England: The Rest

 The entire island is a garden, I swear. Lucky for those who call the U.K. home that they are surrounded by not only gardens but garden centers, garden television programs, hedgerows, countryside and have a love of growing their own veg that borders on obsession. So while our recent and all-too-short vacation in England had us at such magnificent places as a world-class botanical garden in Oxford, Sissinghurst Castle Garden, and Great Dixter, we also experienced the ordinary, every day botanical beauty of England. Here then is a wrap-up of extra moments that are of course, plant-related.

 

LONDON

We stumbled upon Kensington Palace and its gardens in Hyde Park while walking around trying to stay awake after our 12-hour flight. What a blessing to have had this 350-acre park in the middle of the city to catch our breath.

A bit of Hyde Park's wilder side. This, London's largest park, was established by Henry VIII after he confiscated lands from the church; today it is a welcome respite for its nearly 9 million residents. Much of it is large open meadows with periodic trees and mown paths. We saw many people walking dogs, picnicking, jogging, biking, etc., basically enjoying the outdoors.

Arborists performing low-impact branch removal using ropes and muscle.

Pelargoniums looking rather pretty in a border on the southern side of the park, the South Flower Walk.

Abutilon, a rather wonderfully large tree fern and bedding plants.

All kinds of fabulous plants in there including what I believe is Acacia cultriformis.

Statue of Queen Victoria in front of Kensington Palace.

The back side of a sculpture of Lady Diana in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace, commissioned by her sons and unveiled in 2021. There are actually three children depicted here surrounding Diana who represent the children of the world.

As the Sunken Garden is not accessible to the public, we can't really see the front of the sculpture, but it looks nice from afar.

On the other side of the park a small dry garden caught my attention.

Sunset in Hyde Park on The Serpentine, a rather large body of water.

A rather blurry phone photo outside of the Imperial War Museum of a tree trunk turned into a rather lovely sculpture.

This is actually the very first photo I took on this trip, the view out of our hotel window. How lovely is that? Even though the garden is private, that is for residents of this neighborhood only, it was a great view from above and confirms that the people of London love their green spaces.

Advertisements on the Tube for an exhibition at Kew Gardens. What a fabulous idea embracing and celebrating diversity, I wish we had had more time to see the exhibition. We did get to see Kew on our last trip, you can visit those posts here and here.

OXFORD

On to Oxford. This is our hotel in a park-like setting a short bus ride away from the city center.

We went on a rather long walk around the town through fields and ended up at Christ Church College which had very pretty borders of perennials and grasses.

The other direction, many historic buildings as is typical for such an old university town.

A closer look. I love all the stone work in the buildings and walls alike.

In the Oxford Covered Market a rabbit from Alice in Wonderland looks like he's running late. I include him here as rabbits are increasingly a part of gardeners' frustrations. Plus this is Lewis Carroll country.

A very pretty garden store in the same Covered Market.

Another college, one of thirty-nine at Oxford. So many have incredible courtyards and architecture alike.

We visited The Ashmolean museum, free as so many museums are in the U.K., and were astonished by the collections. A favorite of mine is ancient jewelry, this gold necklace with pomegranates circa 400 - 250 BC stopped me in my tracks.

As did this incredible gold acorn necklace from a Crimean grave, 5th century BC.

Beautiful Syrian tile work featuring cypress trees and flowers.

Carved 17th-century wooden doors with floral decoration from Saudi Arabia. These were reported to have been owned by T.E. Lawrence, a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia.

A graveyard in Oxford with a thoughtful sculpture of a woman reading.

The Oxford coat of arms, Fortis est Veritas, "the truth is strong." Note the ox crossing the ford in the center. This is still the city symbol today, ox (crossing the) ford. The lion at the top holds the Tudor rose in its paws

Two ding-a-lings who can't get a selfie right. In any event the streets of Oxford below.

THE REST

After three lovely days in the Ox-crossing-the-Ford city we headed to London to catch a train to Cranbrook in the county of Kent. With a couple of hours before our train departed we went literally across the street to the National Gallery (again, free admission) for a random exploration. How about a little Van Gogh landscape? So many treasures, it's really unbelievable.

While in Cranbrook we of course explored Sissinghurst and Great Dixter but didn't take a lot of photos of this very picturesque village. This, at least, is one of our B & B restaurant at the George Hotel, a building that dates to the 12th century.

And a random pyracantha hedge in a grocery store parking lot.

Dripping with October vibes.

As seen whizzing by on a train. Gardening is in the bones here, one reason why I enjoy the U.K. so much. Would we see something like this in the states? I doubt it.

I close this post and indeed all of our recent England adventures with a passage back to Saint Helens, our home. How convenient that a portal to our home town in Oregon exists in an enchanted alleyway in the town where the ox crosses the ford. I hope the trip can be reversed someday soon and we return to the island of green things soon.

That's a wrap for this week at Chickadee Gardens. Thank you so much for reading and commenting and coming along on our adventures! We do love hearing from you all. Happy gardening!