The Birdkeeper's Cottage in St. James's Park, London

Today I would like to show you some more photos from our recent trip to England. After visiting Westminster Abbey my husband and I decided to walk back to our hotel through St. James's Park. I spare you any photos of Westminster Abbey, since better shots of this famous, majestic church than we were ever able to take have gone all over the world recently during the TV coverage of the wedding of Prinz William and Kate Middleton. Anyway, after getting a little deeper into the Park we suddenly came across this:

(you can click on the photos to enlarge)

  

Isn't this the most adorable cottage with an incredible beautiful traditional cottage garden? And all of that in the middle of a public park? I really think this is only possible in England. I do salute the Brits for their love of gardening and their garden passion. I do not know much about this lovely historic cottage and its gardens except that in 1837 the Ornithological Society of London presented some birds to the Park and build the cottage for a birdkeeper. Nowadays the cottage feels almost like coming right out of a fairy tale.

There were hundreds of delphiniums and all of them were tall and very vigorous. They simply seem to love the climate in England. How I wish I could grow this plant here in San Diego, but I am very sure that it is simply too hot and dry for it to do well. It most likely will not be anything else here than an expensive annual that you can buy at the nurseries right before it flowers and toss out of the garden a few weeks later.




This photo shows the cottage from a different angle with the walkway to the front door. You can see it is a little bit tattered and crocked, probably because of its age, but all the architectural details give it so much charm. I love the edging of the walkway with lavender. To the left you can see a little bit of the vegetable garden and to the right was the flower garden.




The cottage garden was loved by squirrels, too!




If you follow my blog you may know already that white is my favorite color, so I was totally smitten with this white delphinium. These plants radiate so much elegance and purity. 




Besides delphiniums they were also growing plenty of foxgloves in this garden. I think the combination of the two plants is hard to beat. Even though it rained on and off in the days we spent in London, the foxgloves and the delphiniums looked quite decent and not battered too much by the rain.

 

If you look closer, you see there is a reason for this. The delphiniums were staked. How much work is it to stake that many delphiniums by hand? I am really speechless that people go through the hassle to do this for the love of gardening. In our times were everything has to be fast and effective mostly at the cost of quality. Seeing this to me is food for the soul. 

Another view of the flower garden part of the cottage garden.




Above you can see the vegetable garden a little bit better. Unfortunately we did not take closer photos of that part of the garden. I guess we had been already tired. But the vegetable garden was as meticulously kept as the flower garden and there was a bounty of veggies growing.

The squirrels were very tame and demanding you to feed them. This little guy was balancing very elegantly on the thin fence of the cottage garden. He came so close I could have touched him.

At a second glance I also saw that they were growing lady's mantel (alchemilla mollis) and oriental poppys in the flower beds, too. They make wonderful companion plants to the delphiniums and foxgloves.

I do not know about you, but I for my part I just could not get enough of the cottage and the garden...

Writing this post makes me almost feeling a little bit sentimental. We had such an incredible good time in England and I am very grateful that we were able to visit this beautiful country. Besides very fond memories I took home so much garden inspiration and ideas, they will nurture me for a long time.  Still I wish that I can go back there some time not too far in the future.

And as for my own garden I might try to sow larkspur as a substitute for the delphiniums, or even buy some of the short lived delphiniums next year if the longing for these beauties overwhelms me....

See you in the garden!

Christina

The Rose Garden in Hyde Park, Part I

After we finished our tea in the Orangery at Kensington Gardens we walked back to Hyde Park to see the Rose Garden there, not expecting too much. But we were in for a surprise. The Rose Garden was bigger than expected, beautifully designed, and maintained. It was a great finale of our first day in England.

(you can click on the photos to enlarge)

Entering the Rose Garden our eye was caught by this amazing rose bed with a huge structure for climbing roses in the back. 




Beautiful cerise colored rose growing in one of the beds. Unfortunately almost none of the roses were named, so I will just show you the pictures of them, even though some of the roses looked quite familiar to me.

Different view of the rose bed in front and the big climbing rose walk in the background.

Again, shown from a different angle.




Pink beauty.




 Another rose bed in front with the same climbing rose walk in the background.




I do not know about you, but I never can get enough of pink roses!

Walking through rose beds towards the tall climbing structure.

Finally we entered the climbing rose walk ourselves. It was simply stunning. My photos do not do it justice.

Another rose bed. I love the gray weathered wood benches. They are unobtrusive and integrate themselves so well into the flower beds leaving the show up to the roses and other blooms.

