hauser and wirth – Gardens. Travel. Life.

Posted on August 2, 2018April 26, 2020 by happyretiredblog · 4 Comments

Somerset – Weeds and a Piet Oudolf garden.

Well. I’m not here or there. But I’m Back in Somerset. But do you know what? It would have been quicker to fly to Spain. I thought travelling on a Monday mid morning would be fine. Massive fail. Getting out of London was bad enough. Not finding a parking space at Fleet Services for a comfort stop disturbing. The final irritant. Stonehenge. 40 minutes to get from the roundabout past the Tourist attraction. Yes. I was in awe of it when I first started driving past it 26 years ago. Twice a week. But even the sight of ancient monuments can wear thin. Trust me. Sitting in that queue knowing everyone will slow down to look. Take photos. Is irritating. I have been one of those people. But not now. Thankfully a toilet stop at Common farm with tea and cake was possible 15 minutes before home. Oh. A toilet stop and then tea and cake. In case you were wondering.

Top tip. Don’t neglect a garden for three months when there has been rain. Heatwave. Rain. Sun. It’s no joke. It’s an embarrassment. My national collections of both ground elder and bindweed are magnificent. Truly magnificent. Why can’t weeds be like flowers. Struggle a bit now and then. Get eaten by snails. Slugs. I took one look and sat down.

I had to make a start. And make a start I did. I was thankful for the rain on Monday as it meant weeding was a little easier. My idea was to weed. Pile it up and let it dry a bit so it would fit better into the dumpy bags to take to the dump. There is too much for the compost heap and another long story about our compost heap and bonfires. I won’t bore you with that one. So plan A. Weed. Dry. Bag. Ian arrives on Thursday evening and he will need something to do I thought. So the garden has lots of small piles of weeds and stuff.

I then get an email on Tuesday late am. There is a viewing booked for weds. So that made plan A inoperable. So plan B. Go to the Walled garden at Mells for lunch to contemplate Plan C. Which I did. Are you keeping up?

So Plan C. Tidy the area closest to the house. Take bags to the dump. Shower. At home. Not the dump. Get out of house and find something to do for Wednesday morning. Which I did and more of later.

The garden wasn’t all bad. There were still some flashes of loveliness. Hidden largely under bindweed but once removed were in good enough shape for the odd photo or two. I’m showing you these now as the ones I took later and not in our garden are colourful and plentiful. You’ll get there soon enough. Trust me.

We didn’t prune the apples and plum trees last year. Yes Sarah Venn. It was two years ago we did the apples with you cracking the whip. Time flies. There has been tremendous growth spurts this year on them all. The plums will need a bit of a severe prune. The apples a bit of shaping and thinning. Yes. I know that there are different timings for them.

No matter how ripe they are I guarantee Ian will pick these apples this weekend.

We have grapes. Chateau Pitcombe. Not very sweet and quite small but they will make a fair bit of grape and rosemary jelly. Tasty on lamb. Or with cheese. I made it two years ago and it was pretty delicious.

So where could I escape to on Wednesday. With my camera. To be fair it wasn’t a hard decision for me at this time of the year. For two reasons. It had both gardens and an exhibition. Yes. Hauser & Wirth Somerset. Less than a 10 minute drive from the cottage. Unless you get stuck behind a tractor. A new exhibition and the garden in a mix of full colour and the start ~ earlyish of the faded glory of some of the plants. I like the garden at this time of the year. And in Autumn. To be honest, In previous years it hasn’t done anything for me in winter or Spring. But I’ve seen the Piet Oudolf movie – 5 seasons. Which is wonderful. If you haven’t you should. It may have been that the man himself was sat behind me at the screening ( though it took Ian to tell me) but it’s a fascinating insight to the gardens of Piet Oudolf.

You’ll need sunglasses for the colours in the flower beds at this time of year. Four years on from the original planting the beds are full to bursting. The colours always amaze me and the planting is intense.

If this is what drought tolerant is, then in Spain I’m making some mistakes. None of the photographs have filters except the selfie obviously. You wouldn’t want to see me non air brushed. Trust me. Even I don’t like looking at unedited pictures of me. I’ve done nothing with the colours in the plant photographs. They are as I have taken them. Snap happy.

The colour is amazing. An artists palette. If I have one criticism. I’d have loved to have had an opening in the Radic pavilion looking down the garden where you could view the planting from above. It would have given a great perspective on the colours and the planting if you were able to see into the centre of the beds. And the scale of the meadow.

Now is a great time to see the planting. Some are already starting to go over. But I’m staggered at how well everything is holding up. The ground around this bit of Bruton is heavy clay. You can see the cracks in the garden as you walk through. It’s so dry.

