How many kinds of sweet flowers grow
in an English country garden?
We'll tell you now of some that we know
Those we miss you'll surely pardon
Daffodils heart's ease and phlox
Meadowsweet and lady's smock
Gentian lupin and tall hollyhock
Roses foxgloves snowdrops blue forget-me-nots
In an English country garden.
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
All of a sudden I am really appreciating just how fortunate we are to have so many beautiful gardens to visit. Places to escape to from our careworn world and slip off into an earthly paradise of flowers.
The Courts Garden, which began in 1902, is entered via a green oasis down a pathway lined with elegantly pleached Lime trees.
I was amused by the topiary seen above, and wondered what they would look like if they were adorned with some hats and scarves for fun!
The UK is famous for its beautiful gardens, must be a joy to visit them and forget all the troubles around for a while. You made some wonderful photos!
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for your kind comment.
DeleteThank you for this visit. This March we were staying with my brother nearby and we visited this garden in all it’s spring finery. It’s lovely to see it again in it mid summer outfit. It’s a real gem of a garden. B x
ReplyDeleteIt really is a gem of a garden - did you do a post on it?
DeleteVery colourful and bright
ReplyDelete🌝
DeleteAs soon as I saw the words to the song I was singing along in my head. It was popularized a couple of decades ago, but if I am not mistaken it is an English folk tune, isn't it? Lovely, lovely photographs. Makes me happy just to look at them.
ReplyDeleteIf this post made you sing and you also enjoyed the photos then that makes me happy David. You are right about English Country Gardens as it was originally an 18th century Morris tune (that is a tune usually played on the accordion or violin to accompany traditional English Morris dancing).
DeleteAh! The stone dog in photo 12 is a copy of one of the Winsley Talbots that I have been looking after for years. After I had restored them (again) I had copies cast in a Bath stone mix concrete and a few were sold via Walcot Reclamation. This is the first one I have seen since they were sold.
ReplyDeleteYou should try and pop along to the garden sometime and become reacquainted with the copy of the Winsley Talbot dog that you were responsible for.
DeleteThank you.
ReplyDeleteJust beautiful!
ReplyDelete🌝
DeleteAll very elegant and restful. We are indeed lucky to have so many fine gardens in this country.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many fine and beautiful gardens that it would be impossible to visit them all over a whole lifetime.
DeleteHello Rosemary, The Courts garden is wonderful. I like their use of many greens, and the vignette with the water and the bridge was enchanting. Pure natural areas can be wonderful, but I think that when good design is imposed upon nature, there can be a special satisfaction and emotional response.
ReplyDelete---Jim
Hello Jim - that particular vignette is so reminiscent of the impressionist painter Claude Monet's garden. I checked up when Monet began creating his lily pond and bridge and he started it in 1893, so just nine years before The Courts Garden was established.
DeleteAlways adds an extra sparkle to a garden when it has one or several water features, especially on a hot day. Cools the mind rather than the body just to walk beside it.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of water features in this garden including many water rills. One of the main reasons being that before it was made into a garden there was a woollen mill on the site. The pool with the bridge was once the dye pool to the mill.
DeleteOh, glorious! What a beautiful garden. Yes, those topiaries are very quirky - interesting how the eye immediately animates them.
ReplyDeleteWe really enjoyed escaping for the afternoon to this lovely garden.
DeleteWhat a wonderful interlude on a dull day with a cold wind blowing. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteWe have also had some wind too but with sunshine.
DeleteDear Rosemary,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your photos of your visits to beautiful gardens, in recent weeks.
Especially so at this time of isolation, uncertainty and concern.
I recognised your introduction as I first heard it as a piano arrangement by Percy Grainger.
Your photos are superb, as always. I especially like numbers one and ten.
Enjoy your summer days and spare a thought for me here in cold, wet Melbourne.
Betty x
Dear Betty - it is such a joy to hear from you and to know that all is well with you, but how our world has changed since you decided to give up blogging.
DeleteDo come again, and thank you for your kind comment re: the photos.
Lovely gardens you have shown. It's pleasing that people do these gardens for people to visit otherwise they would all be gone and that would be sad.
ReplyDeleteTake care.
Gardens make a lovely escape, and especially so, just now.
