Burton Agnes 26th March 2024

On that one and only springlike day last month, Monday 26th March, a few of us from the Garden Visits group visited Burton Agnes hall and gardens over near Bridlington to see their indoor orchid festival. A remarkable display was on view with orchids arranged in every conceivable corner, include those with aerial routes hanging from doorways and ceilings.

Outside spring was already under way with some gorgeous almonds in blossom.  There is an extensive walled garden and although there was not too much to see that early in the season work was in progress including some remarkable wire sculptures.  We were lucky enough to bump into the head gardener who answered many questions and gave us an overview of planting in the type of soil in that area. This will be a definite for a second visit later in the year so watch this space.

Helmsley Walled Garden July 2023

We recently visited Helmsley walled garden and as luck would have it we managed to pick a fine day with some sunshine.
After our usual coffee stop, sat outside in the sun we moved off to tour the garden. The central walk was full of stunning summer colour.

There were some beautiful fibre glass sculptures to admire and a rather cute elephant in the memorial garden.
The whole garden is set with the back drop of the old castle ruins.

One of our group was keen to use this as a in the u3a painting group – Good luck Judith can’t wait to see the results.

For the keen gardeners there were some trial beds and some very productive veg beds.
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After an enjoyable lunch we had a short time wandering round the town and
found the most delicious ice creams at, strangely, the butchers shop.

RHS Bridgewater May 2023

RHS Bridgewater Eight members of the group set out across the Pennines, where for once the sun was shining more than at home, to visit the RHS Bridgewater site. This garden was opened in 2021 and I visited that summer. It was still under development and needed time to mature so it seemed like time to pay a second visit. A large area of the garden is a very structured wall garden with all the planting laid out within a structured pattern of paths with central water feature. From there you can wander across open meadow showing off the diversity of our natural wildflowers. This area then leads to the Chinese streamside and water area which is for me the most enjoyable part of the garden. This area is still under development and is awaiting the construction of a Pergoda and Pavillion. We then wandered back to the café area and strolled between more formal beds before perusing the inevitable gift shop and plant centre. A good day was had by all.

Yorkgate Feb 2023