Kedleston bluebells

Bluebell season is short, so it's necessary to make the most of it. The day after our trip to Calke, I decided to head out to Kedleston for another bluebell hunt. 

At Kedleston the bluebells are found along one of the paths we regularly take, the Short Walk.

There weren't at first many bluebells to be seen - but carpets of wild garlic, and garlic mustard growing round the trees, and blossom above us on the horse chestnuts.

We stopped, of course, at the viewpoint to admire the countryside, and talk to curious sheep, before heading on and finding bluebells at last.

We were a bit late in the season really, and brambles and nettles had grown taller than the bluebells but they still looked lovely.

There were anemones too, still flowering.

and this delightful small flower - purslane - which I've not really noticed before.  The individual flowers are tiny and easily missed but after spotting odd plants here and there, we were suddenly came across with a huge patch where they'd obviously spread uninterrupted..

This was my last bluebell jaunt of the year. It's getting too close to summer now, and I've still not managed to get back to Lea Bridge and its hillside covered in flowers, but that will have to wait another year now.

 

Calke - bluebells

Having more time left after our wander round Calke's gardens, I decided to head off in search of bluebells. They're not actually difficult to find - the way-marked route through the Serpentine Wood takes you right to them, although it does involve some short but steep up and down sections if walking from the main car park (from Calke Explore you can take a shorter, flatter path)

I've walked this route at all sorts of times of year but only once before at bluebell time, and to be honest I hadn't been very impressed with the display. That time I'd walked anti-clockwise. This time clockwise, and somehow the bluebells seemed much more impressive. 

Possibly they angle their flowers towards the sun but walking towards them from the western end of the path they suddenly appear en masse; a stunning carpet of blue beneath the trees.

Having reached the Serpentine Wood, the path is nice and level for a while before the descent alongside the deer park fence to  the ponds below, and then the uphill stretch back to the car park.

I was trying not too rush the last bit too much, but had my eye on the clock watching for the cafe's closing time. Fortunately we arrived with minutes to spare as a small treat is always a good way to round off an afternoon out.

 

Calke - wisteria, tulips, and apple blossom

Having seen photos posted on social media of wisteria flowering, I decided it was time to head to Calke Abbey and check how theirs was going. As it turned out, a little slower than I expected, with the south-facing walls in flower but not the north-facing ones.

It still looked gorgeous though, like something straight out of a fairy-tale. Maybe I'll try to get back soon as it comes into full flower ... 

We may have been a little early to catch the wisteria at its finest, but struck lucky with the various tulip displays.

I was particularly taken by this mix of vibrant orange and purple 

and by this far more delicate mix of yellow and white growing out of a carpet of pale forget-me-nots. It's a design feature I've seen at Calke before, when they had red tulips against a backdrop of blue forget-me-nots, and, more recently, at Holker Hall with white, palest pinks and deepest purple as the tulip colours above, and a bright blue beneath. It's an excellent way to keep weeds at bay, or at least hidden, and one I'd like to try (if only I could bring myself to give over a flower bed to a brief seasonal display)

Onward then into the vegetable garden (where the scarecrows are wearing new Spring outfits), and a wander through the apple trees, which were in full blossom and just as beautiful as the ornamental flowers. 

 

RHS Bridgewater

I joined the RHS last spring with the aim of seeing as many of their gardens as possible, and recently I ticked the third off my list - RHS Bridgewater - which is definitely my favourite so far.

Situated in Salford, it's the newest of their gardens, and as such still feels a little bit 'under construction' - not so much the hard landscaping of paths and water features, but the longer term settling and naturalising of plants.

We started our visit at the Walled Garden, a grid of planted spaces around a central water feature with connecting pools. It looked lovely, and rather 'mediterranean', though considering Manchester's reputation for rain, I'm not sure how delightful these features will be on a 'typical' day. We were fortunate with the sunshine and it was lovely to sit and listen to the water burbling up then running along from pool to pool

Something I've discovered divides garden visitors opinion is the RHS's love of name tags. For some they're a necessary way of learning what the plants are; for me they're an interruption to the beauty of the place. I like a garden to look natural and on the point of being overcrowded (it shows in my own back garden)

As with any new garden, there's a work in progress vibe to the area - trees are yet to achieve their full height, herbaceous plants will continue to mulitply and fill the beds - with a slightly sterile feel but I can imagine in a few years it will look much more lush.

Beyond the Walled Garden lies a fairly open area with wide paths, and not much happening plant-wise, but carrying on we came to an older, established area, part of the original Victorian gardens here, with trees and a pond below which a Chinese streamside garden is being developed.

This is still at a very early stage of development, with plants in process of  being added, so it's very much left to imagination at the moment.

Doubling back to the exit, we found another lake - this time with the welcome addition of a cafe, so we ended our visit with tea and scones overlooking the water. Lovely on a warm day.
 

Lake District - day 3; heading home Sizergh Castle

Heading away from the Lake District, we still had time for one more stop - Sizergh Castle, not far from Kendall, and almost en-route for the M6. It shouldn't have taken more than 20 minutes to get there - but roadworks held us up, making it nearly lunchtime when we arrived! 

Fortunately, while the car park and cafe were busy, once we'd paid to enter the grounds the crowd thinned noticeably. To be honest I felt the gardens were a bit disorganised, - a rock garden here, a stumpery there, a small vegetable garden, a huge orchard - as if various elements had been added without a thought for the overall design.

The orchard was lovely though and we possibly caught it at its best with all the trees in flower.

On the far side of the castle, looking east, sloping lawns surround the mirror pond and would have been a lovely place to sit in the sunshine ... but... this side faces a busy 'A' road, and the noise from it is dreadful. Not a place to relax at all, sadly.

What certainly appealed to me was its convenient 'just off the M6' situation. It's an ideal alternative to motorway services style breaks in a journey, and if time permits there are short (couple of mile) walks from the cafe, so I might be back.

 

Lake District - day 2; Tarn Hows

We ended up spending so long at Holker Hall that my plans for the rest of the day had to be revised. It was now early evening and too late in the day for either a long walk or any attraction with 'opening times'. We'd vaguely had an intention of visiting Tarn Hows though, and this was still do-able. 

This is a place we discovered accidentally on our first visit to the Lake District, over 40 years ago. I'm not sure how we stumbled upon it as the roads are narrow and twisty, and not really the sort you'd explore on a whim. I wonder if, rather oddly, it was better signposted back then when there were fewer holiday-makers in the area. What I hadn't realised back then is that, like Glencoe lochan in Scotland, this is a man-made landscape rather than natural.

The place itself has certainly changed in forty years. Instead of the rough footpath we'd discovered before there's now a wide firm path circling the tarn - it didn't seem either as flat or as short as our AirBnB hosts had described it as though, especially after a day spent mainly on my feet.

There's also been damage to the trees. Some, I've read, have been felled due to disease, but some, with their roots waving in the air, had definitely suffered in the high winds of early spring. (There were warnings about fallen trees and ongoing work to clear them at Grizedale too, but we didn't see so many there)

Maybe as well, early evening, with the sun already setting behind the mountains, wasn't the best time to visit. With the sun shining and the water reflecting blue sky, it would have looked quite different, but as it was, it seemed a somewhat dreary spot.