Part 2, Mark's Big Adventure: Coleton Fishacre Garden

11 Jul '08 7:32 am

Guess I jumped the gun and didn't wait for the last photo to load on the first half of this posting. Here, we'll follow the stream down the hill below the Walled garden on down to the sea.

There are many more gardens to show but I already have down loaded photos at Muddywellies site of the Winsford Walled Garden. We stayed with Mike and Aileen from Sunday June 29th for four days. (Tanya was gone on family business.) From here we also visited Rosemoor (also in Devon) as well as Glendurgan and Trebah gardens in Cornwall. Well all of this is already told at that site. So you can read about the Winsford Walled Garden at http://www.winsfordwalledgarden.com/snitz/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=577.

The last garden we saw was a private garden which won the national best garden in England award in 2007. This one is the product of 20 to 30 years of year round devotion by its makers Tony and Marie Newton. (No non-gardening partners in this relationship!) They call it the Four Season Garden and you'll see why if you see check out the first five photos at my flickr photostream starting with this one: http://flickr.com/photos/7224018@N06/2654438386/. Tony has opened his own flickr account and you can see many more and better pictures of their garden there: http://flickr.com/photos/fourseasonsgarden/ Marie has more recently loaded photos of their garden at Muddywellies' site for those of you with a connection too slow to deal with flickr. Here is where she made the first download of photos there: http://www.winsfordwalledgarden.com/snitz/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=564

Well I'd say that's enough butt-time for one day. Time to get outside!

11 Jul '08 8:22 am

... are quite a brave choice. The English pull it off very well. I am sorely tempted but our strong summer light tends to make en mass plantings of red a bit hard on the eyes. I am wondering if I could fit a rill into my garden somewhere - perhaps through the roses or past the clothes line?!

So far so good Mark - keep it coming!! Very Happy

12 Jul '08 4:56 pm

Tree ferns are loooovely, Mark. I don't grow any cos I don't have the rainfall, and there's nothing sadder than a frizzled tree fern struggling in the blazing sun. Thank you so much for posting such inspiring photographs - everything looks so green! Absolutely beautiful. Am looking forward to your version of Rosemoor, cos I went there some years ago, pre-digital camera, clicked away merrily thinking I was taking loads of photographs. Only the film wasn't wound on properly.

I guess one should be able to remember and visualise the important things from a garden visit. But I got lazy clicking that camera and stopped concentrating. Anyway, I can't remember much at all about Rosemoor, except seeing a medium sized Eucalyptus tree and a green cordyline, and getting all Australasian-homesick.

13 Jul '08 8:19 pm

Wonderful photos Mark.

Moosey, I'm so sorry about your non-existent photos! We did that once too, but only on a visit to the coast where we've been many times. Hubby and I had a different problem when we visited New Zealand about twenty years ago. We were walking back from a waterfall at Milford Sound (Sutherland Falls?) and hubby mentioned that his camera seemed slow so I took a picture and agreed it was slow. After peering at it for a few moments he realised he had somehow bumped the setting. As we had a boat to catch we didn't have time to go back and retake the photos. At least we saw the water. There's a waterfall in South Australia that I've been to twice, many years apart, and it managed to be dry both times! It's called Morialta Falls and "morialta" means ever-flowing. Laughing

26 Jul '08 9:05 am

Oh Mark, how wonderful that we can share this great trip through your photos. Of course, I am beginning to feel slightly embarrased to be crowing about my own pitiful garden efforts in light of these monumental gardens. How wonderful for you and Lia to have this experience!

26 Jul '08 9:38 am

but I've just had to put these gardens in another category, you know, the category of gardens that get made by a limitless army of gardeners and deep pockets. Honestly, the garden at Hidcote which so many people rave about contains too many large immaculate lawns surrounded by perfect hedges. It is almost as though Mr. Johnson ran out of ideas.

I think a garden which represents one (or two) peoples' vision and what they choose given too little space or budget to have everything is a pretty interesting category to be in. It's certainly one I can relate to better than I can these wonderland gardens. Nonetheless, why not enjoy them too for what they are? There just isn't any good reason to compare gardens in these different categories.

Heck, you and Jack and Moosey and Kerole and Dixie too (I think) are in a different category than myself spacewise. You guys are up against the challenge of how far you are able to extend your efforts given that the land goes on beyond what you can hope to do personally.

