Thursday 9 July 2015

Roundhay Park Gardens In July

I last visited the gardens at Roundhay Park in February 2014, you can read about that visit in my Garden Visiting In February post. If you look back at that post you will see that the gardens are quite bare at that time of year, it's a different story in July.

We started off in the Specialist Gardens and visited the Gardens Of The World. The first garden is The Monet Garden, recreating the central pathway running from Monet's garden gate to his house in Giverny. There wasn't much to see here in February but now the roses and clematis growing up the pergola are in flower and the borders have been planted with lots of varieties of bedding plants. This makes a wonderful entrance to the rest of the gardens.





The next garden you come to is The Alhambra Garden, a reproduction of the Patio Acequia, part of the palace of the Alhambra where the Moorish rulers of Spain spent their summers. It's lovely to see the borders filled with plants, it was very bare indeed when we visited last time. Agapanthus are planted in pots.




Leeds City Council's Chelsea Flower Show gardens are on show here in Roundhay Park. The 2008 garden entitled The Largest Room In The House won a silver gilt flora award. Talbot House in Poperinghe near Ypres in Belgium is where soldiers could go for rest and recuperation between 1915 and 1918 and this is based on the garden there.


I love the pairing of the salvia and eryngiums, they work so well together.


The Hesco Garden 2009 also won a silver gilt flora award. It highlights issues surrounding climate change and illustrates techniques we can use to manage flooding.


The geums look lovely with the hostas, but it's a shame the hostas have been nibbled.


Leeds City Council's first gold medal came from The Hesco Garden 2010. I remember this garden, with its seeping lock gates which are typically found on the Leeds-Liverpool canal, receiving lots of attention on the television coverage. This garden shows a snapshot of Leeds with its green spaces, woodland, wetland and floral meadow.


The planting here is much more natural.


The Hesco Garden 2011 also won a gold medal. The centrepiece here is the traditional mill which was seen in Yorkshire during the industrial revolution. It has a working water wheel which pumps water round the garden.


This garden contains lots of natural planting with water loving ferns and plants, and trees.


Just as we did when we visited Roundhay Park Gardens last time, we popped across the road to take a look at the Canal Gardens. The gardens were formed from a walled kitchen garden built around 1816. The canal, which is 350 by 34 feet, was added in 1833.



The problem with herbaceous borders is that they completely die back in winter. If you follow the link to my previous post about Roundhay Park Gardens you can see that there wasn't anything to see in the borders in February, but it's a different story now. The borders are completely full and look stunning.




The walls provide a fabulous backdrop to the plants.



Across the canal on the opposite side to the borders, bedding plants add a touch of colour.


The roses are now flowering inside the low box hedges, they look very pretty.


I can definitely recommend a visit to these gardens if you're in the area but I'm sure you can tell from these two posts that there's much more to see at this time of year than in winter so make it snappy.

22 comments:

  1. The gardens look fabulous, we have so few gardens around us, we would have to travel to NI or the Dublin area to get anything so lovely.

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    1. That's a shame. We're spoilt for choice where gardens are concerned, so many to choose from around us, which is nice.

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  2. AnonymousJuly 09, 2015

    A most enjoyable post with lots of lovely pictures.
    The only thing that I'm not really keen on is formal bedding plant displays which may be colourful but generally don't do much for wildlife. Flighty xx

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    1. I agree with what you say, and I think many councils are now aware of this and more natural planting is taking the place where formal bedding once was. I do think it's a good quick fix when a bit of colour is needed though.

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  3. The entrance if fabulous - there's just something about walking under an arch with gorgeous flowers and foliage running through it.

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    1. I like this entrance too and the best part is that it's a garden in itself. I like the archways too, they look much nicer covered in flowers than they did the last time we visited, they were rather bare then.

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  4. Gosh, the difference a few months make to a garden! I loved the The Hesco Garden, I really do love all things canal! A lovely post.xxx

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    1. There's such a difference between the two times we visited. The canal garden was a real showstopper at Chelsea, I'm pleased that the show gardens have been set up here so that the residents of Leeds can visit and see them.

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  5. Some beautiful parts that we haven't explored. There are just so many lovely places that deserve a visit and just not enough time.

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    1. You're right. We enjoy visiting these gardens as Archie can come too and then we take him for a run in the park. We stopped off at The White House for lunch on the way home, that's dog friendly too.

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  6. It looks a lovely space to visit, I'm off for a week soon & have planned a couple of garden visits x

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    1. It's a great place to visit, but definitely more to see in summer. Enjoy your week off, I shall look forward to reading about your garden visits.

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  7. What a lovely post Jo and your pictures look great. I love that water wheel ... great that it's still working. A great display of colour too from all the plants.

    What a lovely sunny day you had ... Summer is a very good time to get out and about.

    Have a lovely weekend - well it will soon be here !

    All the best Jan

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    1. I'm so pleased that the Chelsea show gardens have been brought back to Leeds and set up here so that we get to see them, they're well kept too. We were lucky with the weather, it's nice to visit gardens on a sunny day, I think it makes the plants zing when the sun's shining.

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  8. Roundhay Park Gardens are looking wonderful. Walking into The Monet Garden is a good start to the walk around each garden. Leeds City Council entries catch my eye at these televised programmes of the RHS Flower Shows. You're are fortunate to be able to see the prize winning gardens with interesting themes in one place and notice them maturing over time into the landscape on the site.

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    1. I think Leeds City Council have had some great entries at Chelsea and as you say, we're fortunate to get to see them here and watch them mature. They do choose some interesting themes, I like the ones which have links back to Leeds and Yorkshire.

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  9. The green gate looks awesome! I like water in the garden, so I have a plan to add watery patch at my garden. Thank you for sharing the great garden

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    1. I think water is a wonderful thing to have in the garden as it attracts so much wildlife. I have a tiny pond in my own garden but it's amazing just how much wildlife that small bit of water brings in.

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  10. Those gardens have so many water features! In my opinion, water adds a special something to a garden. The Alhambra Garden is really nice. I bet the temperature in Roundhay Park is nowhere near what it is in the Alhambra though!!

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    1. I'm of the same opinion where water in a garden is concerned. I really like the Alhambra Garden, I don't think my photos do it justice, there's fountain jets all the way up the rill which I couldn't quite capture, but it looks wonderful. Definitely not quite the same temperature though.

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  11. The Moorish Gardens look fabulous Jo and must be a real oasis on a hot sunny day. Many congratulations to you and Mick on your silver wedding! xxx

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    1. All the gardens are fabulous but seeing them in the sunshine certainly adds something to them. Thank you, it's hard to believe we've been married for 25 years in some respects and then I can't remember a time I wasn't married sometimes.

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