In a Walled Garden

Yesterday we went on a bit of a nostalgia trip whilst on our way to Creswell in Derbyshire.  We were visiting Creswell Crags Museum and Prehistoric Gorge to donate Paul's rather large (it filled the back of the car with the back seats down) collection of Stone Age tools and other artefacts, he's written about it - here.  

We stopped in the little village I grew up in, just a few miles from Creswell and went into the churchyard to check my Mum's grave.  This was the first time we'd been there since December 2019 when we discovered that cows from nearby fields had got into the churchyard and made quite a mess of the graves.  My mum and step dad's stone is still badly tilted so it looks as if we need to go back and sort it ourselves.  

We spent over an hour at Creswell and after lunch we drove the short distance to Clumber Park where we had both, as children,  spent many hours with our families, playing ball games, walking, picnicking and watching cricket.  On the way back we drove though the small town that Paul grew up in before heading towards home.

At Clumber Park we walked to find the walled garden.  It was as delightful as I remembered it from our visit a few years ago.  Apologies in advance for the photo overload.

The walk to the gate of the garden, we thought the trees might be Larch trees.

 

The gates into the garden
 

Clumber holds the national rhubarb collection but at this time of year it was all about apples.  The ones above are called Dewdney's Seedling.

 

There were lots of tantalising views through into the next parts of the garden.

A theatre of pelargoniums

Some of the rhubarb collection.

There were lots of delightful corners.

The Palm House - above and below.

It was closed on this visit but we were able to peer inside through the open doors.

I was drawn to this lovely, tranquil scene in the apple orchard, it sums up a warm summer afternoon, I wonder who had been sitting there?

A place to purchase vegetables from the garden with an honesty box.

There are three walled areas within the whole garden.

Dahlias

Other flowers too

As well as being apple and dahlia season it was also time for squashes, pumpkins and hops.

 

Down the Lane

Down the lane the trees and hedges are full of berries.  

The warm sun this morning belies the cold almost autumnal weather we've experienced over the last few days.  Even the heating kicked in one morning and another day a cardigan was needed in the house.

The appearance of berries always moves thoughts on to Autumn even though I don't feel I've quite finished with what Summer has to offer.  The plums have yet to ripen on the tree at the top of the garden and the dahlias, zinnias and cosmos are still blowing around blowsily, their colourful heads dancing merrily in the breeze.

Rowan berries, black berries, elderberries, hips and haws are all showing their colour along the path.

Above and below Rowan berries.

Blackberries

Some ripe enough for picking to go with apples for an apple pie.  We left them for the birds and mice or perhaps jam makers.

Elderberries 

Enough for both birds and wine makers to harvest.
 

Rosehips - a good source of Vitamin C.

I remember being fed teaspoons of Rosehip syrup as a child.

Hawthorne Berries

 

 

There were so many Hawthorne bushes that there must have been, sometime in the past, a Hawthorne hedge all the way along the path separating it from the fields.
 

Recently

I've not written a post for a while.  To be honest I haven't felt like it what with one thing and another.  I thought I'd do a sequence of photos taken since my last post.  Not many words I'm afraid as I don't have them at the moment.

One of the young foxes visited before dark and posed for photos.

We stoped to walk at the JCB lake on our way to Ashbourne.

There were lots of Barnacle Geese

We bought a Helenium plant from the local garden centre.

It's called Mardi Gras.  I've wanted one for ages. I hope when it goes into the garden it spreads.

Paul made bread loaves. 

 

We walked along the riverside in Bakewell on our way back from a funeral.

Not many people around, it's usually very busy.

 

It's a wonder the bridge over to the cattle market doesn't collapse under the weight of those locks.

 

Lastly, in the garden, the sunfower is growing tall.  We set four seeds in pots earlier this year, only one germinated.  I'm waiting to see what colour it will be as the seed packet held a mixture of seeds.  The wildlife will love it, I'm sure.

 

Added August 17th

 

A couple of days after I'd written this post the sunflower started to open up - this is the colour and it has grown a few more inches too.