Wildegoose Nursery in the Corve Valley has been hosting a special winter opening this week (Thursday – Sunday) – giving us a chance to see the walled garden in its late season colours. Not the brightest of days yesterday, and with rain on the air.
Here’s a reminder of how it looked when we visited in September, this after weeks without rain:
Then and now…
From the tea room window
These first few photos aren’t from my garden (if only), but here to illustrate gardener’s lust [1] ~ that moment when a new plant begins to root itself in the psyche, aka mental compost, until you know that you simply have to have it.
Well, that’s what happened last week when we went to visit the walled garden of Wildegoose Nursery here in Shropshire. (See previous 2 posts). It was a hazy day, but everywhere the garden was alight with the frothy, apple green seedheads of Patrinia monandra/aff punctiflora [2] a tall and gracious plant, and one quite new to me. (And yes, it does seed itself everywhere, but I was told unwanted stems pull up easily).
At Wildegoose it sets off not only the reds and bronzes of late summer sedums, Eupatorium, and Heleniums, but also the fading stems of Verbena, Sea Holly, Echinacea and Hydrangea:
It’s a perennial, clump forming (50cm wide), hardy plant, with spreads of tiny yellow flowers from July to September. The seedheads, though, can last well into the winter. The plant was first collected in China by the Gothenburg Botanic Garden, or so the Beth Chatto site tells me.
And the reason I was looking there, was because it was only later when we arrived home, and I was scanning through the photos that I suddenly saw how lovely Patrinia might look in our so much smaller garden. And I knew Wildegoose was about to close for the winter, and that we were unlikely to get there before it did…And so to postal sources, although of course the plant, if ordered now, will naturally come pruned of those lovely seedheads…(Oh, the self-inflicted anguish of the besotted and too impatient gardener!)
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Meanwhile, back at The Gables we’ve been having a week of thunderous downpours with intermittent spells of warm September sunshine; April showers on steroids. The lawn is quite rejuvenated, although I hate to tell it, now it isn’t rock hard, I’m going to dig more of it up to make a new strawberry bed. (Psst. Don’t tell Graham).
So yes, we are heartily glad of the rain, even if it comes like swift deliveries from Niagara Falls. The Helianthus [3] by the greenhouse is certainly having a new lease of life. It’s lighting up one of the shadier parts of the garden, an unexpected full-on display when it’s already been flowering for weeks.
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In the border along the terrace wall, the Michaelmas Daisy [4] is at last beginning to flower. It’s been a mass of buds all summer, but was obviously saving itself for more autumnal days. It should be splendid in a week or so, and especially if the Rudbeckia keeps going.
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Further along the border, between the Japanese Anemones and Selinum, St. Cecilia rose [5] has been spurred into a second flowering. We inherited her with the garden. She was in a poorly state, but though the flowers, when fully open, are rather wan and saintly, and thus none too remarkable, I decided to nurture her. She anyway smells quite nice, and is appealing when the buds are seasonally dewdropped and seen beside the presently seeding heads of Selinum.
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And finally the Morning Glory [6] growing on the trellis by the oil tank looks to be enjoying the cooler, wetter days. I’m surprised it’s still going after the torrential downpours, the flowers lasting longer through the day too.
Happy gardening, folks, whatever your hemisphere.
Six on Saturday Please visit Jim in Cornwall for his week’s garden news.
In the last post I said I’d show some of the artworks from Mary Elliot’s ‘Drawn from the Earth’ exhibition, hosted last week by Wildegoose Nursery. The setting is a series of garden ‘rooms’ created in an old and magnificent walled garden. The late summer plants and grasses made an otherworldly backdrop for Sharon Griffin’s ceramic figures.
Her work is haunting. To come upon her pieces, as if by chance, in a garden that is slipping into autumn, gives them added drama; a life almost. There’s a sense of ‘old gods’ invoked; forgotten stories being retold.
