Veg Plotting

I had a brilliant day at Lacock Abbey last Sunday with Justin 'Pinhole' Quinnell playing around with various traditional photography techniques including Camera Obscura, turmeric printing and pinhole photography. The latter was most apt as it was World Pinhole photography day  - the website is well worth a look with participants and a wide variety of viewpoints from around the world. Justin loves making unusual pictures using this technique and delighted in taking pictures up our noses and of our ears as well as more conventional views. Many of his techniques use recycled or very cheap materials and he has full instructions for various projects you might like to try on his website . We all got to have a go with pinhole cameras made using old beer cans and traditional wet chemical developing techniques. I was pleased when it came to my turn to pose on the bench in the botanical garden and the results are shown above. True to my Veg Plotting roots I was also pleased to take a ph...

  It's Apple Day, one of my favourite days of the year and what better way to celebrate than to tell you about my recent trip to Longney, where Gloucestershire Orchard Trust have 18 acres of apple orchard under their tender care. Here you'll find older orchards with some trees well over a century old, plus their newer plantings of around 94 Gloucestershire cultivars which have just acquired national plant collection status at Plant Heritage . The jury's out on the actual number as DNA testing has revealed at least one locally named variety is actually a more well known one: Ribston Pippin in this case. Don't worry, there are dozens there which definitely have their origins rooted firmly in Gloucestershire and their cultivation at Longney is vital to their continued presence and preservation. There were around 200 local varieties at one time and today it's around 100 still in existence. Steve Mason - the Trust's Curator - was our knowledgeable guide who invited ...

We had a lovely time at Avebury Manor 's sculpture exhibition on Saturday and my friend W  kindly sent me this jolly photo from the day afterwards. When I saw it I giggled at how my chosen outfit picked out the colours of the Orangutan sculpture we found dangling in one of the trees, so it just had to be added to my irregular  series,  Separated at Birth today. I'm giggling again at how appropriate the series name is for this particular subject, seeing we're such a close relative to primates. It's lovely to have some humour back on the blog again - for those of you confused by my labelling, this series gives a nod to a series of the same name in Private Eye , where they deliberately label the items featured the wrong way round. I see they've now renamed the series Lookalikes, which you can see here .

This image makes my heart sing and is why I love the National Gardens Scheme (NGS). It doesn't cost much to visit a garden tended by an enthusiast, yet see how all those entrance fees can grow into something life changing. My visits are going to start early this year with a trip to Westcroft  next month, a Wiltshire garden near Salisbury which is stuffed with snowdrops and so is opening happily as part of the NGS's Snowdrop Festival. See you there Helen !

I was surprised to find a snail had hitched a lift with me to Westonbirt on Friday and whilst John Bunyan's musing upon a snail is quite different, these few lines fitted this photo perfectly for Muse Day . Where's the strangest place you've found a snail?

We've spent the past few weeks taking advantage of the current small gathering allowance to catch up at last with friends and family after many months; well over a year in some cases. It means I've been out and about instead of writing bloggage, but I'm happy to say I've still managed to fit in a few garden visits along the way. The highlight from this time was a visit to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park , and thanks to a trip to my BIL's I've fulfilled my wish to do so at long last. We managed an afternoon visit in welcome sunshine between showers and it soon became clear it's possible to spend days there.  The wide open spaces of the original landscape means huge sculptures can be accommodated without overwhelming their surroundings. All kinds of artists and tastes can be found there, which prompted many a discussion along the lines of 'but is it art ?' It was a thought provoking visit alongside a decent walk and plenty of art we liked as well as what ...

October days are rather special at Exbury Gardens , not only for autumn colour, but also for their amazing collection of nerines . You may remember I visited last spring for their centenary year ; it's always good to return in a different season to see what a garden has to offer. A gorgeously sunny day last week and the trees nearing their peak autumn colour meant it didn't disappoint. Before we have a proper wander around the garden, The Five Arrows Gallery is the place to be with its special exhibition of Exbury's nerines. These are the stars of the collection this year and includes a selection of the new hybrids picked out by garden director Nicholas de Rothschild and Theo Herselman, who heads up the Nerine and Lachenalia collections. There are also plants to buy here, some of them available for the first time. They are that new. Here's Theo just after this year's exhibition opened, photo courtesy of Chris Stephens of Otso Creative. I bumped into Theo at the glas...

  I had a glorious afternoon at Chenies Manor House  last week and here's a view of the delicious Grade I listed property from the gardens to show off its setting. Those twisted chimneys tell us it dates back to Tudor times and I later found out their maker went on to build the famous ones at Hampton Court. The place has a 'settled in' feel about it which sits perfectly at home with its surroundings and village, probably because there's been a manor house there since Anglo Saxon times, if not earlier. It makes for a relaxing place to explore. The garden's planting is structural yet romantic and divided into several 'rooms'. It's noted for its dahlias at this time of the year and they were opulent and delightful. Another strong feature were the sculptures which added a contemporary note to the Tudor influenced design. I feel I've been following a particular sculptor around the past few weeks - Jenny Pickford -  the creator of the floral sculpture you...

Monty Don in Phoenix, Arizona; Lotusland, California; and Monty in Central Park, New York. © Derry Moore.  What is an American Garden? asks Monty Don in the introduction to this lavish volume. The images above give us a clue to his unsurprising conclusion: America is simply too vast. The varied landscapes, climate, and people are too mind bogglingly wide to provide a definitive answer.  Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC. © Derry Moore That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to find out and I'm pleased Monty Don did in both his TV series in January, and now in the follow-up book published earlier this week. I was due to visit America again for the latest Garden Bloggers' Fling , but of course Covid-19 put those plans on hold. It's great to do that from my armchair instead, especially as one of the gardens featured - The Lurie in Chicago - is one I was due to visit on my way to Wisconsin. Another garden - Dumbarton Oaks - was closed when I visited Washington DC in 2017, so I...

Garden visits have been thin on the ground this year, so it was wonderful to have the opportunity this week to catch up with Charles Dowding at his (relatively) new property in Somerset and chat to him about his latest book. Rest assured that Covid guidance was adhered to and I found myself in a select group of bloggers, podcasters and garden writers for my visit, and not the 900-odd visitors who crowd into Homeacres for one of Charles's open days in normal years! Regular readers may remember I visited Charles at his previous property - Lower Farm - in 2012 for my VPs VIPs  interview and 52 Week Salad Challenge strands. Then it was February and the start of the sowing season; what a difference a September visit makes with Charles's abundant produce and flowers positively glowing with good health everywhere. I needed no second invitation to munch on the tomatoes in the polytunnel; they were delicious. Homeacres is a smaller property of around a quarter of an acre. Here the in...

It's that time of the year again when there's the perfect excuse to pop into the garden for a break, a cuppa and to take part in the Big Butterfly Count . It's even better when your friend Jane Moore has written a book about them and invites you to join her where she works  to do the count there in the hotel's meadow. Of course mother nature conspired against us on Friday and produced the third hottest day of the year ever in the UK. As a result the butterflies decided to flutter off elsewhere with only the odd tired cabbage white or two plus a gatekeeper putting in a brief appearance during our time together. As you can see we retired to the gazebo instead to shelter from the heat and chat merrily away about the garden and all things butterfly. There was also time for a cuppa, where I spotted Jane's handy butterfly guide pinned to her notice board in the greenhouse. I also got the full tour of the hotel's three acre garden (you can also read Jane's guide h...