I seemed to be destined near to see The Garden House at its best despite having the opportunity to visit it a number of times a year now my youngest son is studying at Plymouth University and lives about 30 minutes away. Sadly their academic year ends at the end of May and starts late September so the summer flowers seem to allude me.
I have to admit to being really disappointed when we visited at the end of last week particularly when we arrived at the South African border which I had been really looking forward to. Whilst the grasses and the Evening Primroses were looking fab the Pineapple Lilies were either flower less or the flower heads had been blown over and the rest of the borders seemed to be bare or weedy. I did wonder whether this was due to the wet and unseasonably weather we have had this year or maybe due to the attention they must have had to give to the new arboretum which was opened by Carol Klein in the summer.
As you can see from the top photo the Wild Flower Meadow it would probably have looked at its best a few weeks before but I found myself admiring its fading glory just as we did with the borders in the Long Walk above.
The Acer Glade was just on the turn and despite the warming sunshine and blue skies there was no avoiding the fact that summer was past and Autumn had arrived.
However, for me the highlight was the old walled garden. When we visited back at Easter this was a typical perennial garden with lots of humps of emerging plants. Now the late summer plants were at their best. Dahlias aplenty, Lobelia tupa, Crocosmia, Agapanthus, Circumfuga etc and masses of butterflies.
And then you see the Trust’s latest headache…
The old Vicarage wall between the walled garden and the new arboretum had collapsed back in July. The wall is listed and will have to be re-built so now the Trust is awaiting on an insurance claim. You wouldn’t wish that on anyone would you.
My two visits to The Garden House has shown me that whilst this garden has some interesting design ideas it is really the plantsmanship that makes it interesting to me, particularly woodland plants and spring perennials so I will definitely be visiting again next year.