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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...

Containers in the Garden by Claus Dalby - a book review


Publication Date: April 12, 2022 (Cool Springs Press)

In his first English-language book, Danish floral designer Claus Dalby shares his passion for creating colorful containers. 


Dalby's containers are simplistic in design. He uses minimal plants per pot and often only one plant species. When massed together, however, his displays create a stunning effect. 
 
 
His garden in Denmark encompasses fifteen hedged garden rooms themed by color.  Large groupings of pots are positioned in tiers in displays by walls, fences and doorways. The pots change with the seasons and tulips, dahlias, daffodils and annuals are central players. He covers every color theme and notes some of his favorite plants.

 

 
 
Although the "how-to" aspects of planting and maintaining a container are not in-depth (his potting soil mix is a professional blend not available to the average customer), the photographs are beautiful and reason enough to recommend the book.



 

Photos courtesy Cool Springs Press

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