RHS Hyde Hall

Hyde Hall was my favourite public garden.   When I close my eyes at night, it's this garden I think about the most.  Here in the Queen Mother's Garden was one of the first swishes of copper and cool blue.  Again, instead of just one poky little Verbascum - look how great it looks to include the family and friends (and friends of friends) for a much larger impact.

Gaura doesn't do too well for me - but what a great idea to use it as an add on with Allium and Salvia.  Just to make you laugh, yesterday when I was cleaning up a section of my garden, I took all the fallen-down Allium that I'd normally just put in the compost bag, and I drove them back into the ground in a oh-so-Hyde Hall-ish sort of way.  This morning I found them with their heads back on the ground like they'd had a party without me.

Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy' without the forest.  Almost every garden I went to had one.  Proof positive we're not north of Lake Ontario - if I were to do this, I'd be digging a grave for it in the spring.  That's the problem with this plant here - if we put it where it will live - it will bloom in the spring, but it leaves will look more like a bruise than a dark purple pansy.

A later Salvia - more Allium and Sedum  - quite cool.

More copper and cool blue.

Again, not what I'd thought I'd see in England.

If only they'd have some tumble weed, the photo would be complete.

This is going to drive me crazy that I can't get my Allium to stand up straight. (noticed that some of the photos are fuzzy-looking - using new blogger, anyone else noticing that the transfer of photos to the blog is either hit or miss?)

I found this fascinating.  Bergenia is completely and totally done here.  Having it bloom at the same time as Verbascum is like having hell freeze over, or as my friends from Montreal like to say, having the Toronto Maple Leafs make it into the playoffs.

Again, more copper and blue.

Aren't these marvellous?!

Kevin decided that cabbage roses are his all-time favourites - we'd poked around trying to find the name, fortunately one of the gracious volunteers helped us out:

The roses were trained along thick ropes in this section - so absolutely beautiful.

Now, that's what I call a well clipped hedge.  And, look at those roses and clematis....the scent was pure romance.

Now, this is something I'd never seen in Canada - the Herbaceous Borders look as if the gardens are backed up into stalls, the way we'd park a car.   Much prefer one big long border without the garage stalls so you can see the designer working to blend and adapt colour along a long border.

 

 

A beautiful this, followed by a lovely that:

I was charmed to see the children having such a good day in the garden.

And before I go - just a few more shots....look at these roses.

I'll never be able to grow daisies, Hemerocallis and delphiniums that look this pretty.

And finally, one more shot dedicated to bloggers everywhere - Hemerocallis 'Burning Daylight'.

More to come later.....