Appreciation: Out and About

@Margot, good afternoon Margot. Agreed very old, as they are in most of the stately home estates around the UK. I find myself just sitting quietly looking at these wonderful pieces of natural art thinking 'if only they could talk, the stories they could tell'.
I was fortunate to work in some if the grandest estates in England and I did have to pinch myself sometimes to make sure I wasn't dreaming, lol

 

After watching our favourite gardening program yesterday ( The Beechgrove Garden). They were talking about hedge cutting. A five to ten minute job it was remarked.
I remembered a beautifully trimmed hedge at Clandon park we visited
In Surrey England. A bit longer than 10 minutes I think !!!??

 

Here is another Stanley Park Rose Garden rose, 'Sweet Fragrance'. I would have said it has no fragrance, as did a commenter on the page at Plant database entry for Rose (Rosa 'Sweet Fragrance') with 13 images, 2 comments, and 39 data details., but gardener Frankie says she found it to have a faint fragrance. That page calls it grandiflora, a commenter said florabunda/grandiflora, and some other page said it's an inter-specific hybrid, without naming the species. As I mentioned some pages back, I'm very fond of roses with a lot of variation in colour from one flower to another - this has lots of apricot colours. These are in the bed on the north side of the upper garden, next to the path, surrounding an upright beech tree.


Right across the path is/are one or two shrubs. This interested me for the Berberis thunbergii leaves. I'm not going to guess at the cultivar - I seem to have some choices. At the time I just assumed the white flowers belonged to the Berberis, since Berberis leaves surrounded them, but looking at my photos, and not finding Berberis with white flowers, I think that must be some other shrub.

 

Here are some plants from the lower Rose Garden. I have corrected the spelling.

I think this Echinacea is E. purpurea 'Green Twister'. There is another very similar, description very similar, but based on photos posted by the grower of that one, with the ray flowers not narrowing as much at the base, I have decided on this name. I might have posted the name of this bee once, but you don't seem to be able to search on "bee" in this forum - I think the word is too short, gets ignored.


Nearby, the sunflowers, Helianthus, are starting to bloom. Actually, these were the purpose of my visit, as my barista asked if they were in bloom yet.


What I just posted were behind me in the first photo below. The plants in the foreground are in the next photos, all bee magnets. I didn't look closely at the lavender, was mostly interested in the round purple flowers, Allium sphaerocephalon.


Egan Davis (from UBCBG) used a photo of those round-headed leak or drumstick allium in his Summer Gardening Tips: Watering, Weed Management, and Pest Control from a UBC Horticulturist, on YouTube and Facebook, so I was able to get the name. Here is the 3 1/2 minute video:

 

@wcutler, great photos Wendy, very colourful borders. Lovely to see bees. We just watched the video, what a bubbly character, makes you want to get straight out in the garden.

 

Douglas Justice's July 2020 in the Neighbourhood - UBC Botanical Garden blog has the last week of July updates, which include Liatris spicata; Echinaceae purpurea was listed for one of the earlier weeks. Here are mostly the Liatris (common names given are blazing star, gay feather), a bee on the Liatris, and a photo of the Liatris and coneflower together.


A few blocks from here is a planting of Rubus rolfei ‘Formosan Carpet’ in front of an apartment building. The thread at berry identification? is one of several on this UBCBG introduction; that thread has the most information about the naming history. The original sign is still there.

 

@wcutler, good morning Wendy, I love the plants to soften the entrance. The residents or residents association should be applauded.

 

As this is hedge cutting time, I thought I would add photos I took at another National trust property we visited, 'Montecute House' in South Somerset England. This was my second visit here, the first was in 1962. 'Quite a gap'.
It takes me a couple of days to do my hedges, how long must this Yew take!!!??

I have also added a photo of the wonderful Lebanese cedar and of two Copper beech in the grounds. It is something I do at every estate I visit, cant help myself, Lol.

One photo is of the back of this grand house to set the scene, in case you never get the chance to visit. Plus the driveway to the entrance, not a bad way to arrive!!!

 

I'm enjoying all these estate photos, Acerholic. The shaping of that yew hedge is what - unusual, surprising, creative. Amazing. I like the trimmed hedges behind the Cedars of Lebanon too.

 

@wcutler, I'm just so pleased I can share them Wendy. I gree they are amazing. But so many were planted where the owners would never see them in maturity. What a lovely thought, planting something that others a few hundred years or more later would enjoy. Makes it even more special IMO.

 

This is Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire England. I'm not a lover of formal beds, but others are, so here is the house to set the scene of our visit with photos also of where formality meets landscape. The Beech is so well placed yet again. The gardeners of old new exactly where to plant for best effect.

