Wildegoose Nursery

Six On Saturday ~ Tales Of The Unexpected

Runner Bean Re-run?

Even though I was keeping the row well watered, and had earlier dosed plants with seaweed feed, the runner beans went on strike for most of August. It didn’t help that the sparrows were using them as an afternoon playground, rampaging through the stems. When I consulted the Royal Society of Horticulture website it told me that sparrows like to peck at the flowers, deforming the structures and making it difficult for pollinating insects to gain access. So much for feeding the little dears all winter.

But now, with the rain and cool temperatures, the runners are a jungle on sticks. We even had a handful of good sized beans this week, and there are signs among the returning flowers of tiny beanlets. But will they have time to develop? Who knows?

Not quite Uchiki Kuri

I kept some seeds from last year’s Uchiki Kuri Japanese squash. I only produced two. The fruits were very bright orange and oval as they should be. Not so their offspring, sown in late spring, one each from two separate plants.

A Perfect Red Devil?

We thought all the apples on our miniature Red Devil tree had been zapped by codling moths. After the July drop there are four left, this one the least scathed and best developed. But would it entice Snow White?

Some strange sunflowers

The sunflower flock that arose from last year’s dropped seed is still going strong. It also includes several forms that I don’t recall growing in the first place, and one with multiple flowers growing up the stalk which is distinctly odd. The tallest, we reckon, is about 3 metres. I have it tethered to the obelisk where we had the sweet peas, whence it looms down at us. I’ve already dead-headed it once. That took some doing with a pair of tree loppers.

No, this definitely isn’t a Selinum seedling

I distinctly remember saving some seed from the Selinum in the upstairs garden. All through the winter there was a pot of seeds on the kitchen shelf. Definitely umbelliferous in looks. Must be the Selinum. In the spring I sowed them in modules in the greenhouse and for a long time nothing happened. And then it did, and I couldn’t think what on earth I had grown. Not the feathery leaflets expected, something altogether more fleshy and pointy. What on earth…?

For a time I wondered if they were Rudbeckia, suddenly making an appearance after what I thought to be a failed sowing back in the autumn. This rather made up for them not being Selinum so I let them grow on, and eventually planted out half a dozen in various spots around the garden. They survived the drought, but didn’t expand much.

Cut to a visit to Wildegoose Walled Garden and Nursery, as featured here in last weeks SoS. I came away with a young Patrinia Monandra plant. (Some may be aware that I have a thing about Patrinia, first met with at Wildegoose during one of their rare winter opening weekends. It is tall, graceful, discreetly clumping and flowers into November when the seedheads then reflect any late autumn sunlight.)

I already have two Patrinia Punctifolia, bought last year from Great Dixter nursery (one of which I nearly killed this summer in my careless feeding of a nearby plant). But the survivor is currently flowering beautifully. And still the penny did not drop.

You could say it was a ‘be careful what you wish for’ moment, although in this case I would delighted to have a garden with lots of Patrinia. And so now I do. The seed I’d saved must have come from a handful snaffled from the winter visit to Wildegoose. Suddenly I saw the plants I had grown and the one I’d bought looked – well- identical. Probably the Monandra version then.

Patrinia as seen at Wildegoose in late August, just beginning to flower.

Heaven knows what happened to the Selinum seeds. Try again this year.

An unexpectedly pleasing delivery

There are some lovely plantspeople selling on-line. And so trawling the net in search of yet another plant seen at Wildegoose, but one which they don’t appear to sell, or haven’t in stock, I discovered Solidago Golden Dwarf at Crossgate Nursery in Cornwall. Here it is just after arrival. The plants had been carefully folded to preserve the stems that are just about to flower. I expect they’ll straighten out. But anyway, here it is in the front garden. There are several ‘dwarf’ varieties I now discover, ones that don’t get out of hand and flop, and also have more lemony coloured flowers.

Here’s another repeat photo from the Wildegoose visit where I spotted a spread of lemony, just-out solidago with some Persicaria.

A good week then, all in all. And rain and sun too. Happy gardening, folks.

Six on Saturday It’s a wise gardener who labels their seed envelopes. Please visit Jim for more garden doings and some fabulous coleus.

The Changing Seasons ~ This Was August ‘26

August in Shropshire, and for much of the month the dry and sunny days rolled on. After weeks without rain, the fields around the town looked like this – ochre shades and smoothly crop-shorn.

