RHS Harlow Carr

Nothing exciting this weekend, but good progress on a few things. We spent most of Saturday painting windows (a bit late in the year, but hey-ho), and have probably done a bit less than half. We had a day out on Sunday and went to Harlow Carr, which is looking lovely (as you might expect).

RHS Harlow Carr (© Ian 2017)

Most of Monday was spent with the bees, who are winding down for the autumn. And today was spent making a bit of progress on our bathroom renovation plan (ie, progress on making a plan), and measuring the garden paths. Having previously used forestry/hedging chippings for these, we're planning to upgrade to aggregate. It's more expensive in the first place, but shouldn't need replacing every few years, which is both a lot of effort, and ongoing expense. The trouble is getting a suitably large load here, given the access difficulties—and in deciding on a satisfactory type of gravel...

RHS Tatton Park 2017

This week's been the RHS Tatton Park show, and so for the fifth year, we went along to the last day. It was a really good show, as normal, and we were luckier with the weather than expected (the forecast a couple of days before was for heavy rain showers: we actually only had a few minutes of light rain at about 1400).

We made the most of getting there early and went straight to the floral marquee. I think that's best early, before it gets (a) hot, and (b) full of people. We found a number of things we wanted, including some selfheal (Rose and Blue Pearl varieties) to brighten the herb garden, some salvias (Royal Bumble) that will go in the colour wheel, and some blue-flowered garlic chives (also for the herb garden). It's a rather smaller haul than previous years (I think 2016 will forever be our high-water mark for purchases), but that reflects the simple fact that the garden, after eight years being here, is increasingly planted-up, and more space now comes either from replacing plants that die (or we grow bored of), or gradual increases in flower beds at the expense of lawn (see: mulberry bed in the games lawn).

Highlights from the show (all &copy Ian 2017)

RHS Harlow Carr

To mark the start of a week off, we managed to get away early from work (well, I did—Liz has been off all day, cleaning and tidying!), and drove over to Harlow Carr. We picked up a couple of cakes from Betty's, and then had a wander. It was, as you'd expect for 1600 on a term-time weekday at the end of September, pretty quiet. But tranquil and lovely for that.

Acer near the streamside (© Ian 2016)

Gunnera manicata in the streamside (© Ian 2016)

A variegated brunnera ("Hadspen Cream") (© Ian 2016)

The herbaceous borders (© Ian 2016)

Molinia 'Poul Petersen' (© Ian 2016)

Another grass (Calamagrostis brachytricha) we liked (© Ian 2016)

The herbaceous borders (© Ian 2016)

Espalier trained apples in the kitchen garden: the spacing is similar to that in our apple walk (© Ian 2016)

Fruitful espalier trained apple (© Ian 2016)

Espalier apple (© Ian 2016)

Cambridge

We've had a very enjoyable weekend in Cambridge, with some of our oldest friends.

Heading towards Clare College, Cambridge (© Ian 2016)

The Gardens of Clare College, Cambridge (© Ian 2016)

Pond garden, Clare College gardens (© Ian 2016)

The Bridge of Sighs, from the Kitchen Bridge, St John's College, Cambridge (© Ian 2016)

We had a lovely picnic on the backs, and spent a lot of time chatting, drinking tea, and playing games. Just as it should be.

Kent

It's been a weekend in Kent, with David and Ann. I really enjoyed it: plenty of food and games, and a visit to Emmett's Garden.

Wedding cake tree (Cornus controversa 'Variegata') (© Ian 2016)

Lovely bright rhododendron (© Ian 2016)

Bracts and flowers on a hankerchief tree (Davidia involucrata

) (© Ian 2016)

Also known as a dove tree (the bracts are meant to look like roosting doves) (© Ian 2016)

It makes a very pretty tree, though it's quite slow growing (© Ian 2016)

Perennial borders (© Ian 2016)

A new (well, being renovated) pond (© Ian 2016)

Autumn Longevity

We've had a weekend of not doing a lot, which has been pleasant, while Jenny and Philip visited. The garden, which we had a chance to wander round without task, is holding up really well to autumn: I think more so this year than many, as a lot of things are later, and unstressed by a cool damp summer and mild autumn. It's nice, though.

Tidying

I spent a fair bit of this morning trying to get to the bottom of why our intelligent solar-PV diverting water heater doesn't appear to be working. It seems to be a hardware fault, after a lot of diagnosing, and it'll have to go back to the manufacturer this Monday for repair. A real pain, but the company's been excellent in trying to resolve it, and the unit's under three years of parts & labour warranty, so it'll all be fine soon enough, I hope. And then we'll be back to having lots of hot water.

We're reinsulated the accumulator tank, which hasn't been properly returned to order since we installed the heating elements. That's meant reshaping the outer casing, and replacing the foam insulation I had to carve away in order to access the blanking plugs with expanding polyurethane foam. While I was messing around with the equipment, I've also cleaned (and fixed, in fact) the chimney exhaust fan, and swept the biomass chimney, as well as the sitting room chimney. The former needed it—the latter less so, but it's good to do every few months.

