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...















Gorgeous! I can't say there's any overlap between our floral displays unless you count the last of my Narcissus, rapidly beating a retreat in the face of our dry and very warm spring. Seeing your blue rhododendron makes me regret the fact that I haven't managed to grow anything in this genus in my current garden, not even the paltry few Azaleas traditionally sold locally.
ReplyDeleteI remember how I longed for Camellia 'Donation' when I moved into this house 30-odd years ago. Could not find it anywhere so I settled for 'Pink Perfection'-long gone now. The shade in my garden is unfortunately totally dictated by the tree canopys of the neighbors to the south and west.
ReplyDeleteVery pretty!
ReplyDeleteHave a wonderful day!
Your Vancouver garden is a quite a bit ahead of my north Seattle one. Rhododendron 'Blue Baron' is so striking! I'm still searching for Veronica 'Georgia Blue'.
ReplyDeleteWhat a gorgeous selection of flowers, Phillip. I like the Berberis combined with the Spiraea, that's a great combination. Happy Bloom Day!
ReplyDeleteThe red of those first two rhodis are almost artificial looking. A beautiful color. Happy GBBD.
ReplyDeleteIntense red and blue on the rhodies - so unusual and patriotic. The golden bleeding heart looks almost gawdy to me.
ReplyDelete-Ray
Not only the flowers, but the photos. Gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteSpring is lovely in your garden. Beautiful flowers.
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