Autumn in Santa Fe

Last month I traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico again to attend a workshop. Let me just say it up front: I love this town. There is something special about the wide-open blue skies and the light there, no wonder many painters, maybe the most famous one being Georgia O'Keeffe, felt and feel drawn to this area. The clean air, the rugged high desert nature, the Adobe architecture are simply stunningly beautiful.

Sadly, as usual, I didn't have much time to explore the town and take photos. But on my first day, I realized that I did forget to bring my house shoes and since I am always suffering from cold feet, I decided to buy a new pair. I stayed at a friend's house in one of the older neighborhoods of Santa Fe and to my surprise, I could simply walk from her house (didn't have to drive as it is usually the case here in America!) to an independent shoe store and get some there. So I took my camera with me and on the walk back and forth through this pretty neighborhood, I shot all the photos that you see in this post. Hope you enjoy them!

Did  I say I love the Adobe architecture, already? The organic forms of the houses and their surrounding walled gardens are so beautiful and their earthy brown color fits right into the deserty and rugged nature of Santa Fe. This house is oozing with charm and atmosphere. I could move right in.

This little plant was literally growing through some cracks on the sidewalk. Its silvery blue-green color is so pretty and the fallen leaves from the trees that got caught in it just enhance its beauty.

This enchanting decoration made out of all natural materials hung on my friend's wrought iron entry gate. In Santa Fe, it is common to decorate the houses inside and outside with all sorts of red peppers.

These unusual seed pods caught my eye. I wonder what plant will grow from them.

Spectacularly clear blue skies and another Adobe beauty. At the time when I was there, the trees had lost already quite a few leaves but the colors of the remaining ones were still mindbogglingly intense.

I have rarely seen so many beautiful wooden gates, old and new, like in this town. Some are quite simple like this one and others are very elaborate, but they are always very well made. Do you see the sign saying Beware of Dog? I wish we had such a tasteful sign at our garden gate.

This little aster added such a pop of color to the Santa Fean autumn color scheme. It was happily growing on the sidewalk, seemingly without much care.

Another Santa Fean beauty! In this case, the landscaping fitted the house so well.

The austerity of this entry spoke to me. Sometimes less is more. Do you see the bell on the right side of the door?

This house and garden had a wild and quirky vibe and I loved it for its untamed nature.

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These dainty cosmos were also found on the sidewalk. I really, really have to try to grow cosmos in my garden next year...

Another beautiful gate, pleasing in its perfect simplicity.

Glowing orange berries. They were really eye-catching.

 

An eye-catcher of a different kind. This red gate is so perfectly echoed by the red leaves on the left side of the photo and it goes so well with the earthy brown Adobe walls.

Would love to enter through this white garden gate.

As mentioned, many artists and creative people are living in Santa Fe and they leave a very positive imprint on the town. This metal crow caught my eye because it is holding a turquoise in its beak. A little nod to the fact that turquoise was and is found in New Mexico.

This gate was certainly the most colorful that I came across and the turquoise colored carpet in front of it is just emphasizing its dramatic effect.

The hardware on it was so stunningly beautiful. 

I couldn't turn my eyes away from the lovely wood carvings and the strong colors it was painted in. Would love to know more about its history. Who made it? Where did it originally come from? Was it a door of a house? So many questions that will never be answered...

Loved these soft, fuzzy, lavender colored flowers against the backdrop of the grasses. 

Blue paint faded to perfection by the harsh weather conditions of Santa Fe. 

Simple and inviting. Love the stacked firelogs by the front door.

Perfect gate for my taste. Who wouldn't want to walk through these doors?

I didn't see many roses in Santa Fe, even though I know they are growing there. 

Admired the restraint of this scene. The tall cedar casts such beautiful patterns of shade on the Adobe wall.

I really like the color of this tatty echinacea.

Red, blue, and yellow, strong contrasting colors brought into harmony by the soothing warm brown Adobe walls.

Coming full circle I am ending this post with a close up of the entry of the house that I opened it with. I always think that I could live in Santa Fe, that maybe I even would like to. It doesn't look right now that this is on my cards, but who knows what turns and twists life will take on. But at least I hope that I will visit again, soon. Next time I am really planning to take some extra time to explore this wonderful town. 

The Thanksgiving weekend is coming to an end here in America and I hope that if you live in this country and celebrate Thanksgiving that you had a lovely one. No matter what the calendar says, to me Thanksgiving signals the end of autumn and the beginning of winter and the Christmas season.

I kinda surprised myself this year by ordering a flocked artificial Christmas tree. We stopped having Christmas trees for a couple of years because all of a sudden I wasn't in the mood anymore to do all the decorating. We were also afraid that our two rambunctious Dobermans would take the tree down when they chase each other in the house, but this year my desire to decorate came back and hopefully the dogs are a little less unruly by now. We will see. 

