The Garden House (Devon, England)
The destinations are beginning to blur but looking at the tour guide booklet, I see that we are now in Plymouth. Today, we visited two gardens designed by Keith Wiley. The first is The Garden House , where Wiley worked as Head Gardener for 25 years (from 1978-2003). The 10-acre estate was purchased in the 1940s by former Eton schoolmaster Lionel Fortescue and his wife Katherine. It was formerly home to the vicars of Buckland Monachronum. The Fortescue's renovated the gardens and ran a market garden business and raised cattle. The remains of some of the original buildings in the vicarage still stand in the garden and serve as a romantic backdrop in the Walled Garden - I loved the way they had massed ferns together. Just stunning! Surrounding the walled garden and venturing out away from the house are more naturalistic plantings - Today, the head gardener is Nick Haworth, who was previously head gardener at Greenway , which we visited earlier. Keith Wiley lef...
You are such a good photographer Phillip. These beautiful scenes give me courage to face the rest of this winter. I know there will be blooms in the future. Happy New Year to you too.
ReplyDeleteWhat a treat for the eyes, such gorgeous photos! August and January my favorites--the texture on the petals in August and the graceful drape of the snow-covered tree in January--perfect.
ReplyDeleteThis is a wonderful post idea, I hope you keep doing it in the future. I love November's yellow-purple vignette. Such a vibrant display as the garden slows down is quite an achievement and a sign of a gardener's talent. I also love the wavy motion of Carex comans (if only it didn't reseed so prolifically).
ReplyDeleteGarden blogs that I used to follow that sadly no longer are there used to do an end of the year post with highlights from each month. Love your photos. They are certainly beautiful
ReplyDeleteJust coming out of the deepest freeze here in decades, my eye is drawn to anything that radiates warmth, so I lingered over August for some time. After that warmup, even the small hot flashes among the frosted strawberry foliage of December were effective; that one's my favorite, in fact.
ReplyDeleteBut they're all excellent. July is just smashing; isn't 'Marie Pavie' a great rose? And you've accompanied her brilliantly. Thanks for the beauty!
These are gorgeous! Especially love Jan and March. This may inspire me to do favorites next year instead of my usual "Best of the Rest" from leftover photos.
ReplyDeleteGreat plant groupings and great photos. The January image was so striking I had to see what else you picked.
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