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I have on my bookshelf a gardening book from 1986 that I highly recommend to people looking for gardening ideas and I am often looking at it for inspiration.
Cottage Gardening In Town And Country by Philip Swindells. It's very cheap to buy these days and it's in hardback. I saw it for sale yesterday for 2 pounds plus postage online.
Tess Cottage. We met the owners in the garden and the lady told us that Thomas Hardy turned up one day in a pony and trap and said: "This will be Tess Cottage." The residence
If you like cottage gardens like I do. I could not recommend a better book. I think cottage gardens are a quintessentially English type of gardening. Although you do see some some lovely cottage gardens in Ireland. I do believe gardening is more of a passion in England.
I think back when I went to Dorset in 2018 (put Dorset in my blog search) and visited Dorchester and so many of Thomas Hardy 's haunts, birthplace and locations for his novels and the subsequent films like Shaftesbury (Jude The Obscure) and Durdle Door (Far From The Madding Crowd and Julie Christie).
Not forgetting all those chocolate box thatched cottages and the gin clear river Piddle, walled estate kitchen gardens and humble thatch cottage gardens and vegetables allotments and ancient stone churches with knights and ladies waiting for judgment day since the 14th century and pasties and...
Have I whet your cottage appetite? Or maybe a trip to Dorset?
of Tess of the Durbevilles.
We talked about the garden and I suggested ways of improving the clay soil.
Back to the book. The book shows such similar gardens and how to grow and plant your cottage It's supposed to be a good weather forecast.
Why not visit a garden this weekend? Cholmondeley and Heligan were favourites of mine when I lived in Blighty.
I wonder if the Rhododendrons are still in flower at Muckross House in Killarney? Queen Victoria once stayed there. I don't think she did 'air bnb' though!😊
Dorset is very pretty. If I ever wanted to move back to England that would be one of the places I would choose...if I could afford it...
ReplyDeleteSame here JayCee. Somewhere near the sea and allotments and near a town like Bournemouth that gets top groups and good weather and public transport. 22 degrees here today.
ReplyDeleteScorrchio!!!
DeleteScorching hot 🔥 for here. Heavy thundery showers later tonight. Its been a nice day today. May is a smashing month JayCee.
ReplyDeleteI haven't visited a garden in many years. Maybe the last time I wasin NZ. I remember in days of old we might go for a Sunday drive and adnire people's gardens. Nowadays it seems to be a good business, a ramble through a large garden and tea and cakes. A nice way to spend the day, smelling the flowers and listening to the bees
ReplyDeleteThe National Trust over in Blighty is excellent for such gardens visits Linda. A lot of aristocratic land owners cannot afford to pay the high inheritance taxes so they leave their properties to the National Trust and the properties and estates are well looked after and ordinary folk can visit them. I will post about a garden we visited tomorrow. Thanks Linda.
ReplyDeleteI may have mentioned this before Dave. We once stayed with my brother Paul and his Irish family in Dorset. The year would have been around 2001. Being a fan of Thomas Hardy myself I took two dozen pictures of sites connected with him - including Max Gate. However, when I got home I discovered there was no film in my camera! What a plonker!
ReplyDeleteHi YP. I have visited Thomas Hardy's houses from the outside including Max Gate. I take my photos on my mobile phone. I once bought a digital phone in Argos in Killarney and asked the lady on the till: "What film does it take?". True story. I am a bigger plonker than you.
ReplyDeleteI disagree. I must be a bigger plonker than you as I even drink plonk!
DeleteI am having a break from alcohol. That's a blog in a couple of days time.
ReplyDeleteLove a cottage garden - many are very carefully designed but the original idea was everything in together (flowers and veg) and I've seen some really honest examples in rural France too.
ReplyDeletePatchwork quilt cottage gardens are my favourite Tigger's Mum. I would love to see the French potagers with vegetables and flowers planted together.
ReplyDelete