Meeting up with an old Friend - Kiftsgate Court Gardens

Hi there everyone 😀

Earlier this week I shared the morning that I spent with an old friend at Hidcote Manor Gardens with you. We moved on to spend the afternoon at another garden ... Kiftsgate Court ... which we'd spotted when we visited Hidcote the last time ... it is literally just a stone's throw away.

The garden opened for the season on 1 April and can be visited for the afternoon on Mondays, Wednesdays and Sundays during April, before moving to opening from Saturday to Wednesday over the summer months.

It had the added bonus of being a garden that could be visited using the Gardeners' World 2 for 1 card, so it cost us just £9 to visit for the both of us. Never having visited before, neither of us had any idea what to expect, but we both ended up being very pleasantly surprised.

We both drove from Hidcote, though you could really walk, and it literally was just down the road. We were expecting to pull straight into a car park, but there is a fairly long drive which takes you a fair way away from the main road before dropping you into the car park in front of another beautiful honey stoned building, where a very friendly lady was waiting to check us in and tell us a bit about the garden.

Our ticket had a little map on the back, which gave us a good idea the best route to take round the garden to make sure we didn't miss anything. This can be found on the garden website if you want to see it in full multi-colour.

After a quick visit to the facilities in the courtyard we were on our way.

The first thing that caught our eye, on the edge of the bluebell wood were the drifts of anemones and fritilleries ...

We didn't want to miss anything and not really knowing the layout of the garden we opted for following the little map pretty much in the order it was laid out.

We wandered round the back of the buildings to the four squares, where we got a real sense of how high up the garden was. There was definitely going to be a view to be had looking out over the valley at some point, but for now we were happy to be mooching about in the sunshine taking in what the garden had to reveal to us.

From the Four Squares we made our way around the side of the building to the sunken garden ...

... which was a real treat ...

We were both surprised at how well the blue metal garden furniture worked as it wasn't a colour that either of us would have thought would have looked so right ...
We also both really liked the fact that so many of the plants were labelled so we knew what we were looking at. We saw a fair few that neither of us had come across before including this ... which we could not find a label for, but Martin managed to find it online after I got home and confirmed it as a trillium kurabayashi when back home ...

From the sunken garden we wandered through the rose borders, where not much is happening at the moment but it was lovely to see how all of the roses were supported on all kinds of makeshift metal supports. I'm sure these borders will look amazing in June ... there may just be the need for a re-visit.

Passing through the wild garden we could also see that the allium were going to be amazing but for today, there was just lots of green.

We carried on through the orchard, where the blossom is just starting to make an appearance ... again just a little too early to see the camassia in bloom. We passed some other visitors on the way who said that it was definitely worth climbing the wooden stairs to the top, which of course we did ...

It was definitely a bit of a 'wow' moment. I don't know what we'd been expecting, but it certainly hadn't been this. I guess that is the joy of visiting a garden for the first time. However many times we visit again, we will never quite have that same feeling the next time we see this view.

We couldn't not walk up to the sculpture to see it close up. From a distance it looked a bit like a feather ...

Up close it is just as spectacular. It's three dimensional with some very intricate patterns in the metalwork. I think the blue sky definitely helps, but we were both very impressed.

Retracing out steps back up to the mound we could see the tops of the leaves of the water fountain and from the map we decided the water garden was definitely our next stop.

The water garden was another total surprise. It was so formal, compared the rest of the garden that we had seen so far ... not what we expected at all ...
We didn't have to wait long for the fountain to start and watched patiently whilst the cascade worked its way along all of the leaves, waiting until it had reached the very last one before having a walk around the pool, which looked very dark and deep ...
Of course we had to cross the steps into the centre ...

... where I captured what had to be my favourite shot of the day ...

Having sat for a while and watched the fountains for a couple of cycles it was time to move on and along the borders to the steps which would take us down to the lower part of the garden ...

... and this is where we found that view we'd been hoping for. It was stunning ...

Looking back across the pool was pretty decent too ...

Looking back towards the top of the garden you can see the banking on the left which has made planting and access to the steep slopes possible ...

We started to make our way back up the steps and pathways to the top of the garden, stopping to take in the view, and to get my breath back, on the way ...

We passed paths seeming to lead off into secret hideaways ...

... but carried on to the path that took us through the bluebell wood, where we found a very nicely located bench and had a sit in the sunshine just chatting and taking in the view ...

By now time was getting on a bit so we made our way back to where we'd begun ... the fritillaries and the anemones ...
... and there was just one last place left to visit ...

Having visited the garden and written this post I've had a look at the history of the garden on its website and was interested, but not that surprised, to find that when the garden was created, 100 years ago, Heather Muir, who created the garden, was helped and inspired by her lifelong friend Lawrence Johnson of Hidcote Manor.

You can see the similarities in the way that the garden is laid out in such a way that it doesn't reveal itself to you all at once ... you need to go looking. The website says that Heather wanted the garden to develop organically, rather than being totally planned out on paper. This has most definitely led to the garden having a more 'feminine' and relaxed feel, with a lot softer edges than we had found at Hidcote.

We both loved it and I'm sure I will definitely be visiting again. I want to see the roses in bloom. If you're in the area it's definitely worth calling in 😀

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Meeting up with an old Friend - Hidcote Manor Gardens NT

Hi there everyone 😀

I'm taking a break from my Yorkshire holiday posts today to share the day out I had last week with you, whilst it is fresh in my mind.

