2016 in close up.

Welcome to Our Garden@19 in 2017

This is the time of year when we think about the new year and reflect on the old one.

The pictures below are close up photographs from Our garden@19 taken during the year.

Corylus avellana 'Contorta'

Iris foetidissima seeds.

 Dicentra 'Stuart Bootman'.

 Geranium sambor and Bumble Bee.

Aquilegia alba.

 Viola heartease and an unknown variety.

 Iris palliida subsp. pallida.

 Polygonatum x Hybridum Striatum.

 Epimedium x Rubrum.

 Asplenium scolopendrium Cristatum Group.

Athyrium Niponicum Pictum.

 Paeonia 'White Wings'.

 Cirsium rivulare 'Trevor's Blue Wonder'.

Hydrangea quercifolia Burgundy.

Acer griseum.

Where would we be without the 'Web'?

A frozen spiky metal Lily!

Birds are an important part of my every day life in Our Garden@19.

This is the first film I have tried to post, taken through the dinning room window, Gold Finches feeding on Sunflower Hearts.

 I hope it works!

The new years come, the old years go,

We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,

We lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it stings,

We curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,

We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,

And that’s the burden of the year.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, “The Year” (1910)

I hope all your dreams and plans come true for 2017.

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Aberglasney (Part 2) The Flowers.

I described the gardens of Aberglasney in a previous blog Here

Part 2 contains photographs of just SOME of the flowers in bloom when we visited on a lovely sunny day in September.

This bed is on the site of an old vine house...

...the wall is covered with Boston Ivy...

...and planted with annuals such as Calendula,...

...this pink dahlia, much enjoyed by the bumble bees,..

...along with Cerinthe major 'Purpurascens'...

...Melianthus major and Canna providing the foliage contrast...

...and occasional flower, this is looking towards the very good cafe area.

I mentioned in Part1, how impressed I was with the pool garden with its reflective pool and simple planting scheme.

...Kniphofia provided the main colour in September...

...blending nicely with Verbena bonariensis and I think, here, a shrubby salvia and...

...in each of the two corner beds was a young Acer davidii 'Serpentine' with delicate pink stems along with a snake bark main trunk.

The Upper Walled Garden, designed by Penelope Hobhouse, planted predominately with perennials...

...and Yew Cones providing an evergreen punctuation mark.

...I do like fennel when in flower, here, with white Anemone and Eupatorium purpureum...

...or  joe-pye-weed...

...and Helenium, all providing insect food...

...with the lovely dark pink Anemone hupehensis 'Hadspen Abundance'.

There are several woodland walks within the gardens, in one area there was a mass planting of Begonia grandis subsp. evansiana. This is a new plant to me, I thought the leaf makings were beautiful.

Clerodendrum bungei has been on my wish list for some time...

...it is a late flowering shrub, said to be hardy only down to a few degrees, (I have planted one this autumn!)

A selection of different Hydrangeas were in full flower and...

in this picture providing a colourful backdrop...

...to a mass planting of lilies.

Rosa rugosa Alba showing both bloom and hips...

...along with one of the best Roses for hips, R. moyesii 'Geranium'.

A late brood of swallow's lining up for a feed!

I hope a view of these flowers will help to brighten up what is a dull, wet day/week/month here in the UK. We can look forward to the garden visiting season starting again soon.

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Tree Following November 2015 (Acer negundo Flamingo)

The  Acer negundo Flamingo I have been following this year has now lost all its leaves, if you haven't visited before it grows in our small Oriental Garden.

The stems come into their own this time of year with their slate & blue colouring...

...growing in the centre is a small amount of moss, which I had not noticed before.

This photo was taken, at night, from out side the Oriental Garden, with the garden light on and the camera flash turned off.
A White Wisteria, whose leaves are just changing, is trained over the arch behind and then along the bamboo fence underneath the tree.

The tree following meme is now hosted by Pat please visit to see what other trees people are following this month.

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The last NGS Garden visit.

Our last NGS garden visit of the year took us just over the county border into Herefordshire to the Picton Gardens and Old Court Nursery, home of the Plant Heritage National Collection of Autumn Flowering Asters.

The garden features in my 'Worcestershire Gardens' on the blog's header bar, (it is only just over the border) and is open from August until October, including some days for the NGS.

 Old Court Nurseries developed a reputation for growing Michaelmas Daisy's when Percy Picton took it over. Today the nursery and garden is owned by Paul and Meriel Picton along with their daughter, Helen.

The one & half acre garden provides a riot of colour at this time of year...

...not just from the asters, there are many autumn colouring trees and shrubs...

...bamboos, ferns and other autumn flowering perennials...

...and acers.

The garden contains several willow and metal items of garden art.

You enter this area past pillars of Berberis ( thunbergii f. atropurpurea? ), which is also used as a hedging plant along the paths.

A spectacular, colourful view across this part of the garden.

 

In this area a new crevice garden is being created inside this raised bed along with a stumpery around the Acer griseum.

The garden was named The Picton Garden in 1985...

...when the Charity, 'Percy Picton Memorial Fund' was established...

...to provide grants to students of horticulture at Pershore Collage.

There are raised beds containing well labeled different asters to help you make your choice in the nursery. They are also involved in the RHS Symphyotrichum trial (the new name for Asters!) which you may have read about in The Patient Gardener: Here

A beautiful and colourful end to the NGS garden visiting season.

Now is the time to start planning for next years opening, the entries for the NGS Yellow Book 2016 had to be in by the end of September, ready for publishing and entry on the website:NGS

The Yellow Book should be available for purchase in February, £2.5 million was donated in 2014 to mainly nursing charities.

What plans do you have for your garden next year?

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