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English gardener transplanted into American soil

Posts from the Garden Visits category

The Wild Garden

By Jenny Rose Carey on 2022-07-26

Ladew Topiary Gardens, Monkton, Maryland

By Jenny Rose Carey on 2014-07-21

Rocky Mountain Wildflowers at 12,110 feet

By Jenny Rose Carey on 2014-07-10

RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2014

By Jenny Rose Carey on 2014-05-19

Open Gardens at Northview

By Jenny Rose Carey on 2014-05-15

RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2013

By Jenny Rose Carey on 2013-07-31

Sweet Peas reaching for the sky

By Jenny Rose Carey on 2013-07-31

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The Wild Garden
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RHS Garden Bridgewater is the newest of the Royal Horticultural Society’s gardens. Open just over a year it has already grown in fantastically. This one minute walk through part of the large walled garden gives a taste of the extensive plantings. Anchored by beech trees trimmed into upright columns the herbaceous perennials have height, movement, scent and texture. The water-filled rill run through the middle of the path - much to the delight of the children who you can hear at the end of the reel.

Peak District with Heathers on the moorland and willow herb in front. Lovely honey-like scent from the heathers. Beautiful texture and color.

Poppies, cornflowers, Ammi, Cosmos, and more poppies cascading down a bank at Chatsworth Garden. So delightful to use annual flowers to attract pollinators and visitors to a wild-looking planting. I loved it! If you turn your sound up you will hear bees really buzzing, some birds singing and an occasional visitor having a great time.

The magnificent double herbaceous borders at Arley Hall and Gardens have been on my garden visiting wish list for a while. They did not disappoint! Hats off to the gardeners who have kept the plants in top condition despite the heat. Great selection of plants and the borders are so well designed. I loved the Crocosmia, Red-hot pokers, and Sedums. So happy. By the way - if you garden in the UK - a visit to the nursery is a must. Great plants and fabulous selection - many propagated from the garden. So envious that I can’t take them home.

Dahlias / a selection from the many cultivars grown at Biddulph Grange garden - National Trust. There is a long Dahlia walk with dahlias growing in compartments outlined with yew hedges. Great displays from summer into autumn.

Biddulph Grange is a fun and eclectic garden. Developed by the Batemans in Victorian times it brings together world gardens and ideas that reflected the interests of the owners. My personal favorites are the Dahlia walk - first few photos, the Stumpery (that inspired my Stumpery at Northview), and the shady walks and climbs (so lovely today as it was hot). Come prepared for an up and down walk and don’t be surprised by changes in direction and tunnels. All part of the exploratory nature of this diverse garden. A selection of dahlias will be on the next post.

Mallow flowers are a lovely addition to the summer garden. They are blooming in several gardens that I have visited in the last few days. It seems like they flower even when it is hot and dry. They are a hollyhock relative.

You don’t have to water to get great garden shapes and textures. As shown my the Merton Borders at the University of Oxford Botanic Gardens. Spherical blue Echinops, spiky star-shaped Eryngium, purple ornamental oregano, and at the end Perovskia - that had been re-named Salvia yangii. If you listen closely you can hear the sprinklers in another area of the garden but these beds are not watered. They were seeded in eleven years ago and the plants that have grown thrive in these conditions. It was certainly hot and full sun.

Herbaceous border at Oxford University Botanic Garden. Blooming in the August garden are Joe-Pye weed, perennial sunflowers, Helenium, Phlox, Cosmos, hardy geranium at the front, asters, and more. Great textural variety with plants like Baptisia that have finished flowering but still have presence.

Echinops (spherical blue flowers) have so many fabulous attributes. Distinctive shape and color. Great in heat and drought. Attractive to pollinators. And how about the movement of the flowers. I don’t know why but I am loving watching how flowers move.

Hollyhocks - or Alcea towering above my head in the triangular walled garden at Kelmarsh Hall in Northamptonshire, England. What looks to be a gorgeous self-sown patch of all different colors. I am not sure which one I liked best.

Garden in motion. Joe-Pye weed - with pink flowers and tall grasses provided the soundtrack for my sensory enjoyment of this prairie-style planting at RHS Hyde Hall in England

Rudbeckia Prairie Glow is an easy care jazzy-looking flower for the hottest part of the summer.

An ornamental Oregano called Bellissimo was my favorite new flowering plant at the trade show for the Perennial Plant Association’s Annual Meeting and Symposium. Why do I already love it? I am a big fan of a similar but slightly larger oregano called Kent Beauty and this is slightly more vibrant in color and suited to small containers and windowboxes as a trailing plant. I can’t wait for it to be available on the market! It comes from Australia- so lucky followers from there may already have it - I am jealous. Thanks to @hortcouture for bringing this to American gardens.

Evening light in the garden. Peaceful but with some birds still calling and chirping. Bats twisting and turning overhead as night draws in. Just the time for meandering along the paths and seeing what has changed. Always something new to see. I hope that you are all getting to enjoy your gardens or somewhere out in nature this weekend. We know how good it is for us - how healing 🌸🌸🌸

Gladiolus murielae sometimes called Acidanthera. My first flower of the season. Attractive sword-like foliage and a white flower with a dark burgundy-purple eye in the center. Fragrance is rather like vanilla baby powder - if there is such a thing! I treat it as a tender bulb. Plant them as a corm in spring. They then bloom in waves from summer into autumn depending when you plant it and the weather. They can be lifted out of the ground and stored in a frost- free place over winter. If you garden in warm zones they will perennialize in the ground. They can be grown in containers that are then brought inside. Looks great rising up through hardy salvias, or catmint. Contrasts nicely with any flowering tobacco- Nicotiana, dahlias and zinnias.

Great pollinator plant for the summer garden - swallowtail butterflies and many other insects. This plant is found in the wild in the American prairies. Like many prairie plants it has really deep roots. I have not watered this and we have been in drought for weeks - luckily we just had some rain. Grows 8-12 feet tall with clusters of yellow daisy-like flowers. Silphium perfoliatum or compass plant or prairie cup plant. The two opposite leaves act as one as they clasp around the stem. Rainfall catches in the leaves and birds sit and drink from these mini birdbaths. When the seeds ripen I leave them on the plant and songbirds, especially finches devour the seeds when they arrive in groups - collective noun poetically named - a charm of goldfinches. The males are yellow and they bring that flash of yellow back to the top of the plant.

Fragrance in the flower garden is such a treat. Pink star-shaped flowers of nicotiana with sweet peas behind.

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