The Gardens of Chatsworth

Monday dawned with beautiful blue skies and sunshine!  What a glorious day to visit Chatsworth!  From the car park, the vista was glorious!


I headed right for the gardens ~ hoping for better light to take photos in.  It was a good choice as the day warmed right up.  The cottage garden was lush and full of a mix of vegetables and flowers and a lovely size for one person to keep up.


The kitchen and cutting gardens were extensive!  And beautiful no matter which direction you looked!


I love the greenhouses next to the vegetable gardens.  Someday, I really want a greenhouse like this!


Each one was set up to grow different things ~ flowers in some, one was filled to the brim with tomatoes, others had vegetables or melons.  All meticulously cared for!


Even the gardener's office was lovely!


Like at Hidcote, I really loved the old grassy orchard!


The main building of Chatsworth looks grand (and not quite so imposing) from the garden!


For the cascade, each "step" has a different arrangement of steps and falls to create different sounds with each one.  I walked up the side of the cascade listening for the different sounds as the water tumbled over them and there really was a difference with each one!  The kids (and a few adults!) loved playing in the cascade!  By mid afternoon, there were hundreds of people here!


Rather than heading for the more formal parts of the garden, I stayed on the outer path around the wild portions.  There were ponds tucked in amongst the trees.  What a storybook setting!


The waterlilies were fabulous!


These brilliant yellow flowers were common throughout the wild part of the gardens.  I have no idea what they are, but I loved the jolt of bright color among all the green!


I wasn't brave enough to try the maze ~ though I did peek into it.  I was afraid I'd use up all my time trying to figure out how to get out and miss some of the other things I wanted to see!   Instead I walked around the outside of it and was thrilled to realize that those two tall trees at the end are young sequoia trees!


This lovely stone gateway sits at the opposite end of the maze garden.


The roses were lovely here ~ such a wonderful color and scent!


The rock garden at Chatsworth is unlike any rock garden I've ever seen before!  It's all about enormous rock formations that have been brought in to create a massive garden among the rocks.  It includes a high waterfall, doorways through rocks, and ponds that flow out of the rocks.  Fun fact; it was built to remind them of a trip through the alps!


The Ring Pond is also enormous.  Everything at Chatsworth seems to be on a grand scale!  I got a kick out of the pruned topiary trees.  They all look a bit wobbly to me!  It adds a bit of whimsy and humor to what was otherwise a very formal space.


Dividing the formal gardens from the Emperor Fountain is the long walk with it's alee of trees.


The Emperor Fountain shoots water high up into the air and the mist from it travels a long way in the breeze!


The Broad Walk from the house towards the formal gardens is lined with lavender.   How lovely to see this butterfly drinking in all that loveliness!

There was so much here that I have not posted about, and I'm sure that there were parts of the garden that I missed.  It's worth taking an entire day to visit Chatsworth, planning on most of that for the gardens!