Last of the season

It's been very misty/foggy recently, and there has been a dull pall over everything.  At the Sugnall Walled Kitchen Garden, everything looked fairly grim - but then, it is after all, the end of the growing year. 
We found half a dozen apples still left on some of the trees, and three pears.  They tasted pretty good though.

Garden golf course

There is something very practical about this householder's use of a small front garden.  He or she has installed a putting green!
Very practical.  No need to drive to the golf course; fresh-air and exercise on tap (albeit, ummm, limited amount of walking); and minimal maintenance (artificial grass, you see).
I'm strangely impressed by the thinking...

Sheltering garden

The weather has suddenly switched.  No longer is it an  unexpectedly glorious summer; instead it has gone all rainy-squally and autumnal.
One wants to go out no further than to a hidden garden... an ornamental one, like this at Sandon Hall, with its picturesque 'temples' to act as shelters, is a good bet.

The gardens behind the amusements

Alton Towers will be re-opening soon - and hordes of pleasure seekers will be pouring in from all over the country to enjoy the delights of this famous amusement park.

It's a shame though that many of the visitors may not even come across one of the real delights of the estate: the formal laid-out gardens.
Just right now though, the gardens rest in solitary silence.

Memorial without dignity

It's Remembrance Sunday tomorrow; a solemn day in this 100th anniversary year of the start of World War One.

There has been some criticism though that people are going out this year creating all sorts of 'unsustainable' memorials, and should think more about how these memorials will maintain their dignity in years to come.
The Memorial Garden at Rudyard Lake is a case in point.  It's simply a nasty mess, and should be dismantled as soon as possible, as it carries little or no dignity.

Lady hiding from the cold

Poor girl !  I guess she's modestly covering up - but I wouldn't be surprised if she's shivering too.  Yes, winter has kicked in: there was a heavy frost this morning.
I'm told this is a copy of the nineteenth century Venus Italica statue, by the sculptor Canova.  Another copy can be seen in Sydney too (see Comments, below).
Seen in the gardens at Sandon Hall.

This post was featured on the International City Daily Photo portal

Secret sixties garden revealed

Some fascinating places are opened up to the public for the National Open Garden Days.  One of the last of the events for the NGS in Staffordshire for this year took place on Sunday when Stonehill Quarry House Garden welcomed visitors.

The house and surrounding wood are set in the hollow of an old rocky quarry, which has now been encouraged to return to Nature - shrubs, ferns, flowering trees have been planted in profusion.

The house, a nice example of modernistic late-60s architecture, echoes the wide and jagged angles of the old quarry.

This post was featured on the MyTown Shoot-Out Photo Blog

Summer gardens

With June comes Summer. Erm... one hopes.

The gardens of course have flourished in the recent rains, but a little sun would help too.  The gardens at Alton Towers are among the best in Staffordshire, and they will be open to the public as part of the National Gardens Scheme project in two weeks time.
Worth going I think.

Cave garden opening

The National Garden Scheme 'open garden' events in Staffordshire enable nosey people (like me), and enthusiastic gardeners too of course, to look round private gardens.
It's all for charity, so there is a small charge.

Mostly the gardens one sees are nothing particularly out of the ordinary - though they do glow with the reflected pleasure and hard-work of their owners, and you can spend a happy thirty minutes chatting with those owners about how they created their pride & joy.

On Sunday, I went to this one at Brocton, where the property was built on the side of a sandstone rock hill.  The owners, rather cleverly, ensured that an old cave, hollowed out of the rock, was highlighted as a curious and interesting feature of the garden.
It rather bemused visitors.

Topiary phantasms

In the privacy of their own gardens, some folk will just let rip with their imaginations... going for the bizarre as well as the conventional.

I prefer the bizarre - as in this house-front in Cheadle...  It's all about self-expression...!

Flowers get Brit-fever

Olympic fever has translated into Brit fervour, especially with Great Britain doing so well - amazingly well - in the medals table.
In Stafford, the gardeners at Victoria Park got into the spirit with this astonishing Union Jack flag of flowers...

Popular nude

This statue of a young lady bathing - in the classical style - may be a copy of a famous statue.  I wish I knew.
It's certainly popular enough: versions of it crop in hundreds of suburban gardens, and are on sale at dozens of locations, including DIY stores.

The wonder is: why? 
Under most circumstances a depiction of a loosely-clad young woman ('under a male gaze' as the art critics would say) wouldn't usually go down well in a domestic situation.
I know it's usually placed near a water-feature - as the one in this photo was - so there is a tie-in of sorts, but it's still a bit of a puzzle.

Sun-rain-sun growth

The torrential rain in England of the last few days has caused flooding in some parts; and means that this June will be remembered as the second wettest on record in this country.

Staffordshire has escaped the worst of the flooding... but the up-side of this sun-rain-sun-rain-sun-rain crazy weather is that some growers are reporting wonderful blooms, and fat vegetables.

Allotments - like this one at Cobridge - should have very good crops.

He made the desert smile

The Alton Towers Gardens were mentioned in a previous post on here, but I hadn't realised that the gardens had been articificially created in what was a 'dry valley'. Thousands of trees were shipped in and a local spring diverted.

The monument in the photo was set up to remember the man who undertook this huge work - Charles, the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury, who died in 1827.


The monument's subscription reads: "He Made The Desert Smile".

Alton Towers gets green

The National Garden Scheme (NGS) is a great idea.
Lots of gardens - from ones at stately homes right through to your local suburban homes - are made open to the general public for one afternoon a year.
Nosy people (like myself) pay a couple of quid to wander round them – and the money all goes to charity.

This year Alton Towers took part in the scheme – for the first time in eighty or so years. About two hundred of us took the opportunity to check out the historic gardens, which were created some 150 years ago, not to mention all its eccentric features.

Some of us walked round them; and some of us just took tea on the terrace above the gardens' mini-valley and enjoyed the view.

Link:  NGS in Staffordshire