 

I thought I would continue a look at the Lebanese cedar today, with a view of how placement is so important and how the trunk of this amazing tree shows the scars of it's history. This is also at Montecute House Somerset.

 

This is Osborne house Isle of Wight England, the country home of Queen Victoria. I have posted this to continue my thoughts on where the landscape gardeners of the past knew where to place the Lebanese cedar to take best advantage of being viewed.
It was a lovely thought to walk around these trees knowing that Queen Victoria and here family did so.

 

Those are amazing photos, Acerholic - both the way you've included the trunk without it being a photo of a trunk, and another very fine hedge.

 

@wcutler, thankyou Wendy, it is very easy to aim straight at a trunk or a branch, but it does not show the real character IMO.

 

The orange rose is too modern looking to be a primary hybrid between 2 wild species roses. The Japanese barberry is of the 'Golden Ring' type, that is purple leaves with a narrow yellow margin. This variant appears when f. atropurpurea is raised from seed, so then it's a matter of whether or not we think 'Golden Ring' should embrace every example of this occurrence or consist only of a specific instance. In which case it seems a separate name should really be published for all those seedlings that have the same basic features but are not 'Golden Ring'.

The other shrub is Olearia x haastii. The generic spellings of the 2 herbaceous plants are correctly Echinacea and Helianthus.

 

Thank you! Daisy bush, an Asteraceae shrub. I never would have even started looking in Asteraceae. I posted a very different Olearia last year at Identification: - Shrub with small fuzzy brown fruits, prickly leaf edges, looks nothing like this one. In that posting, I've linked to some photos from UBCBG, and a quote from Wikipedia saying how much variation there is in this genus of 180 species.

Thank you for the spelling corrections, which I've fixed.

 

I have just found my photos of parts of the formal garden at the rear Osborne house IOW England, the garden gives wonderful views across the Solent towards the mainland. As it is close to the sea, plants that would normally not be able to be grown can in fact grow well without the fear of severe cold in Winter. The one thing in common with all the stately homes in England, is how the eye leads you from formal to landscape, normally with a HaHa to give the impression of continuance, without the fear of livestock entering the formal gardens.

When you see the views, you can see why this was a favourite place of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and of course their many children to play safely, away from the smog of London.

 

These are well placed Cedar trees at a famous country house and estate not far from me in Hampshire. It is The Vyne, a house visited by Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. I have added my photo of the front of the house to set the scene.

 

Here is a very busy boulevard garden three blocks from me, maybe part of the Green Streets program.


I don't see this Hibiscus syriacus in the photo above, but I took the photo only 15 seconds before the next one that I know is in this planting, so this is there somewhere. I was unable to find the cultivar name. I like the ruffled petals, the bits of pink at the edges, the gold bits through the red centres, the narrow claw-shaped petal attachment.


These are both new to me, but I think I have the names -
Asclepias syriaca


and Asclepias incarnata


Nicandra physalodes is another name I didn't know. I love this plant! Solanaceae family. Common names Apple of Peru, shoo-fly plant.


I think this is Nicotiana sylvestris, also in the Solanaceae family.

 

Good morning, today I thought I would continue with photos of carefully placed Cedars and specifically the Lebanese cedar which in this case has been planted in the formal garden for best effect. This is Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire England, an Elizabethan stately home with far reaching views. I have also attached a photo of a well positioned Ha Ha with the sheep beyond. The hedges are also trimmed to perfection.
The one thing about the stately homes, is that they always considered the view when planning.
Hope my photos give you an idea of the beauty that the residents saw every day in the 1600's

 

Here is a plant I liked in Alexandra Park, across from English Bay, growing under a Japanese Maple. I was just about going to give up on the ID of Saxifraga stolonifera, as I could not find any with shiny green leaves that didn't have white markings, but finally I checked the Wikipedia page at Saxifraga stolonifera - Wikipedia, and it's showing one from our local VanDusen Botanical Garden that looks just like this (to me) with the cultivar name 'Harvest Moon'. I like these curled leaves that give the impression of piles of rocks. And these weird flowers - what's happening here? It looks like two petals, and three sepals that are white marked with pink.

 

I thought I would just add this one of a Lebanese cedar on the lawn of Wilton house in Wiltshire England I photographed. I wanted to show how the structure of the tree helps compliment the house and vice versa. Nature and concrete or blocks can go hand in hand to create something wonderful. 'Sometimes'

 

I just posted this yesterday, and today at UBCBG I saw what certainly looks like the same plant. I have posted it at August 2020 in the Garden - "plenty of flowers to go around".

 

I thought I would add two photos today of our visit to Petworth house in Sussex England. I have shown one of the house to set the scene of how the residents were able to sit and enjoy the view of the lake and accompanying trees. IMO the Cedars that seem to lean towards each other are the standout in my mind.