In the garden


The garden looked so different after a week away. A week's growth is so dramatic at this time of year!


The raised vegetable beds are beginning to fill up with home grown produce. However,there is always room for improvement and we shall try a autumn sowing of broad beans this year.Our broad bean plants still look so small and forlorn!


There is also very little to show in the cutting garden at the moment!


Our first rose opened while we were away this is a David Austin rose called Darcy Bussell. I bought it having after seeing an inspirational picture on Pinterest. I love the colour - it is more burgundy than red.


It is always good to be inspired by others and so we visited a local garden last weekend that was opened under the National Garden Scheme. (NGS.) 


This garden in the grounds of a pre Geogian mansion in Beaminster, was fantastic and the formal areas were beautiful and well designed.



However it was the small wall garden that stole my heart and  had me pointing the camera in all directions! One of our local magazines described the potager garden as providing the 'oh ah' factor for flower freaks! They weren't wrong, I am proud of being a flower freak!



Flowers,fruit and vegetables were mixed together in mad profusion!


 Many of the plants have been planted to encourage the bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects to visit.


This purple leaf shrub Physocarpus opulifolius Ninebark  ‘Diabolo’  was popular with the butterflies. Has anyone else  planted this in their garden?




I loved this combination of the purple and blue of the Alluims and cat mint,


and the lovely roses with the contrast of different colours of the foliage.


Even the chimney of a redundant milking factory adds to the scene.


  Daisies were spilling out from many of the borders and the wooden water barrels were so much nicer than the plastic ones!


The borders were so full  and there are still many plants to flower.


There was a large area of containers too.


 and colour, colour everywhere!


As if this wasn't enough to 'oh and ah' over it is clear in the more formal parts of the garden to see that someone with an artistic eye lives here. (This chair reminded me of your red gate Freda!)


This is also home to furniture designer  John Makepeace we were also lucky to view some of the furniture he has  designed (click here to see designs.) What a shame there is none in my price range, still at least I can take some good ideas home from his wife's potager garden! I've just now got to sneak even more flowers amongst our vegetable! Somehow I think my husband would notice!


Sarah x

The garden is open under the NGS once a month during the summer see here.


Comments

  1. Gorgeous. All that a garden should be.

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  2. Lovely garden photos - I can't get enough of gardening at this time of the year either, the garden changes each and every day and each day is full of hope and inspiration. We visited Mottisfont last week - absolutely delicious if can get to go - it holds the national collection of old roses. Our garden is teeny, tiny but I confess to buying a rose.......
    Best wishes
    Jenny

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    1. Hi Jenny, We visited Mottisfont two years ago and featured it here it was so wonderful the smell and so many roses. We really need to return to enjoy it again! Sarah x

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  3. Your garden looks beautiful Sarah! I love the raised beds! It's something I'd love to have as well but I think our garden is too shady and even raised beds wouldn't change anything to that, even if I would fill them with good soil. A cutting garden and vegetable garden must be so wonderful to have.

    Love the garden you visited as well. I love the loose planting of everything and especially the roses combined with other plants. Great colour mixture. Such a joyful garden!

    Marian

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  4. Hi Sarah, everything is growing really fast at the moment, if you leave it for a few days the weeds can take over. But it's lovely to see the flowers appearing. I love visiting NGS gardens too, I always come back with some ideas for our own garden. Yesterday I was planting flowers amongst the vegetables at the allotment. I think they look really good planted that way and they encourage the pollinators too.

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  5. What a gorgeous garden and I understand why you loved the potager so much - me too! I planted Physocarpus Diabolo in my garden a few years ago and it really earns its keep. At the moment the flowers are a brick red colour, they've darkened from creamy/pinky white over the last six weeks or so, and they're contrasting beautifully with Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' and clematis. It looks good in the winter too. Your cutting garden is a fantastic space. Have you sown any biennials for next year yet?

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    1. I was glad to read your experiences with Physocarpus Diabolo as we were very taken with it and with your comments it sounds a good purchase. We used to have a berberis that gave the same leaf colour but I always disliked the thorns that accompanied it. Sarah x

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  6. What a treat of a garden visit Sarah! Thank you for sharing it, I feel I was with you, and yes red and green are so striking whether chair or gate.....