Meanwhile, in the garden the sunflowers put on the biggest show – volunteers and perennials alike…

…and the borders did their best, especially the areas that been well mulched…

We had some welcome visitors…

One evening we sat out on the lawn and almost saw the partial eclipse. The sunflowers almost saw it too.

And on another evening we walked up Wintles Hill to look for blackberries…

… and found enough to make two jars of bramble jelly. In fact this year the blackberries are being magnificent – sweet and fat and juicy. They haven’t minded the drought. The hedgerows are hanging in fruit. More forays to come, methinks.

We grew adventurous one day and drove all of 18 miles from Bishop’s Castle to Munslow in Corvedale to have lunch in the walled garden at Wildegoose Nursery. It was a good opportunity to see which of their plants had been surviving the hot and rainless summer. It all looked very lovely…

And we also paid our old home town of Much Wenlock a visit. There were mixed feelings revisiting the Linden Walk, and climbing Windmill Hill to look at the once familiar view, and to say hello to the latest generation of Highland cattle in the Cutlins meadow…

And then at last IT RAINED…

Copyright Tish Farrell 2026

The Changing Seasons: Aug 2026 Please call in on hosts Ju-Lyn at Touring My Backyard and Brian at Bushboys World. As ever, Ju-Lyn has been a whizz in the kitchen and at the keyboard too. And Brian has fabulous bird- and wildlife on show.

WildeGoose ~ Still Beauty In The Dry Garden

There’s not much happening in the home garden this week, but wonder of wonders, we have some serious rain. After two months standing empty, the water butts are brimming, and every watering can is full. And so comes the dilemma: lots of rain still coming and nowhere to store the excess; nor any need to use it outside the greenhouse. At least for the next week.

Anyway, this still has me thinking about cultivating a more drought-resilient garden, and so prompted by last week’s return visit to the Wildegoose walled garden (last seen in late June),and see how the nursery’s extensive herbaceous-ornamental grass borders have fared without rain.

I should perhaps explain that Wildegoose (location in Munslow in South Shropshire’s Corve Valley) is both a specialist nursery (for violas in particular) and is also a garden attraction in its own right, complete with a very pleasing cafe that makes use of the kitchen garden’s fruit and vegetables.

This leaves a very large portion of the walled garden which is given over to herbaceous plants and ornamental grasses (especially Calamagrostis and Miscanthus species), with different areas framed by paths, sections of hedging, some statement shrubs and small trees. There is also a fabulously restored Georgian glasshouse.

With such big spaces to cultivate, the schemes have been devised with much emphasis on height and visual structure. Plants are left to go to seed over the winter, with the further objective of tracking particular plant responses to weather extremes.

N.B. These areas are not watered during the growing season.

When we arrived a week ago (21 August) it was clear some plants had truly suffered. All the phlox, for instance, had been cut down. But there were also many picturesque, dried-on-the-stem ornamentals like the teasels in the header photo. Gone-over eryngiums of several varieties also added to the general look of scenic desiccation. Likewise the seed heads of many varieties of allium (especially Drumsticks), dark rusty spires of foxgloves and the tall wafting stems of giant yellow scabious Cephalaria dipsacoides. And then there were the many grasses, short and tall. All added to the gentle soundscape of breeze-in-the- leaves.

As we wandered up and down the paths, the dead-head coronets of Echinacea Leilani (1) caught my eye. Such smouldering looks in decay.

But it was the surviving and thriving that most interested me. In one quarter of the garden several Gaura were looking especially wonderful, outspread graceful stems of airy blossom, with nearby clumps of evening primroses and tall euphorbias that had clearly been putting on a good show, some flowers still remaining. Then there were the Verbenas, especially, bonariensis and hastata, and the Rudbeckias maxima and fulgida still going strong.

Unsurprisingly, many thrivers had Mediterranean origins. One, in particular, the umbelliferous Patrinia (2), particularly stood out and up among the grasses. It has been allowed to self-seed throughout the garden, the stems stately and self-supporting, some flowerheads a sprightly apple green (also see header photo), others going over in a haze of pale gold.

Here it is keeping company with some very crispy sea holly:

Other happy plants included various members of the origanum family. I succumbed to a pot of Oreganum Gentle Breeze (3) on the basis that you can’t have too different varieties, and they work well in a small garden.

Gentle Breeze appears to be a later flowering variety and was still a mass of dark purple buds.

