Parham House and Gardens, England - IV

A few days ago I realized that I promised in January on my blog to do one more and final post about our visit at Parham House and Gardens last year. If you are interested to see the older posts about Parham House and Gardens please click on the links:

Parham House and Gardens - I
Parham House and Gardens - II
Parham House and Gardens - III

So better late than never, here is the fourth part:

We are still in the walled garden! You can get an idea of how extensive the walled garden is when you realize that you can't even see the wall of it in this shot.
I found the symmetric design with the large container in the center and the huge lavender beds quite impressive. Too bad that the lavender was not in bloom when we visited. It must have been an even more stunning sight.

A great structure to conquer for climbing roses. If I remember correctly it shelterd an old well.

A delicate blue flowering plant that caught my attention. If you know the name of this one, please let me know.

These very dark almost black tulips are certainly not to be overlooked.

The plant combination of the tulips with the chartreuse colored plant to their feet is quite a show stopper, don't you think?

This simple and yet elegant sundial was surrounded by four small stone structures. I don't recall seeing it done like this ever before. Maybe an idea for our own gardens?

Before we happy but exhausted left the grand gardens of Parham, we made one more detour through an old small greenhouse and should not regret it. Besides other plants it was holding a quite lovely collection of geraniums.

I really like the geraniums potted up in terracotta containers. See the nice stone paving of the floor in the greenhouse?

It also had very beautiful windows.

More geraniums. Until I saw them in this greenhouse I always looked a little bit down on them and thought of them as bourgeois and granny plants...

... but at Parham I suddenly saw them in a differently light.

The blooms seemed to be outstandingly beautiful and I loved that there were so many different varieties on display.

It didn't took too long after we came home from that England trip that I felt the need to buy my own very first geranium and so I did.

Has it ever happened to you as well that you changed radically how you perceived a plant and maybe you fell in love with one that you formerly disliked?

Seeing the geranium collection was a nice finish of our visit to Parham House and Gardens. We had the impression that the house is well known and appreciated, but the gardens not so much. Many visitors didn't even seem to bother to have a look. We definitely think that the gardens are worth visiting as well and would recommend that you do so if you ever go to Parham. Bring plenty of time with you to take it all in without being rushed. There is so much to see. We certainly would love to come back and get a second chance to enjoy this lovely property again.

See you in the garden!

Christina

Parham House and Gardens, England - III

If you missed the first and/or second part of my series of posts about Parham House and Gardens and would like to see them before you read this one, here are the links. If you click on them, they will take you to the previous posts:

Parham House and Gardens, England - I
Parham House and Gardens, England - II

After my husband and I exited the Walled Garden and took a brief rest on a bench, enjoying the views into the open park-like landscape, we explored the part of Parham Gardens that is called the Pleasure Grounds. We only had to walk a little bit further to the left to stumble over this stunning maze. I am used to mazes designed with precisly clipped high hedges, but this was the first time that I have seen a maze layed out with brick flat onto the lawn. I liked it quite a bit. This is certainly a kind of design that would be more doable in a private garden, if you are inclined to attempt to create a maze for your own amusement.

One detail about Parham that was rather striking to me were the ancient very tall specimen trees. This photo illustrates very well how much charm and life they give to this garden. Imagine the maze with only lawn in the background. Wouldn't be quite the same, would it?

As we strolled back to the right through the Pleasure Grounds, we came across this beautiful wisteria. Like almost everything in this part of the garden is was quite big and had a lovely urn placed to its side to keep it company.

I feel that every grand estate needs a pond or lake and sure enough Parham had its own. In this case the lake was quite large and had the most vivid fish that I have ever encountered. They were jumping out of the water and sloshing it with their fins as if they had spring fever. It was quite a spectacle. To my understanding the "see-through" wall had no other purpose than being a decorative element in the garden design.

Looking back to the Walled Garden you see the "see-through" wall from the other side again, flanked by two wisterias with urns on the outer sides. I always find that symmetry brings harmony and peace to a garden and has immediately a calming effect on me.

Close-up of the wistera. It was quite a beautiful variety. I am not a wisteria expert, but it looked special to me.

Close-up of one of the urns flanking the wisteria. What a wonderful piece!

This part of the garden had such a wonderful romantic feel to it. I could have spent a whole day here just listing to the sounds of nature and enjoying the views.




Tall trees were spending refreshing shade.

On the way back to the walled part of the garden our path led us up these charming stairs.

Re-entering the Walled Garden we had a lovely view of a long double border, again! The size of the border was just striking.

As I mentioned in an earlier post about Parham, there were a lot of statues well placed throughout the gardens. This putto caught my eyes,...

.... he was in good company by another beautiful one placed close by. I absolutely would love to have something similar in our garden.

On the inner side of the Walled Garden there were flower beds planted at the foot of the impressive walls. Here they grew blue iris together with a white flowering clematis. This bed is striking in its simplicity!

Lovely vessels were placed into the beds. I wonder what function, other than being decorative, they once had. The contrast between the airy light yellow flower stalk and the organic form of the vessel with the dark patina is just pure pleasure for the eyes.

This is the Wendy House, build in 1928, a playhouse for children build into the wall. My husband peeking out of the door gives you an idea about the size. Inside there was a fireplace and a staircase that led to a second story. Quite cute and certainly special for the children, who had an opportunity to play in it!

In the next and final post about Parham I will show you more pictures from the inside of the Walled Garden and a lovely pelargonium collection displayed in an old greenhouse.

See you in the garden!

Christina

Parham House and Gardens, England - II

Today I will continue my series of posts about Parham House and Gardens in England, which my husband and I visited in May last year. If you would like to view my first entry about this gorgeous estate please click on the link Parham House and Gardens, England - I and it will take you there.

In this post I would like to focus mainly on the plants that I saw around the area of the fruit tree meadow and another huge double border. There were many of them that looked so beautiful, lush, and healthy, I just wanted to transplant them to my own garden right away.




I was completely smitten with these beautiful blue flowering plants. I assume they are the famous English bluebells that you can find blooming in masses in England in early spring. In this garden there was only a small patch of them and they were beyond their peak, but still so lovely to look at.

The contrast between the white flowering shrub and the old stone wall is quite attractive, don't you think?

The peonies were almost done, but there was one sumptuous red variety that still had some of its gorgeous flowers left.

The simple beauty of the lichens on the old fence post, which was part of the fence surrounding the fruit tree area, was quite fascinating to me.

 
I assume, that for many of my readers aquilegias are very common plants and therefore there is nothing special about them, but they are very hard to grow here in Southern California, I guess because our climate is too hot and dry, so I can still get quite excited about them. This one has found a nice niche to live in by a wood fence post close to a fruit tree.

Check out this very charming mixture of plants. Usually I feel that lilac and clear red don't go so well together, but I think the alliums with the tulips are forming a quite interesting color contrast.

A simple but very alluring plant - at least to me.

And then there was this plant, which totally blew me away. I asked a gardener, who was working in a bed close by and she told me the precise name. I jotted it done on a small piece of paper and, of course, I lost it. As far as I remember it was an ornamental artichoke, but I might be wrong. If anyone recognizes this plant can you please leave a comment on my blog? The plant had a wonderful effect in the bed where it was growing, but I also can see it being an extraordinary companion plant to white roses, if you have the space for a companion plant this big, that is.

Here is a shot of a part of the second double long border that we saw. Roughly in the middle of it, on the left side, you can see the big silvery leafed plant that I showed you in the photo above. I think this photo gives you a better idea of how huge this plant really is. The border is equally impressive size-wise and they actually used this plant repeatedly, even though you can't see it in this image, because it shows only a limited part of the beds.
I am sure, that as the season was progressing, there will be a lot more in bloom in this border. I would have loved to see what color scheme, if any, they have chosen for these humongous beds. 

Can't help myself and have to show you one more of the silvery leafed plants. I think it is such an incredible beauty and an eye catcher as well. By the way, I love the putto in the background!

This is one of the old fruit trees I believe. How artfully they have espaliered it!

 More lovely alliums together with my favorite silvery leafed plant.

While my husband is still standing hesitantly in one of the exits of the walled garden - it was quite hot and humid that day and he was a little tired - I had already slipped past him in my ongoing excitement into another area of the gardens. Even tough I was a bit tired myself, I couldn't resist to explore the more informal park-like landscape, that was opening up in front of us.

We decided to take a brief rest on this bench in front of the beautiful statue and then continued to check out the vast parts of the estate that we still hadn't seen, yet. I will post about it another time!

See you in the garden!

Christina

Parham House and Gardens, England - I

The weather is grey and dreary right now and I am not in the mood to garden, even though the roses are begging me to be pruned to get ready for spring, again. So I thought instead of forcing myself to go out in the yard. I better finish the year by writing one more post about our trip to England at the end of May this year.

One of the first estates that we were visiting during our vacation was Parham House and Gardens. Parham is something very special and if you are in the area make sure you don't miss it. The day we visited, the weather wasn't the best either, it was quite hazy in parts, but I will never forget the impression the grand estate made on us. First you need to drive through a deer park before you see anything of the estate. This alone is an experience by itself. Then you drive around one more corner and suddenly there it is: The Parham House. I can't imagine how the peope must have felt who lived here and owned the house, when they were approaching their home. Do you get ever used to such grandeur?

From the outside Parham House is certainly impressive, but it doesn't feel necessarily welcoming or friendly in terms of the architecture. At least that is the way I perceive it. It feels more like a huge house that leaves a first time visitor speechless staring at it with the mouth open just because of its humongous fortress like appearance that demands attention and respect. Inside however it comes across in a very different way and is well worth a visit. There are many interesting antique furniture and the rooms are quite beautiful. Especially memorable is the Long Gallery. So I would recommend if you visit bring plenty of time to see the house, the gardens and maybe even the extensive park and leave some time to rest and have lunch or tea in the 16th century Big Kitchen.

Scene of the ancient deer park of 300 acres that surrounds Parham House and Gardens. The park is very beautiful with rolling hills and lovely trees and I am sure it is worth a walk, but unfortunately we didn't have the time for it.




To the left side of Parham House is a chapel that belongs to the house. I love how it is surrounded by ancient trees.

As you can see on this photo Parham House estate is much bigger than "just the main house". There is actually a complex of outbuildings attached. The foundation stone for Parham has been laid in 1577. Since then it has been only owned by three families and was always a private home. It was opened to the public in 1948 for the very first time, because the owners wanted to share the beauty of Parham with visitors. Now Parham is owned by a Charitable Trust but one family member, Lady Emma Barnard, is still living there with her family.

This photo shows a kind of courtyard that is located between the entrance to the main house on the left side (not visible on this picture) and the outbuildings to the right.

I love the wisteria climbing the ancient walls,...

...soften the hard surfaces and making them more friendly.

When we entered the gardens this was the first view we got. A most impressive very long double border planted predominantly in the colors of yellow and purple interspersed with green leaved plants.

This is the entry to the right of the long border to the estate nursery. Lucky people, who live close by and can bring a plant tressure home with them.

In the long border there were many interesting and beautiful plant combinations worth having a closer look. I loved this one of the purple flowering plant, which I don't know the name of, and the bronze fennel. As always, dear readers, please feel free to identify a plant if you know it.

Beautiful crimson thistle like plant.

Same plant surrounded by companions. Again, I love the yellow, purple and crimson color combination.

The tulips had been over but the fennel was coming on strong.

What was interesting is that the yellow color was brought into the border not by flowering plants but solely by yellow leaved plants. Smart idea that can inspire!

Parham Gardens contained many lovely sculptures like this one. Isn't it adorable how the old stone statue is surrounded by the yellow leaved shrubs?

I really liked the wooden climbing structure that served as a divider between the double border and another garden room to the left. If I remember correctly behind the visual divider was a fruit orchard.

The gardeners at Parham made good use of the planting principle of repetition of plants in drifts, which Gertrud Jekyll is so famous for. They replanted the bronze fennel every couple of feet,...

...the yellow leaved shrubs and purple flowering plants,

and the crimson blooming thistle with again a yellow leaved plant in the background.

Looking back into the other direction towards the entrance to the double yellow and purple border. I think that these beds are masterfully done and you can learn a lot by carefully observing how they were planted. I appreciated that plantings were very unobtrusive, but at the same time there was a lot of interest and pleasure to find for the eye. I hope you enjoyed seeing this border in my photos as much as I did by putting this post together.

The Parham Gardens were to big to cover them in just one entry. So I will continue to show you more of this lovely place in another post soon. Besides the plants themselves, one thing that stood out for me in this garden was the exceptionally beautiful statuary that was tastefully scattered throughout the estate. The statues added so much to enhance the overall enjoyment of the gardens and sparked my desire to place one in my own small garden. If I only could have a statue similar to those at Parham for my own little paradise! They are so much more beautiful and have so much more character than the poured concrete sculputres that you can find in garden centers in the US. Of course I am sure they come with a very different price tag as well, but to me it is worth saving for a beautiful, quality statue for years, than getting a cheap unsatisfying one right away. Eventually I will get there!

See you in the garden!

Christina