Garden Portrait: a water garden

OCTOBER is the month to share your favourite gardens.

(This month share with us what is special about your favourite garden. Why do you like it? When is it at its best? And how do we get there. Of course you may wish to share your own garden in which case unless you open it to the public, keep the actual location private. )

My next showcase garden is in the north-east of England, in the fabulous county of Northumberland. If you have never been to this part of the UK then you are missing a trick. Combine the beaches and castles along the coast with the sublime countryside and history of Hadrian’s Wall and you will have a wonderful holiday. A place I didn’t manage to visit on my holiday in the north some years ago was Alnwick. Famous for its castle and gardens and as we were going to be driving right past the town on the way to Edinburgh on the A1, it seemed daft not to stop over. So we did. Unfortunately this was when the weather decided to change. From hot and humid days with bright sunshine to dull, grey and misty. And the castle was closed for filming.  Not knowing whether we would return to this part of the country again we took our chances and headed to the garden after spending a couple of hours avoiding the rain by perusing the books in the equally famous Barter Books – a second-hand book store and café in a former railway station. More of that on Travel Words eventually.

On entering the garden you are automatically confronted by the water feature. Cascades lead up to a walled garden and every 15 minutes the fountains erupt. You can see from the background how misty it was, but fortunately for us the light rain stopped after half an hour so the camera could come out. Although it was September we headed for the rose garden, not expecting much, but we were pleasantly surprised.

A beautiful, slightly odd (fox and monkeys?) sculpture sits under a lovely metal arbour covered with climbing roses.

Smarty

Just Joey

Jude the Obscure

Smarty

The Alnwick Rose

Sally Holmes

The roses were covered in rain drops, but most of them held their heads high.

And we came across the beautiful gate that I have used as the header image. Climbing roses complete with thorns and buds and lovely glass irises at the base. Don’t you want one like this? I know I do.

Heading up the cascades, peeling off sideways every now and then to discover other fountains, raindrops and views, we finally reached the Ornamental walled garden.

Again I wasn’t expecting to see much in the way of colour, but I was very mistaken. All the colours of the rainbow – and more – were present. Pinks, purples, reds, oranges, yellows, blues, whites and greens. The garden is laid out formally with a centre block where there is a pond crossed by a rill which leads to two other smaller ponds and fountains. The rest of the garden is laid out in beds, often bordered by Box, with pleached trees, obelisks, pergolas and sculptured slate pots adding height.

Decisions!

Plenty of colour and plenty of benches too. Which was good because it took a long time to explore this part of the garden. Around every corner was a surprise and pops of colour beckoned.

A Fairytale blue door

Helenium

Anemone ‘Prinz Heinrich’

Deep Secret

Frog Prince

Slate sculptured vase

Scabiosa Caucasia ‘Clive Greaves’

Cimicifuga simplex ‘Brunette’

Scabiosa Caucasia ‘Clive Greaves’

Quirky little sculptures from fairy tales are hidden in the planting. But the fairy tale attic was closed.

The Fairy Entrance

Fuchsia’s drip over the pathways

Agapanthus

Echinaceae

Hemerocallis ‘Sammy Russell’

Raindrops on Delphiniums

Geranium phaeum ‘Samabor’ not in flower

And a final look at the Cascades

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