So we put up the Christmas tree this weekend. It is not decorated yet, but we strung in the Christmas twinkle lights already. The tree is lit as I am writing this post and I have to say it looks quite magical. I wonder, are you celebrating Christmas? And if so have you also started to deck the halls already? 

In any case, I am wishing you a wonderful week ahead. 

See you in the garden!

Warm regards, 

Christina

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Hidcote Manor Garden II

Since the beginning of the new year, I catch myself getting somewhat antsy thinking about our next vacation. Now that is a little bit early since we are most likely not be able to go anywhere before June but I can already dream and the joy of anticipation is a nice thing to have.

I would love if we would be able to visit England and its beautiful gardens again. To fuel my dreams and maybe yours as well I thought I would continue to write about Hidcote Manor Garden. We saw this garden in June last year and I did already one blog entry about it.

This time I will focus on a part of the garden called the Long Borders, which is a rather colorful exuberantly planted part of the garden containing many old French rose varieties.

But before we go there I would like to tour some of the exclusively "green parts" of the garden. There are areas which comprise precisely clipped trees and hedges, vast open spaces with long vistas, and magnificent mature trees to admire, which Hidcote is also famous for.

This is a partial view of the Stilt Garden, which is said to be inspired by Lawrance Johnston's, the creator of Hidcote, many trips to France. Maybe he enjoyed playing a game of Boules here. These rows of neatly pruned trees (are they hornbeams?) certainly make for an impressively long vista.

Notice the beautiful wrought iron gate at the end of the vista. It provides the perfect focal point for the tree alley. I realized that Johnston made extensive use of elaborate wrought iron gates in his garden which contribute a lot to its beauty.

The tree in the background, which I believe is a Cedar of Lebanon, was impressive, to say the least. Towering like a king over his empire it is located in an area simply called the Great Lawn. My husband is posing in the photo to give you an idea of its size. Hidden under the low branches of that tree to the left there is a gate, which is a  little hard to see, through which we entered later into the Beech Allee.

But first a photo of the Great Lawn. This space is humongous. You can see parts of the Cedar of Lebanon to the left.

Here we are back to the entrance of the Beech Allee. There is another lovely wrought iron gate at the end of the allee leading into to the open space of the surrounding countryside. 

Looking in one direction of the Beech Allee...

...and in the other. It is hard to describe the emotions wandering around under these very tall and magnificent trees. I couldn't help but feeling in awe of nature and getting a sense of that the human ego isn't the most important thing in the world.

Passing by the kitchen garden we walked towards the famous Long Borders. Unfortunately, I photographed against the sun but still decided to include this shot in the post because this scene of majestic old yew pillars together with the wisterias grown as standards is so beautiful that I wanted you to see it as well.

Simply love the old gnarly wisteria trees.

View of the Long Borders.

The tall yew pillars give this border a wonderful structure year round no matter what is the season. As I said in the introduction to this post, Johnston planted many old and rare varieties of French roses in this part of the garden. As a rose lover I was particularly excited to see those, but got disappointed because even though we visited the garden in June, there were only very few in bloom.

It was fascinating and a great tribute to the skillfulness of the gardener, who designed this border that even though the roses weren't blooming much you didn't miss them. The border was planted so densely with other flowers and contained plants with great foliage and texture that they could hold their own. I wonder besides the yew pillars and the roses if it was still Lawrence Johnston's original design.

I was impressed by this silver leafed thistle-like plant. The combination with the alliums is so pretty.

Oriental poppies are another favorite of mine. 

The lupines did so well in this border. I wonder if white lupines would grow in my own garden in San Diego, but I am almost certain that they are very water thirsty plants.

Close-up of the lupines. Aren't they pretty?

And a close-up of the salmon colored oriental poppy. The dark stamens are fascinating.

By the way, Lawrence Johnston created the Long Borders between the 1930s and 1940s. It was the last area of the garden to be planted. Prior to that, it was an old orchard and a few of the original apple trees can be found to this day.

Even though the red lupines shown above were pretty these more subdued pink ones are more to my taste. I love them together with the blue delicate flowering plants in the background.

Looking back towards the Long Borders. Obviously, I wasn't the only one who couldn't stop taking photos. I had preferred to take the last shot of this incredibly beautiful area of the garden without people in it, but I was lucky that there weren't more in the picture since the garden was very well visited. I believe it gives you still an idea of the beauty of this border.

As always, I hope you enjoyed touring this famous English garden with me. I have taken many more photos of Hidcote and there will be further installments of this fabulous garden in the future on my blog. If you want to see part one, please click on the link below:

Hidcote Manor Garden I

Wishing you all a beautiful rest of the weekend!

See you in the garden!

Christina

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