The Gardens at Hidcote Manor

I’ve had either no internet connection or a very slow one for the past week, so have been unable to post about my travels.  Time to catch up!  To start with, let me show you around Hidcote!

I visited the Hidcote Manor Gardens on Saturday.  Billed as one of the top British gardens to see, I was somewhat surprised to see that they were created by “the quiet American” to fulfill his English fantasy.  Well it turns out that though he was American, he really spent most of his life abroad from the time he was a child.   Regardless of his citizenship, he created amazing gardens!  I started with a brief look through the garden shop, where they featured this lovely little greenhouse!  It’s so close to the type of little greenhouse I’ve dreamed of having for years! 

The tour begins in the old garden and one of the focal points is this amazing tree.  Quite large, it spreads a broad canopy with enormous branches.  It is a Cedar of Lebanon according to the brochure ~ which somewhat surprised me, as I always thought that the Cedars of Lebanon were tall like the Sequoias!  Really a magnificent tree though and when you stood underneath it, it formed quite a massive arching canopy overhead.

This may be my very favorite photo of the gardens.  I loved the thatched cottage in the background!  The borders were lush and full and quite filled with a variety of plants that I’ve never seen outside of books!

There were endless garden rooms, such as this room, filled with white flowers that glowed against the dark green hedges of yew and boxwood. 

Everywhere you looked, there were beautiful flowers such as this stunner.  It looks very much like “Love in a Mist” but the flowers seemed so much more robust and striking! 

Then there were these delicate pink spires of flowers! 

I wandered by the Lily Pond, where a wedding took place later in the afternoon. 

There was the Rose Walk, with it’s massive borders filled with so many flowers in addition to roses!  The heavy rains here have wreaked havoc on the roses this year, but they were still lovely, despite it!

Then I came to my favorite part, the wild orchard with its long grasses underneath and mown pathways.  There’s something about orchards like this that I just love! 

There were daisies and campion in the grass, which made it such a happy place!  Full of life and light! 

There was a lovely peaceful tree lined walk

And looking up amongst the tall beech trees at the leafy canopy was delightful! 

The next scene was a bucolic pastoral one, with sheep grazing in green pastures under the trees!  

I had to stop and paint this scene!

Then it was on to the Red Borders…

And through the Hornbeam tunnel! 

There was a delightful path along the lower stream with the hydrangeas just coming into bloom.

There was so much more than I’ve shown here!  It just went on and on!  By the end of the day, I was saturated with garden happiness and enough ideas for a lifetime of garden dreams!

P.S. ~ it was the first day that I'd been in England where I didn't need to wear my raincoat and was glad to have my sunhat along!