Having got the cables to the right position, and leading all the way back to the control unit on Wednesday, we've now mounted the external CCTV cameras, and positioned them to give us a good view of the outside of the house. I think they might need slight tweaking, but they seem about right.

Liz has undertaken a massive tidy-up while I've been so occupied, weeding all the fruit beds and cutting back the raspberries, cleaning the house, and weeding some of the ornamental beds. The garden's looking really good, even though it's October: so much so that actually there was no envy when we managed to get to Harlow Carr this afternoon. Our much smaller garden is, I think, stacking up well.

Malvern Autumn

We've had a weekend away, visiting Ludlow, and spending Sunday with Liz's grandmother at the Malvern autumn show, which we've not been to before.

It's less of a garden show than, say, Tatton Park, with only a few gardens, and a lot of 'country living' stallholders. However, there was a very good apple pavilion, with an impressive display of apples from RV Roger (who supplied all of the maiden trees for our apple walk earlier this year). We watched a very entertaining, and pertinent, 'conversation' between Joe Swift and Monty Don in the Good Life theatre, and spent a lot of the afternoon browsing the plant nursery stalls, and wondering over the size of the mammoth veg. The prize-winning pumpkin was 472kg, which was, frankly, astonishing, but only slightly more so than the 152kg cabbage, or the 6.3(ish)m beetroot and parsnip, each, apparently, world records. How one digs up a 6m parsnip root, I know not.

(Why, I know not, either.)

Anyway, we managed to fill grandma's not insignificant boot, with thirty-five plants of our own, and a number of hers, and we added a few from her garden to take home, meaning our little Corsa was well loaded for the return journey.

• Two Crocosmia 'Sunglow', and two 'Buttercup'
• a 'Twyning's After Eight' dahlia
• Three white Japanese anemones, 'Honorine Jobert'
• Two giant scabious
• Three new heucheras, 'Fire Chief', 'xxx' and 'xxx'
• A pair of variegated sedums, 'Frosty Morn'
• A painted fern, 'Burgundy Lace'
• Three Panicum grasses, 'Squaw'
• An astrantia, A. major 'Lars'
• And a tray of obscenely cheap Cyclamen hederifolium; fifteen at a pound apiece.

We finally, definitively, learnt the reason for the riduculously low end-of-show prices. Apparently, the nurseries want to offload the last of their stock at almost any price, because for the quantity involved, the cost of transporting them back to the nursery exceeds the market value—hence selling things at a pound/pot is actually financially better than transporting the stock 'home', and selling it at market value later. I'm happy to help.

We got home about five, and I nipped out to pick up the rest of our pig, having collected the bucket of blood last Wednesday, before planting everything out.

RHS Wisley

After a very long day yesterday, we got away from Ludlow as soon as we could (eleven), and made the long journey down to Surrey over lunch. We'd resolved to visit RHS Wisley, as we were in the area without Katie and Dan (staying elsewhere, though we're all using their house for two nights).

It's an impressive garden, though, actually, I think Harlow Carr compares well, and has the advantage of being a more locally representative climate.

The orchard, particularly, we enjoyed: there are hundreds of decades-old apples, which give a beautiful impression of what, eventually, we hope our orchard will come to be like.

Down to Ludlow

Need list of the morning's work. We had a rather longer list of things to do today than ideal, but we managed to get them done, and set off for Ludlow at half-two, with a car full of presents, foliage, luggage, and flowers. We got to Ludlow castle at about half-five, and then had two hours to get the flowers arranged, with Jenny, and Dan's sister and aunt helping. Amazingly, it all got done, and we staggered back to Molly's for a late supper. The big day awaits tomorrow...

York Gate

In between work on the kitchen, we decided we deserved a break, and took a few hours off to visit York Gate. We went about this time last year, and got good ideas: we hoped for the same again. It's given us a few ideas for plants that will help fill what we find is a slightly 'subdued' period in the garden, where there's less flowering than we'd like.

Photos to come...

RHS Tatton Park 2014

This morning, at about 0815, we set off for Tatton Park, as we have the last couple of years, to the RHS flower show. It takes about an hour, and having parked and walked to the showground, we were in the queue at about 0940, giving us a quarter hour to start looking at the show catalogue (and map) before being let in at just before 10. I've been impressed, this year and last, at how quickly they scan the bar-coded tickets and get you in.

There were some really good show gardens, this year. We particularly liked a heritage/allotment fruit and veg stall from a group of local allotmenteers, and were struck by a scarlet mountain spinach (orache) that we've never seen in the flesh before. It's a possible potager plant next year.Grasses were much in evidence, as well as chocolate cosmos, sanguisorba, crocosmia, and brunnera. That suited us nicely, as we've many grasses that could be used in combination. We have one sanguisorba, 'Tanna', and a brunnera, 'Jack Frost', both bought at Tatton last year, and came looking for more brunnera. We have a few crocosmia, but one caught our eye today that is apparently a fairly new introduction; Twilight Fairy 'Gold'. It has lovely bronzed foliage, but sadly wasn't for sale from the show garden (the Young Designer of the Year garden by Sam Ovens).

We saw a couple of water features we liked, which might inform later plans.