The Radic pavilion was originally in London at the Serpentine Gallery and is a pretty futuristic. Sitting at the edge of the Oudolf meadow it is a striking standout piece from whatever angle you view it. But …….. It would have been good to have that viewing spot. Just for pictures! More pictures. But it’s a piece of art in itself and you wouldn’t cut a piece out just to satisfy the whims of one taking photographs. Would you?

I could go on and on. And add more and more pictures. I was a happy snapper but I won’t. Except for the bee. To bee or not to bee. Interesting to see what plants were the attractors for the bees. What I didn’t see was an abundance of butterflies. Bees yes. Butterflies no.

So it’s back to my garden tomorrow. Another day in Paradise. Amongst the weeds. Dreaming of the colours of an Oudolf garden. A large meadow with a pavilion at the end. Dream on Andrew and buy another lottery ticket.

Posted on April 29, 2017April 30, 2017 by happyretiredblog

A day out- RHS Wisley

I love Twitter and Instagram for different reasons. Instagram for the pictures obviously and Twitter for information, top tips and a bit of banter. Often Twitter will remind you of things that you should do. Places to go. People to see. That’s how we ended up going to RHS Garden Wisley today. I love twitter for the gardening folk I follow and who are always there to point you in the right direction to a plant or a garden, help with some advice, identify an unknown plant that may have appeared in the garden and to generally talk plants.

So following a tweet from @jackwallington who had been to Wisley earlier in the week I decided that after a 25 year absence a visit was long overdue. Finding my membership card was an adventure but find it I did. I wont mention my RHS disasters this week in deleting my print at home Chelsea and Chatsworth tickets. Ill save that for another day.

Fighting the Bank Holiday traffic through South London reminded me why we generally don’t travel over a Bank Holiday weekend but I was determined. I had started so we wold finish.

Busy. Was the car park busy. So busy we were sent to the overflow car park but despite my grumbling i was rather glad.

The walk from the car park was simply gorgeous. Bluebells were out everywhere like a beautiful carpet of blue loveliness. We would have missed this bit of the garden had we parked close to the main entrance. So every cloud and all that.

Typically Ian was 30 paces ahead. You’d think that after all this time he wouldngave notnbeen so embarrassed to be out with me ! But i had to stop not just for the bluebells but for the other delights that were begging to be photographed. I hadn’t been here for over 25 years remember.

The garden was busy. We realised only after we arrived that there was a craft fair in the grounds. A pretty decent fair to be honest and full of some top quality stuff. I was swiftly moved on through the garden toward the glasshouse, after a sausage bap!

I love a good glass house. This one didn’t disappoint and was somewhere to get a little inspiration for our new mediterannean garden.

It’s great to see the unusual and interesting and there were definetly some of those here. The bird of Paradise plant so high it had a sign that said this is not a banana plant. The plant whose buds looked like a great big fat nose and opened into a simply gorgeous flower – solandra Maxima – a blue brugisima, a protea as big as a dinner plate. Orchids which remind me of orchids bought in Castle Cary from another Instagram friend @ridgewayfarm when she had then best gardening shop ever, oh and the clivias also reminded me of her too – she introduced me to them too and one sat in mine and my friend Janes office for years.

The big pots of Agapanthus were further on than mine but then again they are in a glasshouse. Mine are in pots in South London. So they would be wouldn’t they! I wonder how many bags of Lou’s Poo they would need here.

Outside the glass house is a Prairie garden. I’m spoilt in that we have the wonderful Piet Oudolf garden at Hauser and Wirth Somerset just down the road in Bruton but I love them. Not so much in Spring to be honest but later in the season. The planting I know at Bruton is stunning and there are glimpses here that show what it will be like later in the season.\

There is so much to see and not enough time in one visit to take it all in n The fruit garden is full of the most amazing espaliers of all fruit types, apples pears medlars. The rows of apples some still in bloom some with fruit setting are like great long avenues. The planting is amazing with long avenues of paths to walk through.

Great big beds of Rhubarb. They hold the National Plant collection – with enournmous leaves and pink fleshy stalks, some being forced. The produce bing used in the restaurant and in Jams to be sold at the shop. I sisnt look to see if any rhubarb was for sale. Would have been good to have tasted a variety that you don’t usually get at the greengrocer

To be honest you get lost in the size and scale and the beautiful way it is presented. I can’t remember much about my previous visit ‘ may be I wasn’t as interested in the planting and the plants themselves then. But we were both impressed.

The perennial beds [ mixed borders] on either side of the sweeping walk to the top of the hill look like they will be exceptional in the summer. The borders are springing to life with the alliums starting to pop into bloom in little drifts and singularly throughout the beds. Like tulips it looks like this year will be good for alliums too. The borders are massive – the website says ‘ a sweeping 420ft’ – imagine the plant buying for that. They leave the beds to their own devices. No watering – no good for me – i would have to be out there with the hose constantly.

