Garden Visiting In June - Part One

I've left my garden visit for June right till the last minute, it's been rather a hectic month what with one thing or another. Anyway, I thought I'd visit the gardens at Temple Newsam, a regular haunt of ours, but the road leading to it was closed when we got there. It turns out that the Race For Life was being held there today, so we had to think of an alternative garden to visit. In the end, we opted for the gardens at Golden Acre Park, and I'm so pleased we did.

We visit Golden Acre Park quite regularly as it's a lovely place for Archie to have a run in beautiful surroundings, but I have to say that we haven't really ever visited some parts of the gardens. We've walked round the beds set out in the park, but never taken the time to check out other areas, and we've been missing a treat.

This is the Bakehouse Border which is inspired by borders at Powys Castle. The key plants are Canna, Salvia, Penstemon, Aster and Helenium.

Golden Acre Park opened as a theme park in the 1930's and a miniature railway circled the whole of the lake travelling a distance of just over a mile. A small section of the railway was recreated in 2003 and the area has been planted in a naturalistic way, using cultivated grasses and perennials to give the impression of an abandoned railway line.

There are three national collections held at Golden Acre Park, Lilac, Hosta and Hemerocallis. They're displayed in a beautiful garden.

Some of the hostas are magnificent specimens, they're quite large.

Unfortunately, the slugs have been at some of them, yet others seem to have escaped unscathed.

The hemerocallis seem to be just getting going. A few were in flower but others only had buds waiting to open.

I love this tree trunk with a rose growing up it. Such a pretty feature.

Standard fuchsias with bedding plants potted up in containers makes this building more attractive.

A place we haven't explored before is the Blenheim Couryard.

As we walked through the entrance, there was a collection of pots housing lots of different plants.

In one of the borders to the side of the entrance was this salvia - Hot Lips. I used to have this plant myself but lost it one winter, it doesn't like the cold, or perhaps it's the wet it isn't so keen on.

 

In another of the borders is this rock garden.

On the upper level is a greenhouse, I wondered what it housed as there were plants trying to escape through the windows. I love that lavender border.

Inside the greenhouse is a kind of tropical display with a waterfall.

The fish were popping up for their breakfast, they were just being fed while we were there.

The water lily was just starting to bloom, I bet it will be stunning.

Another area we've never visited before is the Trial and Display Garden (a former trial site for Gardening Which?). There's all manner of planting styles here, a potager, containers and hanging baskets, wildflower, prairie and tropical style displays and the Dahlia and Chrysanthemum National Societies each have display plots within.

A beautiful hanging basket display, I haven't seen such a display before.

I'm not sure whether these were chilli or sweet pepper plants inside the greenhouse, but they were beginning to flower.

I loved this little seating area with a green roof.

A good crop of gooseberries. No sawfly here.

The National Chrysanthemum Society display plot. There's not much to see yet as the plants aren't in flower.

Each plant is carefully labelled.

The bottom half of this greenhouse houses tomatoes. There's plenty of fruit on the plants already.

The other half of the greenhouse is home to pelargoniums.

I love the idea of a stepover apple tree. A great way to grow fruit trees if there's lack of space or if an allotment site doesn't allow trees.

As we came out of the Trial and Display Garden, we came to this Limestone Rock Garden. It's the main outdoor display area for Golden Acre Park's large collection of alpines.

This is a Limestone Rockery. It's been built from water worn limestone and has been in Golden Acre Park for many years.

I had a wonderful time looking around these gardens today. I can't believe how many times we've visited this park in the past, yet never seen some of these areas before today, I'll be going back to explore them again soon.

Pop back tomorrow for Part Two of my visit.