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Category: photos and garden photography

Some of our favourite plant and garden photographs not featuring in other gardeners tips. tips for your own garden photography.

A Plantsman’s Nursery – Holden Clough

A Plantsman’s Nursery – Holden Clough

Heuchera
Heuchera

A nursery should grow there own or at least a good proportion of the plants they sell. Well you can’t complain at the sight of these Heuchera growing in Holden a small hamlet near Bolton by Bowland in Lancashire.

Auricula
Holden Clough nursery has a great reputation and tradition for alpines that survive the wet local conditions.

Unfortunately these glowing Auriculas were in a quarantine area having already been sold but awaiting collection. Still with an eagle eye I could look at the special varieties someone else had chosen and consider my needs for the next visit. (I got a 10% off voucher for registering for the newsletter that I can use with my next purchases.)

Heuchera

I was impressed with the amount of bark chippings used to mulch and trim the pots. At check out I was told is saved the staff weeding but that in this location watering was no real problem due to the amount of rain.
Thinking about grit or chippings I wondered if the former compacted the soil more than the chippings and I think I will run some tests when I get home.

Passion flower

For 95 years the nursery has nestled in a charming hillside spot growing alpines and it is still going strong! Now they not only grow alpines, but also a larger range of plants including many new and unusual perennials.
The one drawback was that the new young team are keen to show their plans for site development which include a tearoom. Welcome though tea may be they could leave that to the ubiquitous garden centres and keep the nursery focus.

Heucherella

Photo above is of Heucherella Tapestry a hybrid between Heucheras and Tiarellas with many of the best qualities of both parents. This and a limited display of plants in their own small garden area show how and where a good plant can grow.

Compared with my visit on the same day to my local Garden Centre  the range of plants at Holden Clough just what I wanted.

Grewelthorpe Himalayan Garden Images

Grewelthorpe Himalayan Garden Images

The Himalayan Garden at Grewlthorpe continues to mature and develop. It is great to see a wide range of trees allowed to grow their natural size without undue lopping or arbocultural work.
A new arboretum will opened at the end of May 2017 and the  autumn season is well  worth a special visit. The hydrangea and sculptures are also looking great.

As ever the sculptures are excellently located and seem to breed in number every time I visit.

Rhododendrons are the key feature for me that makes return spring visits a must.

Landscape views from the many well located paths are set to delight.


The artist Subodh Kerkar has several new installations at the Himalayan garden in North Yorkshire, many miles from his home in Goa.  I couldn’t say what type of tree trunks these 18 carefully and vertically  place ‘logs’ were!

Even walking through the gap I was still stumped. The message on these ‘Logs of Dialogue’ is that ‘terrorism is a product of non-communication between  nations, groups, regions religions and ideologies’.

Take a leaf out of another sculptural installation. Or take another leaf from my inspiration and visit these Grewelthorpe gardens, infant arboretum and sculpture trail during April or May or October for autumn colour.

Mixed May Month

Mixed May Month

I love Iris as much as Iris love sunshine so we are both happy with this May’s weather. The Thuja occidentalis conifer offers a cool photographic backdrop after coming through a frosty patch of weather in early spring

Lupins are not just for Christmas in fact they are not even for Christmas. They are definitely one of our families favorite hardy perennials for use in a mixed border.

How I regret not remembering the name of this bulb that I planted several years ago. Now it is maturing nicely with many flowering stems and is becoming a distinctive feature plant.

A hardy stand by Ceanothus that I propagate from cuttings. The only draw back for me is that other growth habits, including prostrate  and tree forms cannot be propagated from this one plant. (Clone is as colnes does). Ceanothus is also called or known asbuckbrush, California lilac or soap bush,

Azaleas in this gloomy corner have survived for several years and I keep promising myself that I will add some other varieties when can I find a place to plant them.

My wife would see the back of this Mahonia to make the space I crave for Azaleas (they both like slightly acidic soil). The sharp leaves ‘needle’ her but I like the all year round interest the plant provides.

