Hyde Hall

For a short day out we went to Hyde Hall, the Royal Horticultural Society's garden in Essex. It is only 11 miles away. Today was a nice day too, overcast and not too warm, but comfortable. We were taken to Hyde Hall years ago because we won the bid for the visit in a promises auction. It has changed a lot. There is even a new entrance which my Sat Nav does not know about. The long road leads into the car park and the new shop / cafe / entrance hall (shown from inside the gardens). From there its a bit of a walk to the gardens themselves. The first thing of note (to me anyway) is the lawn in front of the entrance hall. Bright green grass with not a weed in sight. Not even if you look for one, really hard - yes, I did!

The gardens are expanding and there are plans for much more to be done. The existing gardens though are still immaculate, the lawns there are pure green and weed free too. I wasn't the only one who was impressed, I heard the same question to the grounds staff twice: 'How do you keep this grass so nice?' What I didn't hear was an answer. I didn't get one when I asked either.

We were there only for about 4 hours, and that included lunch in the old restaurant. The food was good but not cheap.

There were many impressive plants, which could not be grown in a small garden. There are many that can though. I've been to gardens like this before, and I would really like to be able to say "I really liked that, can I buy a cutting, or the seed?". It doesn't happen though, the plants in the shop are mostly the ones I am not interested in and may or may not have been in the garden.
One plant I am interested in is roses. The one that stood out today was Rosa Golden Celebration. The picture is blurred, my camera will not get that close, but the colour still comes across.

The vegetable patch was also interesting. As you enter it there is a shed and inside a blackboard with the heading "Write your gardening tips here". One of them mentioned Bordeaux Mixture as a cure for Tomato Blight - which I have for the second year running - that's something worth investigating. The strawberry and raspberry plants have yields 10 times what I get in my little garden. What am I missing? - Knowledge and a workforce are two things that come instantly to mind!

We bought a Dahlia that was one of the plants we had seen on our tour. I'm hoping it will look as good next year as it does now.