In a vase on Monday -fishing for compliments!

Last Wednesday I received an email from Erin at Floret flowers about her imminent book launch.

And, whilst I know it will never happen, I do still hanker after a new life as an incredibly successful Flower Farmer (you know, the sort who wafts through fields of blooms on sunny days – apparently like Erin – not the sort who regularly gets up before dawn and has permanently grubby nails, I have those already).  So, I went onto a well known site I really should embargo and pre-ordered said book. Whilst there, I found myself clicking on all sorts of related tomes and another one fell into my digital basket, “The Flower Workshop” by Ariella Chezar.

It arrived on Saturday and absolutely made my morning.  After a chilly, blustery dog walk, I snuggled down with coffee and book and was in flowery heaven until the OH returned from golf and the usual chaos ensued.

Consequently I’ve been inspired to return to IaVoM, despite a paucity of blooms to pick from (and certainly not the peachiest, gorgeousist blooms my new friend Ariella had to play with).

So here it it is, a play on green and white, with a sacrifice of a few Hellebore blooms which weren’t getting their due attention in the garden.  The Hellebores are supported by new Cerinthe major purpurescens growth, similar hued Euphorbia myrsinites and then bulked out with Viburnum tinus.

I was trying to do one of those ‘sweeps’ from high right to low left, but not sure I exactly achieved that.

Ariella is a big fan of the ‘compote’ – what she calls a footed wide vase.  I do have one of those but was lacking either chicken wire or a ‘frog’ and floral putty, so I made do with my lovely sister-bought Orla Keily vase, but I think it made ‘sweeping’ a little trickier.

And why the title?  Well, look what also got placed in the hall this week:

With thanks to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden who hosts this lovely meme.

In a vase on Monday – pretty in pink!

Today’s vase is a celebration of my daughter’s homecoming (as well as her 19th birthday in July, which, for the first time, she celebrated without me).

She finished her first year at uni in June, and was then home for less than 24 hours before flying to America to work in a holiday camp and then travel.  It’s so lovely to have her home, although the chaos that surrounds her is rather less welcome!

After the gorgeous display of Zinnias at West Dean I’m chuffed to be able to show off a couple of mine.  These are both supposed to be Zinnia elegans ‘Luminosa’ as the other one I grew was ‘Queen Red Lime’ which is a lot greener, but is yet to flower.

To these I added the lovely smelling roses Rosa ‘Jacques Cartier,’ (with Euphorbia myrsinites behind)

Diascia personata,

and the same two white species from last week, Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Fizzy White’

and Ammi visnaga ‘Green Mist’.

With thanks to Cathy who hosts this lovely meme.

Whistlestop Hyde Hall

Following our Beth Chatto visit on Saturday we made a whistlestop visit to the RHS garden at Hyde Hall.  Fortuitously, one of our class mates has volunteered there for more than a year, and kindly offered to give us a private tour.

Hyde Hall is another garden I’ve visited just once before, again, over twenty years ago, and I’ve been entertained with both this visit and Beth Chatto’s as to how little I’d remembered.

One thing I’d definitely forgotten at Hyde Hall was the ‘borrowed landscapes’. Unlike say,  Wisley, where the only vistas are within the garden, at Hyde Hall there are broad, expansive views over the surrounding Essex countryside.

Because of our assignment topic, our focus was the Dry Garden, but getting there (and back) we managed to glimpse most of the garden’s 360 acres.

Firstly we walked up through the Australia and New Zealand garden, filled with grasses, Phormiums, Pittosporums and tree ferns.

The Pittosporum, just seen in the right hand corner above, P. tenuifolium ‘Tom Thumb’ was repeated throughout this area and all were showing zingy new green growth above the deep burgundy.

On to the Dry Garden, where the ‘gravel’ mulch is a significantly larger grade to Beth Chatto’s, and gives a very different effect.

There were also many plants in common with Beth Chatto’s, including this attractive Geranium malviflorum –  I like the way the flowers are held proud of the foliage –

and Libertia peregrinans ‘Gold Leaf,’ here with Euphorbia myrsinites.

There was a broad range of silver foliage plants including this soft and woolly Salvia argentea

contrasting with the fierce, spiky Galactites tomentosa.

These glaucous leaves look like a scaled down Melianthus major, but are in fact the leaves of Sanguisorba canadensis and only about a foot tall.

and I love the curls and furls of this sea kale.

As well as foliage there were some diminutive bursts of colour, here an Erigeron aureus ‘Canary Bird’

and this firey Helianthemum ‘Henfield Brilliant’

Leaving the Dry Garden we walked through the Rose Garden and Herbaceous Borders, but it was, of course, too early for any real interest.

At the far extreme of the garden we also saw the area of the new ‘Global Growth Vegetable Garden’, currently under construction.  We looked down from above at the ‘Big Sky Meadow’ where a three year project in conjunction with James Hitchmough of the University of Sheffield is developing a massive area of meadow planting.  Whilst it’s an ambitious project which will look stunning once (if?) successful, at the moment it’s clearly early days and there’s little to see.

Making our way back to the entrance, I came across this gorgeous Erysimum ‘Red Jep’. What a colour!

And lastly, the Modern Country Garden and then the Cottage Garden and we were back at the start.

So thanks to Hyde Hall, clearly you haven’t stood still in the last 20 years, and thanks also to Clive for being our tour guide.