Ooh, I love Plas Cadnant too @Bluejayway . I didn't manage to get there on my North Wales visits this year but last summer we stayed in one of the cottages for a week (it's in some of your photos).
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
@JennyJ It was our first visit there and we were amazed at how fab it is! We were on a day trip by coach so only had a couple of hours to look around but we definitely want to go again.
Visit to Hever Castle yesterday. It's local to us and allows dogs, if you go outside of the weekends and school holidays it's relatively quiet, with extensive grounds there's plenty of space to explore. We like the mix of formal gardens and lake/ woodland areas l.
Plas Brondanw in Snowdonia (Eryri) - Clough Williams-Ellis's family home and personal project. Loved the whimsical classicism, intricately aligned axial views, and the wonderful outlook tower folly up on a crag above the garden.
These fern borders are a great idea. The hornbeam hedge is ornamented with Irish yew and Griselinia balls.
The outlook tower.
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour".
Another day we visited Plas Yn Rhiw near Aberdaron, didn't take too many pictures (to be honest I just stuck my head inside to see if it was worth the entrance fee) but I liked this clipped oak dome.
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour".
Nice to see photos of Hever Castle @scroggin - I used to visit regularly when I lived in Kent. I visited Picton Gardens/Old Court Nurseries near Malvern last week. Comparatively small garden but packed with many different types of plants. They hold a national collection of michaelmas daisies and have extensive snowdrop and fern collections. Lovely narrow apple hedge.
Maybe not one for the garden purists but a visit to Castlefield Viaduct is a must for anyone in Manchester city centre with an hour to spare. Described by the National Trust (who now look after it) as a "Striking Victorian-era steel viaduct, hoping to become a green ‘sky garden’ in the heart of historic Manchester".
We have wandered around the Castlefield area many times, blissfully unaware that sharing the space above our heads were not only active train tracks and tram tracks but also this wonderful space, until we saw it featured on the local BBC evening news.
But there are no pretensions of it being 'a garden' - more just a green space, an oasis in a busy city. Plus it's free to enter, even without NT membership.
This first image shows the scene at the entrance with the huge Beetham Tower in the background.
Amazingly the original site had laid untouched since 1969. This is what it would have looked like. (This is a yet-to-be-developed section.)
This is the first section beyond the entrance showing what can be done with minimal intervention. Much of the beds either side have been left to native flora, just tidied occasionally with a few ornamentals dotted here and there.
Further on there are some flower beds, sympathetically raised up behind rusty metal retainers. I'm sure there would be many more flowers in peak season.
And of course this wonderful prostrate plaque, again in rusty metal, tells the story.
What a day we had! Eating, drinking, shopping, sight-seeing. Saw blatant shoplifting in action and the resulting swoop by the store detectives. Then our train was delayed whilst the transport police handcuffed and forcibly removed the passenger in the seat in front of ours. Talk about entertainment!
Clay soil - Cheshire/Derbyshire border. I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful
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When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
These fern borders are a great idea. The hornbeam hedge is ornamented with Irish yew and Griselinia balls.
The outlook tower.
We have wandered around the Castlefield area many times, blissfully unaware that sharing the space above our heads were not only active train tracks and tram tracks but also this wonderful space, until we saw it featured on the local BBC evening news.
But there are no pretensions of it being 'a garden' - more just a green space, an oasis in a busy city. Plus it's free to enter, even without NT membership.
This first image shows the scene at the entrance with the huge Beetham Tower in the background.
Amazingly the original site had laid untouched since 1969. This is what it would have looked like. (This is a yet-to-be-developed section.)
This is the first section beyond the entrance showing what can be done with minimal intervention. Much of the beds either side have been left to native flora, just tidied occasionally with a few ornamentals dotted here and there.
Further on there are some flower beds, sympathetically raised up behind rusty metal retainers. I'm sure there would be many more flowers in peak season.
And of course this wonderful prostrate plaque, again in rusty metal, tells the story.
What a day we had! Eating, drinking, shopping, sight-seeing. Saw blatant shoplifting in action and the resulting swoop by the store detectives. Then our train was delayed whilst the transport police handcuffed and forcibly removed the passenger in the seat in front of ours. Talk about entertainment!
I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful
Castlefield Viaduct | Manchester | National Trust
I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful