The Beautiful Little Church Bouquet From Adlestrop

When my husband and I visited Adlestrop for its Open Village Day to see some of the local gardens that opened to the public for this event, I spotted a woman walking on the street, holding a beautiful little bouquet of garden flowers in her hand. Then shortly after, I saw an elderly lady with another very similar bouquet. I thought there must be a connection and this time I simply had to ask her where she got her flowers from. She held her bouquet up and asked me to smell the roses used in it (they had a very lovely fragrance) and replied, that they were for sale for charity purposes in the little church of Adlestrop. So, of course, I had to go there and see if there were still some left and I also might be able to acquire one of these beauties.

We toured a few more gardens on the way to the church and when we finally arrived the bouquets were pretty much picked over and already a little disheveled. Most of them were past their prime and had started to wilt a bit. But that didn't deter me. I found my own little jewel under the last four small bouquets that were most likely made by volunteers from flowers from their gardens. The little plonk came with a tag attached that said: "From Adelstrop made with love". Isn't that sweet?

Happily, I brought it home with me, meaning back to our self-catering cottage. Directly after we arrived there, I cut the flowers back and most of them recovered pretty quickly.

I want to share this little source of joy for me and hope it will be the same for you.

The combination of the white and peach colored roses, together with the intense blue centaurea montana (blue violet cornflower) and the small blooms of the white mock orange simply spoke to me.

I like the contrast between the soft colors of white and peach and the strong saturated blue in the small bouquet.

From this angle, you see only blue and white which changes the ambiance of the small posy quite a bit.

 

 The sun was caressing the flowers.

All photos for this post were taken on the table standing in the little courtyard behind our rented cottage with the early evening sun shining through an adjacent tree creating interesting patterns of light and shade on the bouquet. 

I find this little plonk so beautiful and cheerful. It makes me want to grow all these typical cottage flowers in my own garden to be able to recreate something similar myself.

 

The magic of flowers!

 

Initially, I couldn't find a suitable vase in the cottage, but when I searched it for a fitting vessel, I came across this one in the bathroom. It was sitting on the sink and I believe it is meant for our toothbrushes and toothpaste, but I think it is ideal to hold this little bouquet.

I hope that a little flower bouquet finds its way into your homes this week as well and brightens up your days!

Warm regards,

Christina

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Old Down House, Horton - Part II

This is a follow up post to my previous one continuing to show you around in the lovely cottage garden of Old Down House. Click here if you wish to see part I first.

After my husband and I left the surprisingly beautiful potager, we were returning to the main garden, having tea and cake, and hoped that the crowd had become less. This wasn't the case, but we enjoyed the rest of the garden tour, anyway.

This was the view of the main circular lawn that presented itself to us coming back from the potager. One of the many things that I liked about this garden was that it had ample of opportunities to sit down and take in the garden and its lovely surroundings. I wondered if all the little cozy sitting areas were only placed for the open garden event or if the furniture were there permanently. Either way it reminded me that I need to get some more garden furniture for my own yard.

I will make a round on the circular lawn and show you the different garden beds surrounding it interspersed with close-up photos of the plants found in the beds throughout this part of the garden. 




In the bed above there are not too many plants flowering, but because of the variety of plants and leave color it was still quite interesting to look at.

I loved, loved, loved this white hardy geranium. Even though I garden in a totally different climate zone hardy geraniums seem to do quite well for me, too. I just can picture this one in my 'White Garden Bed'.




If I remember correctly close by the white hardy geranium was this oriental poppy growing. Isn't it wonderful together with the lamb's ear?




To me this oriental poppy was the most beautiful plant in the whole garden!




Who wouldn't love to sit down with a cup of tea in front of this garden bed?

A closer look at the bed behind the sitting area from the photo above.

I can't help but admire the dense planting of the beds. There was literally no soil to see, but plants were not encroaching into each others space either. The gardener seemed to exactly know how big each plant would get. I am almost never able to foresee the mature size of a plant in my garden, although I am studying the plant labels for the size of a plant quite diligently!

The symmetrical use of the boxwood spheres facing each other in the two beds brings definition and calm into the design. Imagine they weren't there, but otherwise the design would be the same. I think the beds would appear much more restless.

The edging of the beds was perfect in this garden, as we have seen it in many other English gardens, too. It gives such a crisp feel. I really think that visually it makes a big difference in the overall scheme the garden looks.

Another garden bed filled to the max with plants. Whoever gardens here is a master in the art of staggering plants.

 As I said already this garden offered ample of seating, it even had a swing! 

This beauty was used repeatedly throughout the beds. 

 

Blue was a preferred color in the beds, which I really liked.

Another example of a small bed planted with many blue flowering plants. 

A very delightful corner of the house. I really love the white clematis. Maybe I need to get one for my own garden as well. 

As usual for English Gardens there was a lot of attention paid to detail. Even this little niche was lovingly planted with white dianthus. 

Here is another example for paying attention to detail. Just notice with what a variety of plants this container is planted. 

See the plant label holder? So unobtrusive, but still functional.

One more shot of my favorite blue flowering plant in this garden

Another oriental poppy. The way the delicate flower leaves unfold always fascinates me.

A beautiful bearded iris in a soft apricot color with a contrasting bright orange beard.

It was difficult to leave this charming garden, I could have spent much more time there, but we had one more private NGS garden on our list that we wanted to see that day, so we still had something to look forward to.

Even exiting the garden was a pleasure! This was the very last thing that you saw before you left through the garden gate. I always thought that it greatly matters what you see when you enter a garden, the first glimpse that creates excitement and the wish to explore the garden further, but clearly the last impression is equally important.

Hope you enjoyed touring this private English garden with. I will write about another one in the near future. 

See you in the garden!

Christina

Old Down House, Horton - Part I

Since my own garden is going into autumn withdrawal there is not too much to see and therefore to blog about. So I thought it might be a nice idea to feature the second National Gardens Scheme (NGS) Open Garden that we had visited during our vacation in England this year in June.

Old Down House is a lovely cottage garden, owned by Dr and Mrs Colin, with stunning wide and open views into the farmland that surrounds this old farm house. For the circumstances in England it is a relatively small garden, 3/4 -acre, which I like, because it is way closer to the garden size that most of us have to play with. I am always interested what someone makes out of a smaller garden, since I feel that this is much more challenging than if you have acres of land. For me the highlights of this garden were lovingly planted perennial beds layed out in a formal design, but filled to the brim in an informal way with beautiful cottage plants and an incredible potager.



The beds by the front door were framed with a beautiful plant with yellow leaves, which I didn't know the name of. As much as I like the boxwood hedges, it was refreshing to see these beds surrounded by a small hedge of this neat plant. I believe the impressive rose growing to the left side of the front door is a yellow flowering banksia rose, which perfectly picks up the color of the yellow low hedge.




The yellow leaves of the hedge make such a nice contrast to the purple alliums.




There was some quirky garden art to admire before you even got to enter the main garden.




Here is another example.

Then there it was: The main garden with a central circular lawn framed by a symmetrical design of flower beds. The open views into the surrounding landscape let this garden appear so much bigger than it actually was. What a lucky situation for the owners.

After looking at some lovely details...

....and wonderful plant combinations in that area we decided without much enthusiasm to go and see the potager first, because the main flower garden was quite packed with visitors at that time.

On the way to the potager we passed this beautiful, fury, relaxed fellow.




Luckily for us there was no one in this part of the garden! Running the risk to be called a snob I honestly have to say that I think vegetable gardens are often not the prettiest and therefore best hidden in a less prominent part of the garden, but was I wrong in case of this potager!




I know that to be able to harvest berries and other goodies that the birds are really after you need to protect these fruits one way or the other, which often doesn't look very appealing. But this structure, which was completely enclosed with netting appeared to be surprisingly pleasing to the eye.




They didn't have one but two of those structures. I think they look just neat and are probably very functional as well.




A beautiful and romantic corner of the vegetable garden. The clematis conquering the wall looks so pretty.




Here is a look in the opposite direction of the potager. This photo shows the symmertrical design of that garden very well.

The potager was located directly behind the house build on a quite elevated level. To do the hardscape for this one must have been quite an undertaking.




I loved the beautiful Victorian plant stand holding an aurikel plant collection!




On this photo you can see that the terrace between the house and the potager was used as a sitting area. This is for sure a vegetable and fruit garden worth looking at and enjoying!

In part two of this post I will show you the central circular lawn with the main beautiful flower beds in more detail. Please, stay tuned!

See you in the garden!

Christina