What to do when it rains?

Well, it seems as though our lovely long run of sunny weather has at last broken.

Friday lunchtime in the centre of York saw a downpour of epic proportions. 

At the time I was in the garden where I volunteer and at first thought the cloud burst would blow over.

Not so. 

Visibility decreased to the extent I could not see the end of the garden and by the time I got indoors I was absolutely drenched to the skin, despite wearing a waterproof. Not much fun going home on the bus!

Local photos give some idea of the scale of the rain.

Then Saturday arrived, and departed, all bright and sunny, which was lovely.

Today is the monsoon again, dark and raining like mad, so indoors, curled up with my gardening mags.

Time to read, make lists of interesting plants and places to go.

Wonder if the builder will turn up tomorrow?

  

Welcome to 2014

This is my first blog of the new year and I send happy gardening wishes to everyone.

I celebrated the new gardening year by going to RHS Harlow Carr 

www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/harlow-carr‎

which I last saw when Matthew Wilson was in charge there.

The garden itself has an interesting history, having at one time being owned and run by the Northern Horticultural Society. I remember going to one annual dinner where the speaker was an up and coming TV personality by the name of Dairmud Gavin. Ever heard of him? 

Under the auspices of the RHS, funding has clearly increased in the last 8 years as has the ethos and direction of the garden.

A new state of the art learning centre 

image taken from the RHS Harlow Carr site

now sits 

where once the potager or kitchen garden was sited.

I loved this garden and wanted one just like it - even though my own garden space at the time would have held only 3 cauliflowers!

All the raised beds were beautifully arranged and the plants within, although clearly primarily productive, were themselves part of a cleverly crafted design.

Just stunning!

However, time moves on and the new vegetable plot has been re-located. Although still productive it has, for me, lost the pazzazz of the original.  

It was interesting to see that the Gardens through Time are still looking good and all credit to the gardeners who maintain them to such a high standard.

Clearly early January is not the best time to view them so I feel a return visit is called for.

Some of the best bits of the garden for me, in January, were 

firstly, 

the altered section of the garden below the alpine house where grasses and late flowering perennials were originally trialed. This section is now host to some splendid monoliths and grasses looking good after some frosting 

and secondly 

the varied and interesting pots which are or will be planted up later.

                                                       

Other bits which were new to me and which I loved were the whimsies and curios

Every garden should have a sense of mystery, magic and humour.

And last, but not least, the lovely old clock was working!

Time to go!!