk, which brought a bolder ‘stripe’ to the parterre.

The other less traditional thing, but gorgeously so, are these pink cosmos which on our visit were used in the central bed.

From a distance, I assumed they were roses, so it was quite a discovery when I got close enough. While I’m converting to roses, i think because these weren’t roses, it was even more of an exciting discovery. It’s quirks like this, or the plant you don’t expect to see that makes a garden a garden and not a forumaic reproduction of what we know works.

It’s a great space, calming and viewable from the house across the moat - which if I’ve not mentioned before is pretty and fascinating, though sadly not open, but I mean, it has a moat. And surely that means you can imagine anything you like about the place and the reality would never match up to it.

The other thing this garden has, which appeals to me, is those gates which lead to the Potager. So soon, I’ll share more of what’s behind them as I’m rather partial to those too, as i discovered at Cheverny.