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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...

February Garden

 


 

 It is turning out to be a very mild February. 

Crocus beginning to appear

 

 

Sarcococca (Sweet Box)

 

Snowdrops (Galanthus)

Cotoneaster 'Mooncreeper'

Hebe 'Pretty in Pink' and
Northern Sea Oats (Chasmanthium latifolium)



Clematis 'Bill MacKenzie'

Euonymous albomarginatus

Cedrus deodora 'Feelin' Blue'

 African Boxwood (Myrsine A. 'Scarlet Marglin')


Pinus contorta 'Chief Joseph'

Thymus praecox (either 'Nutmeg' or 'Coccineux')


St. John's Wort (Hypericum inodorum 'Pumpkin')    


Parahebe perfoliata

 

 


Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy

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