Tuesday 5 April 2011

In a Camelia Garden


In a nearby village, we walked in a cottage garden on a hill. Around the house there were beds for fruit and a small green lawn, surrounded by tall, mature camelias studded with blooms of pink, of red and white. We walked up through a gate into the wooded garden, to flowering woodland shrubs and tall native oaks waiting for their leaves.




Across old pastures and layers of wakening trees, we saw the Forest heath and wooded hills stretching away for miles.


Field shelter....


....a gate into the meadow.....


..and flowers in the woodland glades.



Snakeshead Fritilaries ........


......camelia....




...this one is "Apple Blossom", with delicate narrow petals......


..."Princess ....? "....


Primrose and Cuckoo Flowers......


Low growing, blousy flowered "Lady Clare"........




Pale daffodils.........


......tree upon tree of bright, beautiful blooms.....






...and this one perhaps the loveliest of all, with petals striped and stippled like a Rosa Mundi rose, like summer raspberries mixed in a bowl of cream.



8 comments:

Karen said...

Gosh, all those blooms! Here in North Carolina we are probably a couple of weeks behind that. The daffys have bloomed, the tulips are just starting and, if it doesn't freeze tonight, my azaleas should be in full bloom by the end of the week.

WOL said...

How lovely. Camelias won't grow here. Too hot and too dry.

Rowan said...

It looks a beautiful garden, I don't have any camellias but enjoy seeing them in other peopl's gardens. That striped one in the last photograph is really lovely.

Bovey Belle said...

I have just one Camelia (and that was a gift to mum). Yours are stunning.

Just to let you know that there is a blog award waiting for you over at C&C.

rachel said...

What a lovely garden! The final bloom is quite stunning.

Morning's Minion said...

This post prompted me to do a quick search on camellias--although very popular in the American southeast, they are apparently not hardy as far north as Kentucky. They are surely lovely things.

CATHY DANIEL said...

Wow - that last one is really beautiful. What a gorgeous set of pictures - you've inspired me to try and grow a few Camelias.

Kath said...

Lovely photos. I inherited a stripy camellia and just found the label in the garden, its Lady Vansitartt. Love the duck and ducklings!