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  7. Wow, what an amazing garden, I wish mine looked like that! Absolutely gorgeous. Yours is looking beautiful as well, and very neat. I'm in love with your greenhouse and lovely raised beds. It's nice to see Darcy Bussell in flower, I bought her for my other half's sister-in-law a year or two ago, so it's been good to see how pretty she is. Really fantastic photos, I've scrolled through them four times! Wonderful. CJ xx

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    1. I'm glad you enjoyed it - 4 times is quite a number! We went to another amazing garden today so I have some more delights to show soon! Sarah x

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  8. Hi Sarah, I love visiting gardens too even though I'm not much of a gardener myself! Your garden is looking lovely! I especially like the raised beds and the green house in the back! We visited RHS Rosemoor when we were in Devon and I have many photos to share in a blog in a few weeks when I've sorted out the photos! Happy gardening! x

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  9. I'll look forward to seeing Rosemoor again we went there in the spring and copied some of their ideas for our rose border. It will be good to see it again in a different season. Sarah x

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  10. Both your garden and the one you visited are fabulous!!!! I love flowers too!! xx

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  11. So beautiful Sarah! Thank you for the visit!

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  12. Hi Sarah,

    How beautiful your garden is growing and love how everything looks so green and lush. Your new rose is a beauty and you must be happy with the pretty colour. Glad you were able to get some inspiration from the lovely gardens you visited.
    Hope you are enjoying the weekend
    hugs
    Carolyn

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  13. OH SARAH! The beat of my heart, can you hear it all the way over in England? This is enchanting! The potager, the raised beds, the cute little green cottage....the rose!

    We too were away in Carmel California, being pulled away to the sea and cottages and gardens. When we came home on Friday, we found our garden RIFE with life and yesterday, I clipped and edged and planted pots. Everything is up to scratch now! We just need to stake our climbing roses, that are also a gorgeous, deep red!

    Enjoy your day and have many more OH and AH moments! Anita

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  14. Your garden and the one you visited are both wonderful! Isn't this such a great time of the year, with so many different things blooming, and an abundance of vegetables to pick from the garden? :-)

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  15. Your garden is looking lovely.. and that garden you visited is great.. definitely got the 'ooh & ahh' factor :o)

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  16. Hey Sarah,
    Well considering you only moved to your new home recently, you've done a grand job so far. You and your husband are obviously seasoned gardeners. The garden you visited is the kind I love the most; seemingly riotous and bed head, but with a place for everything. I have taken note of the shrub you mentioned. I have a newly created border at the bottom of our garden. It is very wide, and I think that would do very nicely there.
    Leanne xx

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  17. Love the colour of that 'Darcy Bussell'. The gardens you visited looked lovely too, so interesting to see your pictures and read about it... and hey your garden looks good too!

    Thanks for sharing.

    All the best Jan

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  18. These pictures make me embarrassed that I showed of my garden for the Garden Party. Wow! Wow! Wow! was all I could say when I saw your pictures.

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  19. Loads of inspiration here Sarah. What gorgeous gardens (yours and the one you visited). I'm quite taken with the Physocarpus. Will have to check that out. Thanks for lovely post. Sam x

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  20. How lovely. My pots are in flowering now, my flowers seem to be mostly pink and purple, I should get some yellow and white!

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  21. You visited some beautiful gardens Sarah! Several gardens were open in Rotterdam a weekend ago, but unfortunately I did not have time to visit. Like you I always enjoy it.

    Your garden looks beautiful too. Looking forward to see everything grow!

    Have a good week!

    Madelief x

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  22. That is a very full garden you visited! They obviously planted with careful planning and design. Everything looks so nice next to its neighbors. Love the flowers/fruits/vegetables together! Your garden looks great, too! What a wonderful greenhouse and raised beds you have.

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  23. That garden is truly lovely, but then so is yours! You are ahead of me in the veggie growing stakes. I started late this year and haven't really got into it. I have interspersed blooms though. I wanted to prettify it a bit, as well as attract more pollinators. Will do more of that next year too, providing the pests (deer now added to the list) will leave it alone.

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  24. Oh my, I want to live in that potager garden! I would recommend sowing broad beans in autumn as I do it and we are now picking the beans. Some years when it is really cold, I have lost all the plants, but then you still have the chance to sow again or keep some of the autumn sown plants in the greenhouse as a back up. You veg garden is so neat and tidy! Best wishes, Paula x

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  25. What a wonderful day out you had! I can see how inspired you were by the photos you took - there's certainly plenty of planting inspiration there! I planted my broad beans out as small plants, a bit later than planned. They've shot up in the past month but there's no beans to pick yet so, like you, I think I might try some autumn plantings this year. Caro xx

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  26. The "mad profusion" kind of gardens you shared photos of are what I hope to grow one day. So far my plants are entirely too polite and standoffish not willing to reach out and touch each other. Now my weeds on the other hand are entirely too friendly! Thanks for posting, Sarah xx

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