The other week I spent lovely 4 days with a group of friends exploring the gardens of Somerset and Wiltshire. One of the gardens I was quietly looking forward to seeing was the Yeo Valley Organic Garden which we were due to see on our way home.
I’ve been aware of this garden for some time now. It regularly features in magazines and on television sometimes because of its gravel garden and sometimes because it is one of only a handful of certified ornamental gardens in the country. Interestingly, their plants come from a small organic nursery just over the hill from me.
You arrive at the garden, nestled in the beautiful Yeo Valley, through the organic diary (I eat their yoghurt every morning). You enter through a corridor of hedges, past a stunning greenhouse full of exotics and seedlings, a vegetable garden. Where oh where was the gravel garden? Past some yellow themed herbaceous borders.
Very nice and interesting use of yellow foliage.
Turn right past the grass border – lovely especially on a windy day such as when we visited. And then you go up the driveway to the house and round a corner and wow!
You can get a fantastic overview on entering if you go up the small mount with the viewpoint on the top (see top photo).
The gravel garden was planted up in 2011 and I just love its abundance. This is my sort of garden. Swathes of perennials with plenty of space for them to grow tall and strong, merging into each other creating an amazing tapestry.
There’s a pond in the garden singing with damsel flies.
The farmhouse provides a focal point for the garden and it almost feels as though the house provides the backdrop for the garden rather than the garden providing the backdrop for the house.
Oh and off to one side is the birch grove with shade loving planting, a perennial meadow and an annual meadow which had just been recently tilled.
And all of this has been done organically with no pesticides, fertilizers or other chemicals.
It was my favorite garden of the whole trip. I have so many photos of the gravel garden which is always a sign that I loved it. I have included just a handful of my favorite photos in this post but if you are down in Somerset I would really recommend making a small detour to visit this garden – it has a great cafe as well.
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