Saturday, May 01, 2010

Spetchley Gardens

A trip to see my father combined with a glorious weekend a couple of weeks ago meant that we made the most of Saturday afternoon with a visit to Spetchley gardens, just outside Worcester.
As with my recent trip to the Dorothy Clive gardens, there will be more flowering in a few weeks time, but it was interesting to stroll round somewhere so completely different form the Dorothy Clive gardens.

The gardens have four herbaceous borders (imaginatively named North, South, East and West) surrounding the walls of the kitchen garden. The rusted gateway invites you into the borders, towards the kitchen garden.

Herbaceous perennials were emerging from their winter slumbers, such as this peony.


The trilliums were looking good in the sunshine. I hope to see plenty more of these at the Malvern Spring Garden Show next week.

The copse area is more arboretum than copse, with borders planted with woodland flowers currently at their peak before the tree leaves fully emerge. Below is a beautifully pretty Anemonella thalictroides.

The name 'Garden Pool' doesn't really do justice to the lake which the lawn sweeps down to. At the side of an inlet into the pool, a swamp cypress impressively shows off its knobbly 'knees' or pneumatophores - structures which help it get oxygen down to its waterlogged roots. You can see a swamp cypress's knobbly knees at Tatton Park too.

At this time of year, the magnolias in the gardens are looking gorgeous, such as 'Leonard Messel' below.
Growing below many of the trees are swathes of primroses and of cyclamen - well worth a closer inspection.
The walled kitchen garden looks like it has been neglected for a while (perhaps I'm unfairly comparing it with Tatton's garden), but you can see that it has some history to it - the photo below is of some rather venerable looking fruit trees.

And to continue my obsession this year with greenhouses, below is Spetchley's vinery (sadly out of bounds for closer inspection).


SomeBeans wants a Cedar of Lebanon. I've told him that if we live in a house that fits in with the scale of this tree then by all means he can have one. Or two. And the monkey puzzle trees he hankers after. I think I've found a house which suits the scale of the cedar...

6 comments:

Rosie@leavesnbloom said...

As the saying goes you learn something different every day - I never knew about pneumatophores until I saw them mentioned here - how fascinating - certainly something of a curiosity.

Hope you have a great time at Malvern - I am not allowed to take annual leave during May as its high gardening season and its "every hand on deck" so I'll look forward to your update from meeting all the bloggers.

Unknown said...

I think if you can obtain that house to offset the size of the Cedar, you should also get your own Vinery.....

Arabella Sock said...

I would so like a garden that could take even a 'small' tree. I'm not sure what the definition of small is in the tree world but when you look at the size they might grow to when mature it is often over 30ft.

Spetchely looks lovely.

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Northern Shade said...

Those are beautiful grounds to visit. I love the little cyclamens growing under the flowering trees. The trilliums look great combined with the blue flowers.

Rothschild Orchid said...

Fab post! I loved your tour of the gardens. That Anemonella is just so pretty and I could really sit by the lake and contemplate for an hour or two.

Great photography as always,

RO xx