When I left work back in 2014 there were a few people that I really wanted to try and keep in touch with, in spite of us living a fair distance apart. I'm really pleased to say that we've managed really well to do this, by meeting up at locations 'halfway' between us for days out a couple of times a year.

Over the last few years we've had some really lovely days out. We've met up in Gloucester a few times, where we've explored the city centre, the cathedral and the dock area; we've been to the Nature in Art Museum & Gallery, which was just fabulous; we've been to a couple of National Trust properties ... Hidcote and Snowshill, where we also got to have a wander round the beautiful village of Broadway in the heart of the Cotswolds. We've also had a full day out in the capital, exploring the Inns of Court, which was a real treat.

This time we were heading back to Hidcote, hoping to see plenty of spring colour and then aiming to call in at another garden, Kiftsgate, which is just down the road from Hidcote, to see what it had to offer, as neither of us had ever visited before.

As usual we met up in the cafe for a cuppa and a good old catch up, where our talk of work has now shifted to the antics of two year olds and the idiosyncrasies of husbands, which is far more interesting.

Refreshed and wrapped up well against the cold we headed out round the back of the cafe, where we'd sat and had lunch in the sunshine the last time we'd visited ...

Whilst it was definitely on the chilly side, we were lucky with the weather and got to see plenty of sunshine and some blue skies ...
It did look totally different to how it had on our last summer visit ...
Whilst we did get to see some spring colour we seemed to be in that 'in between' period, where the daffs have all pretty much gone over and the tulips are just starting to put in an appearance ...

We explored all of the 'garden rooms' first, always eager to see what we were going to find as each area was revealed ...

There were some visitors who had made themselves right at home in the Bathing Pool garden ...

 

We then made our way down through the central stream garden, passing plenty of 'skunk' cabbages on the way, their vibrant yellows really standing out among the greenery ...

We then made our way round to the stilt garden, which was looking very clipped and tidy ...

It was then over to the other side of the garden, past the lily pool to the plant house ...

We finished off with a walk round the kitchen garden and the rose walk, both of which were looking very sparse, compared to our last visit.

It was time to head back into Winthrop's cafe for lunch, where we thawed out and enjoyed a very warming lunch. We decided to leave the cake for our next stop.

There was just time to have a quick wander round the gift shop and plant sales area, which is always a treat at Hidcote, before heading down the road to Kiftsgate, which opened at 2pm. I will let you know more about what we found there in another post 😀

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Joy in the Everyday Ordinary - April 1-10

Hi there everyone 😀

After a pretty mild February and a glorious week of warm sunshine at the end of March, April started bright, but with a definite nip in the air.

Gardening seems to have taken a bit of a backseat for now and this first 10 days of the new month have seen us spending more time indoors, with me having another serious dose of the crochet bug.

Martin has been back at work this week, following a good break of three weeks and I should really have been catching up on laundry and housework, but I just don't seem to have been able to find the time ... looks like that might be a priority for next week 😀

It hasn't all been hibernating inside though, we have made the most of the few moments of sunshine we've had and there have even been a couple of trips out, so here we go with our first 10 days of April ...

Day 1 - The first day of a new month and it was bright but pretty chilly. The only gardening on the cards for today was to give the grass a treatment of weed, feed and moss killer, but it was lovely to see the honesty seeds that I 'acquired' last year starting to come into flower 😀

Day 2 - We had a bit of rain today, which was great for the treatment that the grass had yesterday. We had a bit of a crafty day today and made up a stack of spring coloured beeswax wraps, ready for our Easter craft fair.

Day 3 - We used our 'Meerkat' 241 cinema voucher for the first time this afternoon and spent a lovely chilled out
couple of hours on the back row of a very quiet cinema enjoying the sights of Port Isaac.
It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon and sooooo relaxing 😀

Day 4 - I finally got round to buying some cotton yarn to have a go at making a face cloth and a soap bag, with a view to perhaps cutting out using shower gel.

Day 5 - Having been bit again by the crochet bug, I actually did a few more rounds on the squares that I have been crocheting with a view to turning into a blanket. I think it's safe to say it's been a bit of a long term project and a definite labour of love 💜

Day 6 - My monthly craft morning carried on into the afternoon with me managing to actually finish the 5th round on all of my blanket squares ... it felt like a real achievement!

Day 7 - I spent literally the whole day crocheting and joining squares for my blanket, which is starting to look really good. The highlight of the day though, had to be our good friends Lesley and Tom popping in whilst out on a bike ride. It was a good excuse to stop for a while and take tea and freshly baked banana cake in the garden in the sunshine. It was a real treat.

Day 8 - It's not the best photo I know, but I got chance to lay this out and see how it is coming on today. I am loving this 'join as you go' method of putting the squares together. It grows so quickly and I am loving it so far.

Day 9 - Jut the three teas this time. Mum and dad popped round whilst Martin was at work and we enjoyed a bit of sunshine, accompanied by another bit of Martin's banana cake.

Day 10 - Today was a real treat. I had a day out, meeting up with an old friend at Hidcote Gardens. We spent a lovely hour or so wandering about and catching up over lunch, before heading down the road to discover a new garden, Kiftsgate, that neither of us had visited before and it was full of surprises.

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