High Days and Holidays

A1liums in George Smith's garden

This is but a a small part of the border in flower arranger extraordinaire  George Smith's garden last summer. The garden is a floral delight and is immaculate both in design and attention to detail - a perfect example of how an eminent floral artist plans his garden to accommodate his passion for flowers.

More alliums - this time at Newby Hall on my birthday visit there last June

I'm very fond of the flower and planted lots of Purple Sensation in Pablo's garden last year. As I write they are just beginning to show in the borders but have yet to unfurl and reveal their stunning lollipop heads.

Time for tea at Bradley Walled Garden

This charming table, set with teacups full of flowers, was a  delightful addition to this Victorian walled garden situated not far from Prudhoe.


New owners have done little alter the layout of the garden. The borders are full of colouful plants that mirror those for sale. In addition to tasteful garden sundries, Bradley Walled Garden boasts a fine restaurant - booking ahead is to be recommended as its  reputation grows.

Stunning display of foxgloves at Harrogate Show in 2015

Nearer home - gunnera at Durham University's Botanic Gardens

Just rulers and bits of paper

Sissinghurst

A short holiday visiting gardens in Kent  in 2015 and Sissinghurst was a must-see. I was last there in the 1980s while staying in Dorset and was inspired to create my own white garden on my return- not very successfully  I might add.The return visit didn't disappoint.

It was interesting to see the exhibition detailing the development of the garden and in particular the relationship between Vita and Harold, poignantly told in this quote from Harold
       

Nor did Great Dixter, which I saw in the height of summer some years ago, disappoint. Christopher Lloyd is still very much a presence and one of my favourite gardening books of all time features correspondence between him and the doyenne of dry gardening, Beth Chatto.

Autumn border at Great Dixter

It was interesting to see the autumn colour on this occasion. The subtle placing of plants to show each to advantage, none taking centre stage but each playing its part in the overall scheme of things. The borders remain an inspiration.


Christopher Lloyd had an artist's eye, witness  his use of colour, form and texture. The border shown here is full of faded and subdued shades, all placed with a painterly eye  and utilising an autumnal palette.





This border is in direct contrast with the glories of the rudbekia in another part of the garden.

 As Van Gogh wrote ' How lovely yellow is. It stands for the sun.'

Rudbekia at Great Dixter

''

I will make even more good resolutions...

...to fill my brain with remote books and habits

Snowdrops in Egglestone Hall churchyard

I suppose the first and most important resolution has to be to maintain A Garden for Pablo.

To this end I propose to whizz through 2015, beginning with an image taken at Egglestone Hall in early January. The snowdrops here in Pablo's Garden are just beginning to peep through whereas I suspect that in friend Wendy's garden they are in full bloom already.

A Mad Hatter garden fountain

Determining to concentrate on sourcing plants with a literary connection in an attempt to create a garden suitable for a book lover, I was delighted, whilst visiting Harrogate Spring Fair, to find a company specialising in characters from Alice in Wonderland - it being 150 years since the book was published.


Sadly, the prices were prohibitive so I'll have to continue to buy my weekly lottery tickets and  live in hope.

The Jubilee Park in Spennymoor is always a joy to behold.
I go there regularly to check on the two park benches we placed there, near the bowling green, one for my Aunt  and Uncle who loved this park where I spent hundreds of happy hours when small and one in memory of The Seven Law sisters - especially Frances, my mother - who was brought up in a small stone house in Park Street, just outside the boundary wall of Jubilee Park.

Tulips in Jubilee Park in May

     

May beats April in Pablo's Garden for colour and vitality.
The bluebell and forget-me-not paint vast sweeps of the left hand border a most delightful azure blue but it is the acid green of the euphorbia robbiae that shimmers and dazzles.

May border with euphorbia

It is the spectacular light  in May, however, that transforms even the most  mundane of plants
into a shimmering wonderland of colour.
                                                                           

May tulips


The garden must first be prepared in the soul
or else it will not flourish
English proverb


Review of 2015 to be continued...

Back on track!

I feel I've let Pablo down by not keeping his garden blog updated.
I hope to rectify this in the coming weeks - in both words and images - to show some of the changes and hopefully improvements made in the garden during this year.

Meanwhile, here are a few glimpses to whet the appetite.

tulip fever

clematis  montana

The montana was spectacular this year.
Sadly I didn't capture the best of it on film and now most has been ruthlessly cut back.

However here's a view of the small pink version on the side of the summer house.





Autumn must be nearer than we think for bulb catalogues have begun to be pushed through the letterbox and at the
allotment the seed catalogues for next year's bounty have
been given out. I plan to switch allotments later in the year which will entail moving my shed but it will be worth it as the neighbouring ash tree has taken moisture out of the soil
(at least that's my excuse for  poor crops!)

forget-me-nots and border tulips

Where does the time go....

Unbelievably, it's six months since I last visited Pablo's Garden blog!
Problems with my laptop - (it decided to delete all my files and photos) - and some while thereafter before it was replaced, resulted in my losing momentum for documenting the garden.

I did continue to photograph developments in the garden - including taking out the apricot that thought it was a medlar, together with a viburnum that had outgrown it's allotted space, thus freeing up areas for replanting - and have been busy deciding what to plant in the newly-available spaces.

Various garden visits and a trip to Harrogate and  Gardeners' World Live last weekend produced a variety of new plants, some of which are already in situ, but there is still work to be done.

The weeks and months fly by and unbelievably it is almost one whole year since we opened Pablo's Garden under the NGS! Although successful - about 150 visited and we made £650 for charity - I felt it was better to have a break and replant and establish some areas of the garden before opening again.

Who knows what next year will bring?

More later - hopefully with photographs.

Keep Gardening.

Looking through the window

Usually one of the first signs of spring

Early in the year, a neighbour's glorious tree always managed to lift the spirits of all who viewed it.
I often inveigled my immediate neighbour with a request to 'prune' those branches that trespassed onto his garden, with the proviso that he hand the offending twigs to me, which he duly did. They then took pride of place on the hall table, helping to dispel the winter blues. How could anyone feel miserable having witnessed this living miracle?

For me, this Van Gogh-like tree was a sign of hope, accompanied by the delicate snowdrops that shyly made their quiet debut,  only to take centre stage as the spring progressed.

How tragic, therefore, after returning home one afternoon and gazing out of the french windows to discover that the tree had been pruned back beyond all recognition. What the poor tree had done to warrant this act of vandalism is  beyond my understanding. I feel so sorry for myself, the neighbourhood and, of course, the tree itself.

The view from the french windows now

On a positive note, however, at least part of the tree still exists and so I'm trying to comfort myself  with the thought that, Nature being as powerful as she is, perhaps there'll come a time  when I'll be able to gaze out of the window and Vincent's vision will once again delight the eye and lift the spirits.


I live in hope.                                            

Cheerful primroses

The past only comes back

when the present runs so smoothly that it is like the sliding surface of a deep river.
Then one sees through the surface to the depths.
In those moments I find one of my greatest satisfactions,
not that I am thinking of the past;
but that it is then that I am living most fully in the present.
                                                                                                      Virginia Woolf  'Sketch of the Past'

All the best for 2015 from Pablo's Garden

Lest

Lest we forget the past