East Ruston Old Varcarage - East Anglia

 July 26th

white agapanthus frank likes

lots of walking 34 acres on double hedges 

full cottage garden mess

i like how there’s no maps, signage or labels. 

more of a mystery fun to get lost. 

large rooms with apple and liq amber

long hallways of green

bees and butterflies on lysmatchia 

open 12-5 lunch 12-2 tea after. 

Pensthorpe - East Anglia

 July 27th

millennial garden Piet Odorf

natural reserve with flowering perennial 

Bressingham Garden - East Anglia

 July 25th

Beth Chatto's Garden - East Anglia

July 25th

 Beth Chatto

 gravel garden and nursery 

RHS Hyde Hall - East Anglia

 July 24th

RHS Hyde Hall - England

 

Beth Chatto's Garden - England

 

Norfolk, England - Xmas & NYE

My Holiday in England, December 2015.  Being in the spirit of vacation, I kept a safe distance from my phone.   Here are the few highlights from London & Norfolk.  

 Saint Pancras Hotel clock tower with international train station.  And Kings Cross train station across the street.  Two glorious train stations, I'm in heaven.

East Ruston Old Vicarage Gardens

East Ruston Old Vicarage was the last garden we saw before heading back to London for our flight home. It took 7 hours and two tea room visits to get through this massive garden. Although it is smaller than Wisley or Stourhead, it was entirely planted with hedge alleys of intersecting views and more rooms than any garden we saw. One of our favorite gardens and a great way to wrap up the tour.

Beth Chatto's Garden

Beth's garden is known for it's dry and wet section. She describes it as "poor gravel soil and boggy hollows." The English have funny words. She took the two difficult soil situations and ran with it. I am partial to the dry garden. It had more Mediterranean plants than any other garden we saw in England. The only place I recall seeing an Eucalyptus. Since a major reason for this tour was to find plants to work with back here in San Francisco, I was able to identify with this garden. This is where I found Parahebe perfoliata or Derwentia perfoliata. Now I notice it at the San Francisco Botanical Gardens at Strybling and will start to use Parahebe in my gardens.

We have only a couple days left on our English Garden Tour. We finally made it to the east coast and its a stormy day. We arrived early and chatted with some Dutch ladies in the parking lot. They came over this morning on a ferry from the continent. The Dutch are world renown plant propagators and collectors but they lack the land to make the extensive gardens that you find in England. They are partners in a lucrative trade.