(The photo above isn't one I've taken, but it's from the Breezy Knees website. Just get a load of those borders!) Here's a few more photos from our visit to Yorkshire's Breezy Knees Gardens, as promised. Not only did the array of huge poppies look fabulous, but I learnt the importance of either staking them or - better still - surrounding their foliage with other plants that can offer support. Otherwise they flop as if the effort of keeping upright is just all too much faff. So many poppies. All the beds are well mulched with bark chippings, meaning staff don't water anything except new plants being added to borders. The mulch is essential as otherwise watering would be a non-stop job in the height of summer, wouldn't it? Up close and personal with an Allium.
I did take other pictures but was having camera (or more accurately tablet) trouble, partly 'cause the sun was so strong I struggled to see the screen. So can't post photos of the many and varied iris we saw. Iris were everywhere, and like the poppies they come in a wide range of colours. I wrote down the varieties I especially liked - Iris Sibirica 'Melton Red Flare' and a dramatic velvety Iris 'Deep Black'. Stunners! I'd love to go back to Breezy Knees, and particularly experience it throughout the four seasons. It's such a large site I reckon you could pack an awful lot of visitors in before it even felt remotely busy, though I bet it's a popular place on a Bank Holiday. When I win the lottery ( ... I have these dreams, despite the fact I don't bother buying Lotto tickets ...) I'll buy a piece of land and divide it up into 'rooms', those spaces so beloved of garden designers. I'll have colour themes for my 'rooms'. Luminous swathes of all white flowers nestling in green foliage. A section with cool, silvery green leaved plants, restful on the eyes. Another section with foliage that's dramatically purple and ruby and bronze. A wide, generous herbaceous border with every colour of the rainbow to delight the senses. A formal herb garden. A sculpture trail. Oh, so many things you could do ... if you had the money and the space. Just a final quick note: I did say in my previous post that the lack of labels in some cases made identifying plants difficult. I'd also add another tiny criticism of the site - whoever designed the beds does love a ruler and set square. Lots of right angles - straight paths and sharp corners. Some of the wide flower borders would benefit from having winding paths that meander lazily through them, or just are sited less rigidly around them. So corners to beds as softened, lines relaxed. It'd be more naturalistic and conducive to having that unhurried, relaxing stroll. But it's a small drawback when there're so many positives. Anyone else visited these gardens, or are planning a visit?
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ValerieMoved from a garden-less city flat in the South West to a Yorkshire village in 2016. I now have a garden ... of sorts. Archives
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