Garden Open Days 2010
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All Tuesdays in July & August 1-5pm
and at other times for
Group Visits of 25 or more visitors
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Sunday July 25 for the 'late clematis' ***, wild flower meadow and grasses 12-5pm
Sunday August 29 'late, late' clematis with wonderful art gardens 12-5pm
Sunday September 19 'late, late' clematis with the six art gardens and orchard 12-5pm
for more information click on the button shown here
This is a garden of four and a half acres, developed and entirely looked after by owners Simon and Kathy Brown over the last twenty years. It has over eighteen different areas of interest (see Plan of Garden page), call them rooms if you like, for they are distinctive but they are not necessarily separated. A formal French style garden, cottage garden, wisteria walk, various herbaceous borders, major container garden displays, separate avenues of birches, eucalypts, olives and gingkos, a prolific orchard, a dedicated edible flower border, a wild flower meadow, tennis court garden, four art gardens using naturalistic planting schemes, a fifth with living murals and a sixth with pots. Add to these a snaking winter garden and you have the basis for a real treat whatever the time of year you might choose to visit.
'Tuesday Afternoons' in July and August are deliberately informal with a tour at 2pm and scrumptious tea at 3.30pm. You can also bring a picnic of its a dry day and enjoy it in the garden before the tour. Now towards the middle of July masses of purple, pink, blue, and white clematis are cascading over the pergolas, arches and walls; we have a map showing the wheareabouts of over 100 late flowering clematis...they offer such a fantastic show and are so easy to look after.
All sorts of unusual containers are displaying their wares too, as at all seasons here. I am growing lots of salads and vegetable in raised beds and mangers and book cases all thanks to Harrod Horticultural. I am also trying courgetttes on strawbales following the article in the RHS Garden Magazine. We have now had several pickings!
As the weeks pass, all the summer exotic containers get better and better with begonais, fuchsias, cannas etc making a wonderfully colourful display. Elsewhere a collection of grasses look dreamy and ephemeral whilst in the old fish pond lots of succullent pots have a strong architectural theme.
The wild flower meadow is at its best exploding with wild life; moths, bees both bumble and honey, (following the swarm which arrrived in May 2009, we now have two beehives and honey fudge is one of my speciality cakes) and butterflies love the mid summer perennials with mid to end July being a fanstastic time to enjoy their fluttering antics. The Alice in Wonderland tea party scene brings its own little moment of magic!
The Edible flower border is looking good with masses of pink, white and blue lavenders, daylilies, marsh mallow, bronze fennel, dianthus, thymes and marigolds! Lavender and lemon drizzle is one of my favourite cakes, but as of today I think orange and lavender drizzle is even better! Lavender flapjacks with lots of seeds and dates are excellent too. Edible flowers are a major theme throughout the garden. They are dotted around the garden and feature in lots of pots; but there is also a dedicated edible flower garden...shown on BBC Gardener's World in Oct 2008. Cowslips, sweet cicely, violets and violas, rosemary, sage, lavender, mint, marigolds, chives, dianthus, day lilies, roses, phlox, dahlias etc etc. are all growing there. See my blog for lots of ideas and Kathy's Books page and Edible Flower Garden page . I gave two demonstrations at Hampton Court Flower Show last year on the subject and did so again on July 8th..
Sunday July 25th 12-5pm Late flowering Clematis Day complete with special clematis plan. The viticellas are at their best ranging from glorious pale blue to rich purples and almost black, to pink, red and white. Meanwhile the tulip shaped texensis and many of the early yellow tanguticas are also in flower. This is a good year for our cleamtis, The wildlife is pretty good too, see all the photos below taken mid July 2010! This is just a few of the bee - moth - buterfly varieties we have...can't catch the dragonflies on camera yet!
Sunday August 29th 12-5pm From now onwards the three large areas of naturalistic plantings are at their best. Here there is a strong emphasis on ornamental grasses with just a limited palette of flowering herbaceous for heightened interest in mid to late summer. But that limited palette is a mecca for bees and butterflies, echinaceas, sedums and heleniums are the favourites. Here, various artworks by Hokusai, Monet, Mondrian, Kandinsky and Hepworth have provided inspiration for shape, form and ambience, echoing the mood or drama of each. Two Rothko Rooms draw on the Seagram Murals to be seen in Tate Modern. The tanguticas and other yellow clematis make a wonderful display at this time of year as well.
Sunday September 19th 12-5pm. The naturalistic planting schemes continue to look fantastic and the dreamy quality of the late summer/early autumn light makes this one of my favourite times of year to see the garden. The orchard is super, so are the 'late, late' clematis, the containers are at their best...there is just so much to see.
Family Fun I want to encourage family visits and in this household we have a strong attachment to Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore and all their friends so early last year I made a house for Eeyore with cornus and willow stems which I hoped would be fun for little one's to play in! See photo below or those on my blog. A little childrens play house and a lovely oak swing and an old tyre are other favourites..
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- for blog news stories of life in the garden with pictures
For visits, descriptions and photos of the garden see:
Wednesday June 16th 6-9pm Evening Treat with Roses, Dance, Music and Wine all in aid of the National Garden Scheme Charities. This was a fantastic evening with over £1800 raised for the NGS.
Drama, Dance and Art:
- Thanks to Lincroft Middle School, from our neighbouring Village of Oakley . They ran a carousel of music, dance and drama lasting approximately 20-30 minutes to be run once every hour. Music was provided by their wind band and drumming group, Drama was 'nature' themed and the Dance pieces were from our recent dance show based on last years school visit to the garden.
Choir:
- Thanks to The Eagle Choir which is made up of parents, staff and friends of Bedford Prep School.
