I must have driven past Kiftsgate Court Gardens numerous times when visiting Hidcote, without even realising it was there. I discovered the delights of the garden back in the Spring, when I made my first visit whilst meeting up with an old friend and trying to make the most of this year's Garderners' World 2 for 1 card.
I liked it so much that I really wanted to share it with Martin and Mum and Dad, who also like a good garden visit. I also really wanted to see it at a different time of year. Ideally we would have liked to have visited in June, to get to see the roses at their best, but that just didn't happen so it was actually the beginning of August by the time we managed to fit our visit in.
The garden doesn't open until lunchtime so we spent the morning at Hidcote, had lunch there and were pretty much knocking on the door as Kiftsgate opened.
We had a right mix of weather during our visit, from a very heavy rain shower, to just a little bit of blue sky and sunshine, but we all still loved the garden ... in fact we all preferred it to it's larger and grander neighbour just up the road.
As I've shared the detail of the garden with you before I'm opting again today to just share my favourite 10 images, rather than give you a virtual tour, so here we go ...
1 - The Sheer Abundance
What pretty much became apparent from the moment we entered the garden was the sheer abundance of planting. There was so much in flower, so much colour and so many enormous blooms, they just took our breath away. At times it was hard to know where to look ...
2 - AgapanthusMum and I both absolutely love agapanthus, though we tend to have mixed results with growing them in our own gardens. Neither of us had ever seen any as big as these white ones though. The blooms were literally bigger than our heads ...
The top half of the garden was so full of plants in full bloom. There was something else to see at every turn and in every corner ...
I believe these are tree lilies, but they were literally 'as high as an elephant's eye'. None of us had ever seen lilies like this before, they were spectacular ...
5 - Blue garden furniture ...Not something that I would have thought would have gone well in a garden, but here it seems to work a treat. I remember being taken by this when I first visited and I liked it just as much on my second look. It just works really well against the backdrop of the borders ...
These are one of my absolute favourites and this display in the corner of the old manor house was just stunning. It was hard to capture as it was so dull but the colours were really vibrant and really stood out against the honeyed stone ...
7 - Pure & simple ...I have absolutely no idea what these flowers are, I just know that I really liked them ...
The pool and the fountain are so different to the rest of the garden ... far more formal and modern with clean straight lines and no flowers at all. I love the leaves of the fountain though ... especially watching as the fountain springs back into life and gradually works its way along, until all are flowing ...
It's always nice to see flowers on a garden visit that we have at home. I love the bright orange of this crocosmia, against the deep green of the foliage, which had plenty of room to spread out and hadn't just flopped to the ground like ours always does ...
10 - Another striking contrast ...Here's another plant that I can't name but I really liked the striking contrast of the bright yellow against the deep, almost red to black, leaves ...
I've already made a mental note that we need to go and have another look in June next year 😀
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