(© Ian 2014)

(© Ian 2014)

This garden had a rebar construction for its runner beans: apparently I'm not the only one using rebar to construct supports! It also had a rather good green wall, one of which Liz still wants to find a space for.

These garden seats were very good, and next door we saw some very weather resistant swing seats by the well-named Yorkshire Swingseat Company.

(© Ian 2014)

(© Ian 2014)

One feature that we enjoyed was a collection of eight vignette gardens that encapsulated larger gardens' feel in small plots. They're all from Cheshire, and included Arley Hall, which is actually just down the road from Tatton Park, and we thought looked worth a real visit, based on their 'taster' garden.

(© Ian 2014)

The floral marquee was, as ever, phenomenally stocked by nurseries, and although we only bought two plants, the other displays were excellent, and gave us contact details for a number of specialist nurseries. One, near Cambridge, might be a good source of alpines, if we do decide to put a green roof on the mini-sheds. There were a couple of hosta specialists, too, for when we dig the bog garden.

(© Ian 2014)

The two plants we bought were both from the Hampshire Carnivorous Plants: one was a Sarracenia hybrid (a North American Pitcher Plant), which suited us because it actively requires a good cold winter spell, probably in the unheated greenhouse. The other is a dangling/hanging sort of plant, a Monkey Cup called 'Linda' (a hybrid, Nepenthes cv 'Linda') despite being a dioecious male. It now hangs, slightly threateningly, in the sitting room.

For us, though, the Young Designer Gardens were the best. We felt that the television coverage (Thursday and Friday evening) actually let these down, and all three, but particularly Alex Schofield's, were much better in the flesh. In fact, everything else we purchased came from these three gardens.

(© Ian 2014)

Acquisitions were:

• From Alex Schofield's garden:
• Brunnera; I need to check the cultivar
• Astrantia 'Gill Richardson'
• Sanguisorba (S. officionalis)'Tanna'
• Sedum (S. spectabile) 'Matrona'
• From Clare Broadbent's garden:
• Echinacea 'Secret Love'
• Eupatorium, I think E. purpureum
• From Sam Ovens' garden:
• Scabious 'Pink Mist'

(© Ian 2014)

Harlow Carr

We spent today at Harlow Carr: the first time, actually, we've been not on a weekend or Bank Holiday. Unsurprisingly, it's much quieter!

We found this in the scented garden, but couldn't see a label, sadly.

The Scented Garden, RHS Harlow Carr (© Ian 2014)

A heavenly almond macaroon (© Ian 2014)

Knautia macedonica, which caught our eye for the wide range of colour (© Ian 2014)

Sweetcorn (Snowbaby and Popcorn Fiesta (this one, with red stems)) in containers in the Bramall Learning Garden (© Ian 2014)

Rhododendron auriculatum in the woodland (© Ian 2014)

When we got home, there was enough time to sow some salad leaves (in pots: direct, they keep getting slugged), and a barrel of carrots.

Scarborough

Making the most of the bank holiday weekend, we've had a couple of days in Scarborough, with Liz's grandparents, and a day in Thirsk with my parents. It's the first time I've been to Scarborough in twenty years, and about a dozen since Liz last went, so we were both really seeing it through fresh eyes.

On Saturday, after lunch, we walked down Woodland Ravine, through Peasholm Park, and along the north bay, before turning back past the open air theatre to return.

Spring colour in Woodland Ravine / Dean Road Cemetary (© Ian 2014)

Spring colour in Woodland Ravine / Dean Road Cemetary (© Ian 2014)

Peasholm Park (© Ian 2014)

Peasholm Park (© Ian 2014)

Wildflowers: primroses, wood anemones, and forget-me-nots in Peasholm Park (© Ian 2014)

North Bay and Scarborough Castle (© Ian 2014)

Squirrel Sculpture, Peasholm Park (© Ian 2014)

Peasholm Park (© Ian 2014)

Faux-Oriental sculpture, Peasholm Park (© Ian 2014)

The Secret Garden (© Ian 2014)

The Secret Garden (© Ian 2014)

Although Sunday morning was a bit overcast, we started at Anne Brontë's grave, before walking around Scarborough Castle. From there, we went down the side of the headland, across the harbour, and along the seafront. After going past the Spa, we came up through the gardens to meet our lift.

Ruins of North Transept in churchyard of St Mary's with Holy Apostles, destroyed in Civil War (© Ian 2014)

The Keep, Scarborough Castle (© Ian 2014)

Roman Signalling Station, Scarborough Castle (© Ian 2014)

The Keep, Scarborough Castle (© Ian 2014)

View from Scarborough Castle over North Bay (© Ian 2014)

Sunday afternoon comprised a walk through Raincliff Wood, which has a large number of paths (thank you, Woodland Trust), and an interesting bit of woodland regeneration in Raincliff Meadow.

Wood Sorrel (© Ian 2014)

Bluebells (© Ian 2014)

Woodland Flowers (© Ian 2014)

Wood Anemones (© Ian 2014)

Stumps, Raincliff Wood (© Ian 2014)

Tree roots over outcrop (© Ian 2014)