DeleteWhat a magnificent garden - third pic down reminded me of Monet's pond and bridge at Giverny!
ReplyDeleteEverywhere so green - and yes, I too recall often humming the melody "In An English Country Garden", but I didn't know the lyrics.
Rosemary, any idea as to the plants on the step at the neo-Georgian Temple please, especially the large five-leaved green one on left side - it's lovely?
Also, the fourth pic up from bottom - OMG what a beautiful area - I would give anything to look out my windows to something so green and gorgeous!
Thanks from Bob for the kind Birthday wishes on my post - he enjoyed his auspicious birthday!
The first plant on the temple steps is, I believe, Rodgersia Aesculifolia, it has some creamy sprays of flowers which you can just see beginning to open, and the other step plants with the blueish leaves are Hostas. The tall plant with the very delicate mauve/pink flowers is a Salvia, but which one of the 100 salvias it actually is, I am not sure. I also loved it, so pretty and delicate and it made a real impact as you looked through it across the lawns.
DeleteThe pond does have overtones of Monet's garden, and surprisingly it was actually created in this garden just a few years later than Monet created his. I very much doubt whether the owner of the Croft garden would have seen Monet's as it didn't open to the public until 1980.
I am really pleased to know that Bob had a lovely birthday.
OK, the Rodgersia A is the gorgeous one I'm going to look up and find more about - I would love to grow one, if possible! Thanks so much for all the info dear.
DeleteDearest Rosemary,
ReplyDeleteIndeed, your country has the very best climate for gardens and being surrounded by the sea has a positive affect too.
True that we can fully enjoy such a stroll through a beautiful garden and refuel our souls!
We need that more now than ever.
Hugs,
Mariette
Dear Mariette - currently our gardens are a haven of peace and loveliness - thank goodness for mother nature and all of her beauty.
Delete👑🍃
DeleteDear Rosemary,
ReplyDeleteI would love to visit this beautiful place.
It was a lovely escape for the afternoon Gina.
DeleteBeautiful shots!
ReplyDeleteThank you William.
DeleteThe UK is blessed with so many really lovely gardens to visit. I'm quite envious sometimes. This is another example. The topiaries do look like strange figures slinking about somewhere.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that on the whole we do tend to be a nation of garden lovers, even the smallest private garden along any road can be a thing of hidden beauty. One of the best times, during the summer, is when villages and roads open up their private gardens for one day to visitors. You then have an opportunity to see some hidden gems and the money raised goes to charity.
DeleteYou said the words 'earthly paradise' , and I think that defines perfectly this wonderful example of an English garden .
ReplyDeleteMother Nature brings pockets of happiness to us all.
DeleteSo beautiful photos, Rosemary, thank you - also for awaking memories of a visit there, where I still took paper-photos, and I will look to find the one where my friend Anne just stands near that little temple. That was on our wonderful garden-tour, a present to ourselves, long ago, but not forgotten. Thank you!!! (Now we have self-written tokens for our visit to the English coast and a dinner in the Ritz -- guess who stopped us...)
ReplyDeleteI am pleased to know that you have visited this lovely garden Britta - hopefully you will be able to fulfil your coastal visit with dinner at the Ritz sooner rather than later - unless----'guess who' stops you in your tracks for even longer.
DeleteWhat lovely photos.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteWhat a beautiful place. I have missed getting out and about to homes and gardens, my friend and I are hoping to resume soon.
ReplyDeleteIt feels like passing 'Go' and receiving a couple of 'get out of jail cards' a sense of freedom and liberation.
DeleteYes this is a paradise...a green one :)
ReplyDeleteLove from Titti
💚
DeleteI understand how you enjoyed yourself, Rosemary. Your camera looks to have been busy clicking. Yes, you’re so fortunate to have such lovely gardens without travelling too far. In my country micro-tourism is encouraged to enjoy a little bit gorgeous travel within the prefecture we live in. I agree with you; topiary always work on my imagination. Keep safe and in fit.
ReplyDeleteYoko
I am so happy that our death rate here is finally down to low figures - however, I think that we all have such a long, long road ahead of us to climb - that is until a vaccine can be found.
DeleteTake care Yoko.