Virtual Gardening

One of the best things to do as a family (we find) is simply to get out and about and go somewhere where the children can have a good run around and play. One of our favourite haunts is Waterperry Gardens which has well-tended gardens to look around as well as a small play area and the obligatory shops and café. There is also a lovely little ‘Museum of Rural Life’ which exhibits old gardening and farming curiosities (including little leather booties for sheep!). The curator is wonderfully friendly and informative and very patient with young children who are full of questions. Waterperry also runs a number of gardening courses which I am keen to try. The pruning courses in particular appeal to me (did I mention I was scared of pruning?!) as my present technique in this area is more than a little haphazard.

We have not been able to visit many of our favourite places for some time now and therefore I indulged myself this week with a few “virtual” garden visits. It did seem a little lazy – sitting in my kitchen with a cup of tea whilst simultaneously looking around some stunning gardens throughout the U.K. – but is was wonderfully relaxing and a great source of inspiration. Yesterday I visited the beautiful garden maintained by Diana Hart-Dyke (the mother of Miranda Hart) on a lovely sunny day, despite the rain pelting down outside. It was such a lovely, contemplative garden and Diana had such a calm and welcoming demeanour that I felt I could almost smell the flowers as she brushed past them.

Gardens are meant to stimulate all the senses of course and nothing beats that feel of the grass beneath your feet, or the smell of flowers wafting through the air. However, in the current climate where we are more geographically constrained and/or working to limited budgets, virtual garden visits are a lovely little concept. If you fancy visiting some gardens from your own armchair, Gardens Illustrated lists some of the best to visit (in their opinion), with the appropriate web links:

https://www.gardensillustrated.com/gardens/gardens-to-visit/virtual-garden-tours-best/

I also really enjoyed some of the short videos on the National Garden Scheme website: https://ngs.org.uk/

Along the same vein, after posting a snapshot of my parents’ garden in Cheshire last week, a lovely friend, Jeanette, sent me the following images of her garden in Scotland and she kindly allowed me to share them with you. I am very jealous of her bird table which attracts a lovely array of finches!

In our own garden we have finally had rain and it is wet, wet, wet. The damp weather was very much needed as the grass had been starting to look decidedly brown and even my larger shrubs were beginning to wilt or lose flowers. It means that the weeds will return with vigour in a few days of course and therefore I am trying my best to keep on top of them. I am currently losing the battle but, as my bigger plans for this year have had to be put aside for the time being, I am hoping that I can at least maintain the borders I have already created!

The border glimpsed in the following images is looking particularly "bushy" at the moment. My son and I dug this area out of the lawn a couple of years ago with the aim of creating a winding pathway that would lead from a garden gate into the small grassed area of the garden. I admit that I had a rather romantic image in my head which had jumped straight out of the pages of "The Secret Garden"; the gate would open onto a narrow path with tall shrubs on both sides. The path, when followed, would wind round the border and suddenly open out into a pretty cottage garden.

It's a nice image but, unfortunately, it is all looking a bit messy at the moment! However, having looked around Diana Hart-Dyke's beautiful garden yesterday, I have renewed motivation to thin things out and be more selective about what I plant. I just need to keep that 'Secret Garden' image in my head!

In other parts of the garden, the roses are starting to flower again and the first of our hollyhocks opened its petals this week. The purple clematis in the following images has also been flowering for weeks and is a real stunner, though this was a gift and therefore I have no idea what variety it is. I don't have many scented flowers in bloom at the moment, though the patio area is smelling strongly of curry now the curry plant is flowering!

In my little wildflower patch, a few flowers are also beginning to appear. I don't think it will be quite the spectacle I had planned, though it has been a good little experiment and I will dedicate a larger area next year:

We were also very excited this week to harvest the first of our early potatoes, which were planted back in March. There is nothing like the taste of potatoes dug straight from the ground and these were delicious! My daughter is also harvesting the raspberry and alpine strawberries as soon as they appear and the currants, loganberries and gooseberries are well on their way. It won't be a mammoth yield this year, but with thoughts of gooseberry and blackcurrant jams later this year, I find myself whispering little words of encouragement to the fruit bushes whenever I walk past.

Excerpt from The Secret Garden

"Mary's heart began to thump and her hands to shake a little in her delight and excitement. The robin kept singing and twittering away and tilting his head on one side, as if he were as excited as she was. What was this under her hands which was square and made of iron and which her fingers found a hole in?

It was the lock of the door which had been closed ten years and she put her hand in her pocket, drew out the key and found it fitted the keyhole. She put the key in and turned it. It took two hands to do it, but it did turn.

And then she took a long breath and looked behind her up the long walk to see if any one was coming. No one was coming. No one ever did come, it seemed, and she took another long breath, because she could not help it, and she held back the swinging curtain of ivy and pushed back the door which opened slowly - slowly.

Then she slipped through it, and shut it behind her, and stood with her back against it, looking about her and breathing quite fast with excitement, and wonder, and delight.

She was standing inside the secret garden".

Francis Hodgson-Burnett