Last week, accompanied by Helen from the Anemone Times blog, I spent a splendid six days tootling around some of the gardens down in the beautiful south east of England! We stopped at Rye, a delightful old town in East Sussex, which I will definitely return to one day. It is a charming place and wonderfully atmospheric, with lots of old buildings and narrow cobbled streets dating back to when the town was an important port. There are many antique stores to poke about in, but of particular interest was an Aladdin’s cave of a shop I stumbled upon called Classic Chaps, stocking a vast array of incredible vintage clothing! We started our garden touring with a whirl around Merriments, just up the road from Rye, which had officially closed for the season but was allowing visitors anyway due to the inclement weather. Here four acres have been planted up with some truly wonderful specimens, dotted around a garden layout that is particularly congenial to wandering about and drinking it all in. There is an extensive plant sales attached to the garden, and a restaurant in which we feasted like knights of old. This strikes me as a hidden gem and I strongly encourage visiting here!
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| A peek through a yew hedge, not quite ‘not a cloud in the sky’ but pretty good for October |
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| Tulbaghia ‘John May’s Special’ |
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| The seed pods of Nicandra physalodes, the Shoo-fly plant |
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| Rhus typhina ‘Dissecta’ |
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| There are several stunning water features to behold here |
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| Allium neapolitanum |
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| Tithonia rotundifolia ‘Torch’ with the leaf of the castor oil plant, Ricinus communis |
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| One of my favourite trees, Taxodium distichum |
5 comments:
Love the long view over the fountain and the color on the Rhus.
Happy October!
Bertie, I wonder if you found any vintage gardening apparel? Merriments looks aptly named - what a wonderful break for you!
How wonderful to go garden visiting! I don't know Merriments at all even though I lived in Kent for many years.
Where else did you go (besides the vintage clothes shops? ;)).
Good to have you back again in the garden.
Marvellous pics Bertie, as always. Looking forward to seeing some more pics from the trip!
Faisal I did manage to secure some unworn breeks, which had been stored away in a warehouse for many years. I have seen pictures of gardeners wearing these from the 1910s right up to the late 1940s.
I'm a bit busy with this blasted lawn care assignment but will try and get the rest of the garden reports up this week.
Bertie
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