Parks & Gardens in London, the UK & abroad
The Horniman Museum & gardens in south east London is an interesting and popular small museum. It stands on a hill with good views over London, surrounded by parklands. The Museum and its cafe are very popular and well-used by local people and offer many varied experiences to the curious visitor.
It is the beginning of October in The Fortnight Garden but it is definitely a new season as well. Autumn has arrived and the garden is starting to slowly pack up for the year and retreat into itself for the long winter months. I find it quite sad.
Upper Telegraph Hill Park is closer to where I live but I don’t know it! London Gardens Online tells me that ‘…Telegraph Hill Park in Lewisham is in two parts, an upper park in the south, and a lower park in the north, divided by Kitto Road. It incorporates the site of one of the Admiralty’s C18th semaphore stations, which was in use until 1815, from which the park gets its name. The Managing Director of the Metropolitan Gas Co. decided that the area needed a park and £2,000 with similar amounts from the LCC and Greenwich Board of Works. With this money they bought the land from the Haberdashers’ Company.
The park opened on 6 April 1895 with a bandstand, ponds and elaborate walks, perimeter planting and a perimeter walk. A shelter and toilets were added later in the northern park, and tennis courts were built on the site of the semaphore station in the south part, which has magnificent views. And recently the park was restored through a grant from the HLF…’.
It has been a wet day, too wet to ‘garden’ in the Fortnight Garden but not too wet to participate in Six on Saturday and seek advice from The Propagator and fellow gardeners!
Well, you have to pay for pleasure and after enjoying the sunshine and bright colours of Northern Spain I have returned to a messy, sombre garden in London. It could be worse – the gardens could be dry and dead! Nevertheless I have six challenges in the City Garden this week.
I was hoping for warm weather not very long ago and here it is!
The bees are gobbling up the lavender and knautia madedonica! And the clematis ‘Prince Charles’ is making a brave effort, but I think suffering from my neglect – the flowers are quite modest. On the more productive side the quinces promise to be abundant again, there seem to be enough plums for jam, and we are going to have a fair number of pears. And those are my ‘Six on Saturday’! Do check what other keen gardeners are collecting!
It has been so busy – a photography exhibition in Suffolk and another in Brittany, followed by the ongoing project in Brittany, photographing the Parish Closes – that I haven’t paid enough attention to the City Garden. I did some work in March, which was good, but more remains to be done if I want to sit back and enjoy it in the evenings – it would be good to have warm evenings in which to enjoy the garden too!
I said when I last posted that I had to wait and see happens next in the garden, having made some changes in the Spring. I have been away from the Fortnight Garden for seven weeks now and my goodness I am paying for it! I have come back to a jungle! The hedges need cutting, the pots are a mess, the viburnum has been shredded, and it just looks as though the plants need attention.
This year has been a scramble from the beginning – photography exhibition, two weeks in Brittany, a working trip to Northern France, and volunteering and photographing with Open Garden Squares Weekend in London. Blogging is out of order, but posting on Brittany is next and I must share with you the wonderful gardens at the Chateau of Trévarez which is situated on a hillside overlooking the Aulne Valley. I was in Brittany to photograph the Churches but took a day out to visit these gardens – and I plan to do the same next year!
The original Chateau was built in the 16C and 17C. Today’s building dates from 1893-1904 and was commissioned by James de Kerjégu, a politician The domain of Trévarez covers over 85 hectares and in the vast parklands are a classical regular garden, an Italian style garden, a picturesque garden with cascades and a recently planted contemporary garden. Trévarez also has a heather collection of national importance, apparently. The gardens feature different plants during the seasons: camellias from November to April, rhododendrons (National Collection) in April and May, Hydrangeas and Fuchsias in the summertime...’. The Chateau was occupied by German forces during WWII and bombed by the RAF, but has been restored and both the Chateau and parklands are open to the public at advertised times.
The Camellias were just going over when I visited in early May, but I found a few, hidden in the bushes. The collection was started in 1970s and now includes, incredibly, hundreds of varieties.
The rhododendrons were glorious! Flowers of all colours – along the walkways, hidden in the woods, in clumps in groves – unbelieveably beautiful.
I think this was the ‘Romantic Garden’, built in a quarry and with a waterfall and river. Steps from the garden lead up to a more formal vista and leat leading to the Chateau.
The woods are … beautiful
And alongside the Chateau…
Do visit this bautiful parkland if you are in Brittany – I will be returning in the autumn, and again in the spring next year!
Further information
European Garden Heritage