The slabs of paving provide a path through a short Japanese section of the garden which utilises bark chippings rather than a gravel mulch.

Rabbits breed harmlessly in this part of the ornamental garden. A new acquisition last Christmas was the door as an entrance to the gnomes homes (221b Baker Street elementary my dear watsonnia – is that freudian or the name of my bulb in the third photo)

Having a Good Lilac Season 2020

Having a Good Lilac Season 2020


Sorry if this post is a bit repetitive from one at the beginning of May but my mind is socially distanced from my memory. My garden lilac has never smelt so good but I am sure the colour has been stronger in previous years.

The white lilac has been OK but lacks pizzaz despite the blue skies and strong sunshine. Perhaps it is a lack of focus and I should polish my photography skills.


The best varieties have been the darker purples which I have spotted on my lockdown compliant walks around the village. Ten years ago the gardens looked very different.

Ideas for Better Garden Photographs

Ideas for Better Garden Photographs

Compose your photo shot with care to get the image you want and only that image. In this photo the moss and drainpipe do not add anything to the desired result so they need to be cropped out for the next image where ‘Carols’ bucket takes center stage. If the original has been taken with high resolution the cropped image will not suffer. The spade could have been aligned better to show the handle.

Know your cameras capabilities and take several shots until you find an image you like. Be self-critical of your work and regular practice will help to get better results next time

Despite standing on the low wall to look down on the garden only the crazy paving benefited and I should consign this to the compost (I mean the recycle bin). The aim was to have a foreground that didn’t compromise the key middle ground and then a background that didn’t distract. Shame that this photo failed on all aims with the neighboring houses standing out and catching the eye and the key middle ground achieving nothing much.

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How a dark background can show white flowers at their best

How a dark background can show white flowers at their best

The cast in order of appearance: Cactus Dahlia; Rosa Rugosa; Lenten Rose Helleborus orientalis; Moth Orchid Phalaenopsis; Water Lily Nymphaea alba; etc.

Organic forms have been popular art subjects not least those inspired during the Art Nouveau period. This selection of flowers will not be easy to replicate in drawings or paintings as the contrast between dark greens and bright whites does not leave many half tones to balance the picture. Probably your efforts will prove me wrong.

Black Arts of Painting White Flowers

  • It is all in the shadows hence the phrase ‘black arts’ or should that be grey?
  • A grey for shadows can be made with Prussian blue, Alizarin crimson and cadmium pale yellow but I use dilute versions of manufactured grey.
  • Take care with the colour, depth and tone of your grey for shadows.
  • Do not be tempted to surround flowers with leaves as an easy way out.
  • Focus generally falls on the area of greatest tonal contrast.
  • Shadows on a vase look better if composed in a way that it can be placed on the side nearest the edge of the canvas. It avoids halving the picture.
  • Try painting on coloured paper or paint a dark background.

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Round Tuits

Round Tuits

When I was younger owned a disc of wood taken from the thick branch of an old tree. It was engraved ‘Round Tuit’.  It was designed to prevent procrastination and putting off the evil day. Creative avoidance is still a part of my routine and even today I find myself saying ‘I will do it when I get round to it!’.

The title is just an excuse to show a couple of tree photographs that have made me smile in the past. These pleached hornbeams at Harewood House need someone to regularly get round to trimming and pruning to keep them in good order.

The multi stems on this conifer could have made a large number of ’round tuits’ if they were sliced  but I hope no one in this generation will feel the need to chop down this magnificent specimen.

A reminder to get on with some gardening but I will do it after a sit on this adult version or grown up ‘Round Tuit’.

Greening Public Spaces Peel Park Bradford

Greening Public Spaces Peel Park Bradford


Early crocus amongst leaf litter, the only good litter feeding the soil

Wet weather reflects on the tree roots
There is still colour to be found not least on these Rowan berries Sorbus hupehensis
Listers Mill
Listers Mill in the afternoon light with a ring of trees on the horizon and in the foreground.

I believe the willow is beginning to show the first sign of colour so spring will soon be on us.Christmas is long gone but only 311 days to go before the next