And then there were the Achilleas (4) – Filipendula Cloth of Gold drying nicely beside the vegetable garden…

…and then the very creamy faced, in her prime, Hella Glashoff…

…seen growing alongside some flourishing Asters, probably thomsonii or x. frikartii Monch (5):

But the over-all winner for its vibrant colour and seeming late summer staying power has to be the Persicaria/Bistorta amplexicaulis (6). There were at least two varieties, the most striking probably the Amethyst. I think this is it in the next photo, shown to great advantage with a backdrop of just-opening golden rod (probably Little Lemon). What a glorious late summer combination.

And to finish, another longer view. These particular borders are very well mulched:

Six on Saturday Over at Garden Ruminations Jim is assessing the good and bad of Cornwall’s rainless summer. But the best news is: he has hedgehogs!

Raindrops On Roses ~ Six On Saturday

Today it’s more like October than June. We’re back to grey skies, gusty wind and rain between showers. But the Peneloperoses are bearing up, even if their frocks are soaked and their flounces crumpled.

Here’s a photo from earlier in the week during a sudden sunny spell. The plant itself is a tending-tall, rather floppy shrub rose that can be trained as a short climber if you only have a short wall. I’m hoping that in time she will simply arc gracefully down the terrace wall without much in-put from me. She’s already doing her best.

***

In the back garden the scabious are just beginning to flower – both the usual herbaceous border version which I bought as large plugs three years ago, but are only now performing, and a Sheep’s Bit variety called Jasione laevis Blue Light, which went in as a young plant last September. Both are presently keeping company with various hardy geraniums, but the Blue Light is already making a pleasing low clump on the border edge near the path.

***

Another first-time performer in the garden is the yellow Phlomis russeliana. I bought it because it’s drought tolerant, bee friendly, will bloom all summer and the dead flower heads still look good in winter. Last year, however, it sat out the long drought, and only made big leaves. It’s making up for it this year. I’m thinking that in due course it will need to move to the side wall bed, where it can keep the yellow rudbeckia and helianthus company.

***

On the edible front, the globe artichokes are making their presence felt. One of the plants has grown up hugely in a most annoying spot, squashed in between the Polka raspberries and the Jelly King crab apple tree. I know I did grow it from seed but somehow it escaped me during the planting phase and dug itself in. Anyway, the rain has brought it on, and it’s about to be eaten. I usually cut artichokes in half to remove the choke, and then steam them. Halves obviously don’t need so much cooking time as wholes, and it’s easier to see if they’re done. Garlicky butter to serve.

Also in the bottom border is a a purple headed variety. It’s strikingly ornamental growing alongside the sweet white rocket and foxgloves.

***

While I was inspecting this end of the garden, which takes some doing, what with the mammoth size of the artichoke leaves, I was pleased to see that the neighbouring old cooking apple tree looks to be bearing far more apples than we were expecting. The blossom came and went so fast in cold and windy weather, it seemed unlikely that much of it would be fertilised. But not so! We don’t know the variety, but the fruits are big and rose blushed and need no sugar when cooked.

***

And now back to my new favourite, as mentioned in two recent posts – Cenolophium denudatum, aka Baltic Parsley. Coming up is the version I have already settled in the bed along the top of the terrace wall. It grows rather like Cow Parsley/Queen Anne’s Lace, and indeed it was supposed to be white, according to the Great Dixter Nursery catalogue. Mine, however, turned out to be pink. I don’t mind. It looks good with the valerian whose massed umbels are hint-of-pink white.

***

But then yesterday we were having a splendid day out in the walled garden at Wildegoose Nursery in the Corve Valley. And there I found a pale lemony version. It had to come home with me.

***

And to finish a shot of Wildegoose walled garden where I discovered it (along with a dozen or three other plants that roused acute spasms of gardener’s greed).

Wildegoose Nursery Walled Garden

Six on Saturday 6 June 2026 Please call in on Jim as he prepares for his garden opening.

Shadows of Summer Past at Wildegoose Nursery

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

November Shadows #29

For Love Of Patrinia ~ Six On Saturday

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!)

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.

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.

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.

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.

‘Drawn from the Earth’ ~ Art In The Garden At Wildegoose Nursery

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

‘Not so blind that I can’t see’

And on the plants for sale table: ‘The Gardener’

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.

And finally some more views of the gardens – plants making their own end-of-season artworks.

Mary Elliot’s drawings and paintings can be seen HERE.

The Blue Bench At Wildegoose Nursery

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:

And coming up in the next post:

Wildegoose Garden’s Sculpture Show

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

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

Insight: stone and bronze resin by Sue Jones

Walking Squares #4

Join Becky on her November walks.

Wildegoose Rooflights

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:

Lens-Artists: special spot shots

January Light #8