In Maywe shared cars and visited the Theobald’s Farmhouse Gardens at Crews Hill. This is a private garden and is only open by arrangement for groups. It is extremely well planned, lots of different “Garden Rooms”, very well maintained and interestingly planted. Weather was good to us so we were able to wander around enjoying the plants and scents. After our tour ended we all enjoyed their Home Made Cakes with Tea/Coffee in the conservatory. A very enjoyable day and we will be going back in June 2016.
Theobald's Farmhouse
Theobald's Farmhouse garden
Theobald's Farmhouse garden
Theobald's Farmhouse garden
In August we decided to look at ‘Nature’s Planting Scheme’ so we booked on to a Cream Tea Cruise (yummy) along the River Lea. The River Lea is lovely and peaceful, lots of wild plants, ducks and swans, also reflections in the water – beautiful. Again good weather and enjoyed by all.
All in all 3 very successful trips – even the weather behaved for us (fingers crossed for repeat next year)
In 2016 it is planned to visit Theobald’s Farmhouse Gardens again in June, plus 2 further summer outings. Possibly a 4th in early March to see the Snowdrops at Anglesey Abbey. Members have yet to decide, which 2, out of the many places on our list, for our summer visits this year.
In June we visited 2 sites in one day. Using a Mini-Coach we first visited the BUTTERFLY WORLD at St. Albans. It is very well laid out and still being developed. The Butterflies in the Conservatory were absolutely beautiful, often very large and several settled on our clothing, hands etc. The site is fairly large and the plants were to attract various insects and butterflies. Garden was divided into several ‘rooms’, there was also an insect house to visit. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed this visit, so after our lunch we went on to part 2 of the day.
The famous ROYAL NATIONAL ROSE SOCIETY GARDENS were directly across the car park from Butterfly World. These gardens were also very well laid out and maintained. Roses were shown planted in amongst the herbaceous border, this certainly gave everyone ideas for their own gardens. The effect was much better than just the normal ‘Rose Beds’ with no other plants in the area. The weather was also very good to us again and a good time was had by all.