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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...
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Winter Jewels


 


Tsuga canadensis 'MonKinn' Golden Duchess ™ (Eastern Hemlock)



The weather has been a bit wet and gloomy (with predictions of snow for next week) but there are some bright spots in the garden.  One of my favorites at the moment is this little hemlock called 'Golden Duchess'™. Every time I glance out the study window and look out into the front garden, it is the first plant I notice. When we got it at the nursery, it was inside the greenhouse and kind of a drab green, nothing like the photo on the label. After I planted it, in a mostly sunny spot, it brightened up and changed color in no time. The ultimate size is supposed to be around 4 x 4 feet.
Picea orientalis 'Tom Thumb'

 Picea orientalis 'Tom Thumb' is a dwarf spruce that grows very slowly (only about 1 inch per year!), eventually reaching 1 ft. high.


Acer palmatum 'Bihou'

The Japanese Maple 'Bihou' just gets better and better and equals 'Sango Kaku' for its pretty winter bark. I bought this in quart-sized pot and it proves that smaller sized plants grow faster. That little slip of a plant, under 1 ft. tall, was planted in June of 2017 and is now almost 6 ft. tall. It is very narrow and I hope that it continues to grow that way.

 

Salix integra 'Hakuro Nishiki' (Dappled willow) with the just-mentioned Japanese Maple 'Bihou' in far background

A few more lovlies -

Pheasant's Tail Grass (Anemanthele lessoniana)


Mahonia 'Charity'

Vaccinium M. 'Stevens'


Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy
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Comments

  1. Lisa at GreenbowJanuary 11, 2020 at 1:00 PM

    You do have some lovely jewels in your garden. So much color for your winter garden.

    ReplyDelete
  2. chavlinessJanuary 12, 2020 at 9:36 AM

    Bright colors in the winter garden is what keeps us going till spring. Acer palmatum 'Bijou' with it's stunning glowing branches has been on my want list for a while.

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  3. Endah MurniyatiJanuary 13, 2020 at 5:05 PM

    the branches looks so interesting!

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