Gordon has what many gardeners have, a space much more limited in physical size than his considerable vision and aspirations. The upside for those in this category is that they can hope to inhabit a finished feeling (albeit not fully mature) space in one season.

I'm somewhere inbetween with my little/big quarter of an acre. I appreciate having room to try new things but feel like I've already neared the limit of how hard I want to work at it. Plus I like approaching the garden's design in an inspired way. The last thing I want to do is sit down with pencil and paper and figure out some way or other to fill in all the space. Of course, extending the garden would mean a whole lot less explaining at parties where people must traverse the side yard to get to my garden in the back, but I think I will just wait until the garden tells me what the sideyard wants to be. Being done is vastly overrated and turns the garden into an object. I think I prefer being "on the way". You gotta enjoy the journey.

27 Jul '08 9:35 am

I somehow missed this story until now.Mark-you have summed up the philisophical gardener's story so well in your last posting.I often wish my garden was smaller-it was this size when we came here,and it is impossible to make smaller because of the setting of the house.I feel i would sooner have a smaller space and have it better organised and tidier and lusher etc.(I get gloomy in Winter hence my whinging)
I do love your green foliage photos-I have never seen such a glorious tree fern as the one in your photo.
Dixie.

27 Jul '08 10:19 am

Yep, I agree Mark. Those of us with bigger plots never really get a sense of being finished. The bigger the garden the quicker it gets away on you. Miss a week or two of lawn mowing and watch out - it becomes hard to tell lawn areas from surrounding paddocks! Also, one plant is never enough - it gets lost in a pepper pot of singular plants. You have to get dozens of the one thing to get a good effect - mass planting works well. My Mum has a large 1/4 acre of immaculate, well tended gardens. She is forever giving me bits of this and bits of that (as gardeners do) but I usually have to grow them on in pots first so they don't get lost and forgotten in the wilderness here! I never say no to gifted bits of plants though - that's how gardens grow. Funny how the most law abiding citizen can be a cleptomaniac gardener - I've been known to jump out of the car and snip off bits of plants growing out of people's front gardens. Exclamation

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27 Jul '08 11:00 am

Your secret is safe with me, Kerole. I too have managed to get some bits of plant material to grow from plants that seemed to have more than they needed. I'll bet you don't mind sharing bits either. Heck, if anyone expresses interest in certain plants I can usually offer them a cutting already rooted and potted.

I've also become more forth coming in exressing interest in friend's plants just in case they wanted to bring me something and weren't sure what I'd like. Seems the least I could do really. Recently a friend who doesn't live too far away showed a photo on line of a red and black flowered Pelargonium. In addition to remarking on what a beauty it was, I also reminded him of the importance of pinching it back to get a good shape and how I'd be willing to take any extra bits off his hands. Pushy? Hopefully just helpful.

I wonder if anyone has just the right size garden Dixie? I'm pretty close I think. With time I might yet grow into this one. One idea we had coming away from Great Dixter is to make the lawn between the fruit trees in the side yard into a meadow garden for the spring with the intention of mowing it each summer (but not watering it) and even using it for extra parking on occasion.

That really only leaves the area where the old vegetable garden used to be. Here I'd like to see some space around just a few choice plants, a good deal of stone and a water feature. I might just make it yet. Of course I still want to turn the little garden shed into a guest cottage/studio and I need to cut windows into my office area looking out onto my garden. Mmmm .. the garden is starting to seem pretty big again.

28 Jul '08 8:03 am

Of course you are right, Mark, about our gardens being in a different category. I often wonder what I could do if I had an unlimited amount of funds to dedicate to the garden. I would have lots of stone for sure. I have always love the idea of a walled garden.
Your comment about the side yard proves that a large garden can provide inspiration for even a small one. I like your idea of a dual use space.

Since my house sits in the middle of my property and is surrounded by paddocks I had a rather small side yard on the southwest side that was just a very hot dry wasteland of grass when we first moved here. This became my Meditation Garden. All I did was enclose it with tall fencing and an interesting gateway to the front garden, plant some beds around the perimeter, and a small tree in the center. It became a little secret garden, hiding behind the potager.

Part 2, Mark's Big Adventure: Coleton Fishacre Garden

Part 2, Mark's Big Adventure: Coleton Fishacre Garden

Red Borders...

Rosemoor...

Now these are gardens!

I know what you mean Faith

garden stories

The 'finished' feeling

Gardens large or small can still be inspiring.