Lovely combination of different colors and plants.

What an abundance of roses and other flowers!

I really loved this fountain!

Close-up of one of the yellow roses near the fountain shown in the picture above.

Another shot of the fountain from a different angle. The yellow flowering tall shrub was quite impressive. Again, unfortunately I have no idea what it is. If someone of you, my dear readers, knows it, please leave a comment.

This rose had almost a pompom like shape. Very nice red color.

I am finishing up this post with one of my favorite rose bed shots from this area of the Rose Garden. I totally love the combination of the dark heucheras in the foreground the blush-pink roses in the middle ground flanked by some spiky-leaved yellow flowering plants and some gray ones with the repetition of the dark brown/red color carried on by some shrubs in the background. Don't you think that this is a quite stunning design? I guess, the first thing I do when I come home is getting some chocolate colored heucheras.

Talking about getting home. Today is already the last day of our vacation. My husband and I had the most wonderful time in England and we took literally thousands of photos. I intend to continue to post about the gardens of England that we saw when I am back in California, alternating with more current posts of my own garden.

How my humble small garden might be doing? I have to say that I am really sad that we have to leave England soon, but I have missed my own little garden and my roses and I am looking forward to seeing both, again.

See you in the garden!

Christina

Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, London

England! I can't believe it, but my husband and I are finally on vacation again. Our last one was four years ago, but now we are in London! I am so excited to be here, to see the historic buildings and of course the great public parks, enjoy dining at good restaurants, do some shopping, antiquing, and people watching. 

 (you can click on the pictures to enlarge the photos)

View from our hotel room window. What could be more proper than the sight of a waving Union Jack.

Map of the Hyde Park, which we visited on our very first day in England. It was in walking distance from our hotel. How cool is that, when you just can walk to a world famous park? As you can see on the map the right side of the park is called Hyde Park and the left Kensington Gardens, even though it is actually only the two sides of one park divided by a lake.

We knew that England is the country of the lovely parks and gardens right away after we entered Hyde Park through one of its many entry gates. This house was formerly guarding the gate and we don't know what function it fulfills nowadays, but the surrounding garden was for sure already a treat for the eyes.

 

The garden was so densely planted I couldn't believe it how many plants they squeezed into the small space and of course the effect was simply stunning and so beautiful.  

Close - up of one of the cute little pale lilac blooms.

 

View of the same area looking to the other side.

It is hard to imagine, that they actually took the time and made the effort to stake many single plants. Obviously that work must be done by hand and one plant at a time. 

The backyard of the guard house. I love the contrast between the dark red leaved trees and the lush dark and light green plantings. Also a tropical palm seem to be right at home in this harmonious planting scheme.

The Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens.

 

Close - up of some pretty lilac flowers.

Beautiful plant combo of white, silver, and lilac.

White foxglove. It is amazing how well foxgloves grow here in England. They are one of my favorite plants besides roses, of course.

Another lovely flower bed.

I like the hardy geranium in the front corner of this bed quite a bid. It builds a nice round mound whereas mine in San Diego is just lying flat on the ground. Would love to know what variety it is...

The silver spiky plants are quite interesting and they make such a lovely combination with the yellow flowering ones.

Here is a close-up of the yellow flowering plant that you can see in the photo of the flower bed above.

 

By now we had come much closer to the Albert Memorial. It is really gigantic and impossible to photograph without special equipment, when you are close by, but I wanted to show it to you anyway. Queen Victoria build this for her husband after he died. 

The Albert Memorial is surrounded by four groups of statuary at the foot of it, which are all very beautifully carved and very impressive themselves.

This photo shows another one.

Unfortunately it seem to be the case that my husband and I took only photos of three of the statuary groups.

Continuing our walk in the Kensington Gardens we passed by this beautiful bed. I really love the white flowering shrub in the middle of the bed and would like to know what the name of it is. If you have any idea, especially my British readers, please let me know!




Close - up of the flowers in the front of the bed shown in the photos above...




and close - up of a branch of the white flowering shrub, also shown on the photo two photos above. Isn't it lovely?

 

Another wonderful group of foxgloves. I like the contrast with the lilac small flowers in the background quite a bit.

One last group of foxgloves, this time more planted in a forest setting.  I really admire how versatile this plant can be used in the garden.

I intend to post more about the public parks and private gardens my husband and I visited in England. So if you liked this one I can promise you it will only get better...

See you in the garden!

Christina