Or in her own words:
I make work which explores the universal human condition…clay allows me the freedom for pure expression; a re-connectivity with the land and ancestral storytelling…
Faun with a shadow face and deer ears
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‘Not so blind that I can’t see’
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And on the plants for sale table: ‘The Gardener’
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I only came upon this one work by sculptor, Glen Farrelly. It’s called ‘Formation’. I perhaps find it more personally appealing than the Sharon Griffin works. i.e. in the sense I could see myself living with it. I loved its setting amongst the pale green Patrinia seedheads and red sedum, the spires of dying flower stems and grasses.
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And finally some more views of the gardens – plants making their own end-of-season artworks.
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Mary Elliot’s drawings and paintings can be seen HERE.
It’s quite a while since we last visited Wildegoose Nursery. It’s a longer drive from Bishop’s Castle than it was from Wenlock. But this is no excuse. It is the most beautiful place, the nursery created in what was once the walled vegetable garden of Millichope Park, Munslow. (You can read the story of all that has been created, plus splendid photos HERE).
The walled garden itself is planted in a series of ‘rooms’, showcasing the nursery’s range of plants for sale. It is only open during the planting season from March to late September. There are umbrella-ed tables and a pleasing cafe serving delicious cakes and lunch-time snacks made from the garden’s produce. And there are some very magnificent Georgian glasshouses which have been restored and once more put to growing.
Every one of those several thousand glass panes had to be replaced. But the reason I’m showing this particular shot, is because there’s a potting bench in view – i.e. to go along with the header bench for Jude’s Bench Challenge. (I also know she knows all about Wildegoose.)
The reason we roused ourselves to go there last week was because one-time Wenlock chum, Mary Elliot, artist and former 20/20 Gallery owner had put on a four-day art exhibition there Drawn from the Earth. She was exhibiting some of her own work too (much of it inspired by the Wildegoose gardens) and we’d hoped for a general catch-up. There will be more of the exhibition in the next post. For now a glimpse of the garden in its autumnal colours:
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And coming up in the next post:
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Real-life rabbits are the last thing this gardener wishes to encounter in her garden, but these terracotta ones by artist Sharon Griffin would be more than welcome. They were spotted back in September when our favourite plant place Wildegoose Nursery (set inside a historic walled garden) hosted a sculpture show by our favourite gallery, Twenty Twenty. It was a perfect match all round: art among the late summer perennials on a dreamy afternoon. And blissful to meander the garden paths and come upon some extraordinary creations. Here is a selection of works that caught my eye.
Self in stoneware with sgrafitto by Sharon Griffin
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Mitosis: a storm fallen field maple by Glen Farrelly
Flaunt 2022 powder coated steel by Anya Beaumont
Starlight Tower in terracotta stoneware by Emma Fenelon
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Insight: stone and bronze resin by Sue Jones
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Join Becky on her November walks.
Discovering Wildegoose Nursery was one of the high spots of 2019 – a plantsperson’s paradise set in an old walled garden on the edge of Corvedale in Shropshire.
We went there first in high summer, wandered through drifts of verbena, phlox, day lilies, cone flowers, alliums, grasses. The place was alive with butterflies and bee-hum. Buzzards mewed overhead and nearby, harvesters throbbed – the Corvedale farmers cutting their wheat. Far away over the wall, Clee Hill lay in a haze. A dreaming day.
We went again in November, and in its way, the garden was no less beautiful, the plants and grasses settled in muted tones, and the 1830’s glasshouse looking as magnificent as ever, the low light glancing off its 12,000 postcard-sized panes. It just goes to show – there’s treasure to be found on one’s doorstep. We’ll be back there in spring.
For now a pot pourri of summer and autumn views:
For most of November it’s been rain and gloom on the weather front, and hate and smear in the mass media. When it comes to the upcoming general election it feels like a no-win situation. We’re dying for it to be done with, but horrified by the possible result. I further give my position away when I say the only bright spot this last week was when Channel 4 ‘emptied chaired’ Boris Johnson who refused to take part in the leaders’ climate crisis debate and replaced him, as they said they would do, with an ice sculpture. This served to generate the Twitter hashtag #BorisIsAMelt which in turn made me laugh out loud, and briefly lifted the spirits.