Having recently stayed at Ard Daraich in Scotland I was keen to see the rhododendrons and the azaleas. The flowers were more advanced than Scotland and again the planting and the paths between them encouraged you to walk through. I still find the buds as fascinating as the flowers themselves and I was even more appreacitive of the guided tour of the Scottish garden given to me by Norrioe Maclaren when we were there.

Onto an area where I loved the colour palette of the planting. The last of the tulips- bright red with the start of the alliums. Simply lovely and a bed I would love to have.

This is a glorious view away from the house along the canal with the Henry Moore sculpture, King and Queen and the beds of lovely scented wallflowers. my window box of wallflowers has an abundance of leaves and only two flowers. Those two yellow flowers smell glorious. Busy i was expecting a bit more!

Neither of us had any knowledge of the history of RHS Wisley and its interesting to see that it was gifted to the RHS in 1903

Another cuppa tea. A scone and cream. Jam first of course. A wander to purchase some plants – only one today a philadelphus Belle Etoille which we had in the Somerset garden years ago. I even think Ian was impressed. One plant only. That’s progress. He doesn’t know about the ones I bought earlier in the week,

Was it worth the drive. The traffic. Running into ex colleagues. Definetly and thanks Jack!

Some more random photos.

Posted on January 16, 2017January 17, 2017 by happyretiredblog · 7 Comments

Hello 2017

How have we already got to 16 Jan ? Where has the time gone ? Seems like only yesterday I was dodging the over filled shopping trolleys indicating it was some holiday.

I’ve started the year with my RHS Chelsea tickets booked. My RHS Chatsworth tickets booked. Both of which I’m looking forward to. Chelsea for me is a tradition – lunch first at Poulet au pot in Chelsea then a potter around the show. It’s become so familiar and samey but I darent miss it. But I’m more excited about Chatsworth. Last year I loved Malvern. Next year I’m aiming for Tatton Park.

I’ve been lucky to have had two outings already so far this month. A hot date with Georgie from Common Farm Flowers to At the Chapel to the first of their 2017 events – a talk by Satish Kumar. A thought provoking talk on Soil Soul and Society. Helped along by putting the world to rights in the bar after the event.

We are lucky to have Hauser & Wirth on our door step and the wonderful Piet Oudolf garden. It’s a stunning garden. Thomas Piper has made a film of Piet Oudolf and his projects which is beautifully shot and has some great music. We were lucky to have them give a preview of the film at a sold out Hauser and Wirth event followed by a Q & A after the film with them both. Piet Oudolf movie is definetly worth checking out. As is the garden at Hauser and Wirth. In all seasons. Was interesting seeing the comments on instagram after the event and realising that people who I follow and who follow me were there as well. Next time. Badges.

January is a dreary month in our garden in Somerset. More so this year as I’ve put off jobs as we weren’t sure of the timing for some work on the cottage which meant the borders would be moved. Looks like I may have another summer out of them.

So in need of some advice I’ve persuaded the lovely Sara Venn to come and visit. That is if she ever stops to take breath. She’s here there everywhere and I can’t see a hairy biker without thinking of her!

The last time we were together we were like naughty school girls at a workshop at Common Farm Flowers. So I need to make sure I feed her cake and lunch. And listen and learn.

I’ve ordered seeds from Mr Higgledy – where I’ll get said seeds and a note written in really writing. In ink. That is if Flash hasn’t eaten the seeds. Or the pen. Or Ben.

I’ve a pile of catalogues to look at – gardening ones not Grattan or Freemans ( some not all will remember them). Dahlias to plan. A greenhouse to research. When I retired ( early. I have to keep saying that) I was given money towards a new greenhouse. That’s been on hold and the old one strapped together and glazed in parts with plastic. So…. decisions.

It’s not all been gardening though at times like this weekend it’s been all I’ve done. Looks like the year has started as it will go on. A call to see if I was around and if I could have the boys for two days. Well it was one and I offered two. My hat goes off to parents. I don’t know how you do it full time. I can give them back!! Didn’t help I had to be a responsible adult with a 10 and 12 year old. In central London. In the lego shop. And the M and M shop. Or being embarrassed in the Chinese supermarket in China town as the 12 year old said ‘ Uncle Andrew – you need to check the sell by date on those crisps’. Thanks I said. It’s in Chinese. He picked them up. Turned them over. In front of the person behind the till. And said. Yep. They are ok. I forgot. At 12 he’s learning Chinese.

So we’re at back in London where I have geraniums still flowering on the first floor window and where a white agapanthus is in bud.Theres a micro climate on the patio – the frost hasn’t caught them. There’s a potted orange by the front door. With blossom. It’s madness.

And we are only two weeks in.