And then on Friday the sun came out so we popped over to nearby Ironbridge and turned it into a proper outing, mooching and lunching. And then yesterday, though Wenlock was again lost in murk, when we drove out of town into Corvedale there was the sun floodlighting the valley through a thin gauze of mist. Goodness! Sun – two days running. So we went to the off-season opening at Wildegoose Nursery where we had last been in August when the walled garden was alive with butterflies and all round floral brilliance. Yesterday it was transformed to muted tones, here and there lit up by plumes of ornamental grasses as they caught the sun. The place is pure magic however it comes, and especially its magnificent glasshouse. Yesterday it was hosting a special course of Christmas wreath making plus some arty works from our much loved 2020 Gallery (even though it’s moved from Wenlock to Ludlow).
And so making the most of November’s sunny intervals, the following photos are mostly from the last couple of days: first off, yesterday at Wildegoose Nursery:
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Ironbridge 29th November:
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And on home territory earlier in the month: fog over the garden fence and brighter vistas in and around the Linden Walk and Wenlock Priory parkland…
copyright 2019 Tish Farrell
We’re back in Corvedale, the lovely valley that lies between Wenlock Edge and the Clee Hills, not far from the ancient Heath Chapel that featured in Over the Edge and faraway.
Wildegoose Nursery is a plants persons’ dream, conjured within an old Victorian kitchen garden. The owners lease the walled garden from Millichope Park and, over the last few years, have transformed decades of dereliction into a magnificent showpiece for uncommon varieties of herbaceous plants. We went there because my sister Jo kept saying we should. You’d love it, she said.
She was right. We did.
So: I’m posting this set of photos in response to Lens-Artists’ weekly theme. This week Amy asks us to think about how we frame our shots, and as this happened to be my particular challenge during our garden ramble: how to capture the essence of the whole, as well as the particular, it seemed a good opportunity to post them.
The colourways and combinations of the Wildegoose planting schemes are captivating, painterly, often flamboyantly informal, sometimes riotous.
Incidentally, I think this lily is hosting an invader harlequin ladybird. They originate in Japan and according the Royal Horticultural Society, were deliberately spread about the planet as a biocontrol for aphids, though not in Britain, whence they came of their own accord. They began arriving here in 2004. Unfortunately they also eat butterfly and moth eggs and our native ladybirds, and there are fears they will outstrip our native strains.
One particular challenge camera-wise was how best to photograph the astonishing Millichope Glasshouse. This too had been restored, all 12,500 postcard sized hand-made glass overlapping panels replaced. The glasshouse dates from around the 1830s and is highly unusual with its curved profile.
Restored from this:
Originally a Victorian kitchen garden such as this would have been cultivated by a small army of garden men and boys, all under the stern eye of a head gardener like Charles Ashford, my own grandfather. The glasshouses would have been devoted to producing exotic fruit, tropical plants for table and drawing room display; the garden walls used to support espaliered fruit trees – peaches, apricots, cherries, apples of many varieties, pears, each sited according to the most beneficial aspect. There would have been hot beds for melons and cucumbers and for forcing early crops, strawberry and asparagus beds, salad crops and vegetables of every kind, and also borders for cut flowers. Such production units were very expensive to run and by the interwar period most big gardens like that were beginning to be abandoned.
Wildegoose Nursery does have some vegetable beds, but mostly the garden is given over to exuberant herbaceous planting. There is also a small, beautifully arranged plant sales area, and a very welcoming tearoom which served such lovely food, we forced ourselves to stay for lunch, even though we’d not long sampled their coffee and cake for a late elevenses.
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And here are some planting schemes that especially caught my eye:
And here are some general garden views with Clee Hill in the background. I should add there was also a particular soundtrack to these scenes: above the hum of a million pollinators and the soft chatter of garden volunteers, the thrum of combine harvesters in nearby fields, and overhead, the plaintive mew of buzzards.
P.S. There is a fee for going round the garden, but we thought it worth every penny.
