Zeb is fond of gardens which allow well behaved dogs in on leads like Painswick Rococo Garden in Gloucestershire. Home of a zillion snowdrops for three precious weeks in February!
Garden History has become very popular in England since the 1970s and has gone hand in hand with the restoration of many lost and overgrown gardens from the grand gardens at Hampton Court to this small 18th century hillside gem. The West of England is full of wonderful places to visit, (well England as a whole is stuffed with gardens but I thought I should plug my region here,) and if you like a few follies thrown in with your herbaceous borders, then this is the place to come.
This week the sun shone and we headed off to see the snowdrops which we missed last year. Painswick Rococo Garden is reputed to have one of the greatest collections of naturalistic plantings of this beautiful early flower in the country. As we drove home we saw more spreading over banks by the road. En masse they all look very similar, but there are different species and they are avidly collected by snowdrop fanciers.
It’s a lovely place for a wander in the summer too, with its espaliered apples, and traditional vegetable beds, friendly gardeners, and shady promenades, a perfect setting for a Jane Austen afternoon outing.
There is always a great cup of tea and a wodge of homemade cake at the end of your ramble.
We had a pot of Earl Grey and a shared slice of fresh coffee cake once we had clambered up the hillside past the Eagle House, having visited the Pigeonnier, looked into the clarity of the Plunge Pool, admired the vista from in front of the Exedra and generally mooched about in this 18th Century Pleasure Garden.
All photos by Brian!
Zeb Bakes 
What a delightful winter respite! Beautiful. There is a trend to create ‘dog parks’ over here, but they are generally fenced areas where dogs are set free to socialize and romp together – and of course, they don’t look like your ‘special’ park – Zeb is a lucky dog.
I’ve heard of dog parks and I think they may yet come in here, so many people dislike dogs and their associated mess and so on, can’t say I blame them, but we do all get tarred with the same brush, the responsible dog owners who clear up and control their animals and the bad ones who don’t.
No romping at Painswick though and one has to be careful in our precious pockets of woodland too, as dogs disturb ground nesting birds. We are a very small island.
We have a local National Trust property (Anglesey Abbey) reknowned for it’s snowdrop displays. We went last week, but were perhaps a week too early to see the full glory. Still quite spectacular though! They have a lovely winter garden too, with early flowering fragrant shrubs, spring flowers and deciduous trees with interesting and/or colourful bark.
I’ve never been to Anglesey Abbey – sounds beautiful! I’ve just looked it up, ooh you’ve got wildflower meadows there – I’m very keen on those :)
Just beautiful! And so very British! I love the first shot of the snowdrops, everything I imagined an English woodland would look like. It was a scene straight from my imagination of Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree. :)
I’m so pleased you like the snowdrop picture! They are so lovely with their little nodding heads when the sunlight hits them, all those old brown leaves on the woodland floor and then there they all are. I was told by a galanthus fancier walking around that he has them growing in his lawn; he thinks the ants spread the seed around. :)
Oh I am so close to ENVY!!!
You have snowdrops!
You have green!
You have running water in fountains.
And here I am, stuck in the land of ICE!
Brian, I am a great phan of your photography!
The envy attack has past.
Thanks for sharing the beautiful fields of snowdrops.
( Although I would Love a wodge of cake! I may have to make cake for dinner.)
I’ll tell him Heidi! Once the weather warms up a bit more there will be spring action for everyone in the Northern Hemisphere soon :)
What a lovely place to spend an afternoon! The Monkeys would be romping all over the gardens if they were there… You weren’t tempted to lay down in the snow drops?
Yes, but I think someone would have noticed ;)
I love the snowdrops!!! I went for a walk today and counted 6 snowdrops, and was pretty excited, until I saw yours I am so jealous.
Hee hee I have very few of my own, some small brave souls in front of the Buddha in the garden. I’m waiting for them to ‘clump’ up. Real gardeners tell me that you have to plant them ‘in the green’, which is after they have flowered but before they have died back. You wouldn’t think they were tricky to grow seeing that extravagansa at Painswick….
How beautiful and what fun for Zeb! We have several spots near our home that produce a showy display of raindrops each year… it’s a lovely mark to the end of winter :)
What a beautiful place, Joanna. Just recently on TV I saw some of a series of gardening programmes with Monty Don. They were restoring Victorian gardens. The layouts and buildings were fascinating and in one of them, by a canal I think, they cast seed to grow a wildflower meadow. In the shot of the garden a few months later it was very beautiful. Tomorrow we head off to Tasmania to start a six=day trek over Cradle Mountain. I believe that somewhere there there is a garden planted by the wife of a trapper many, many years ago and I’m looking forward to seeing that. I love the photo of Zeb looking regal in his own little outhouse.
Hi Christine, that’s it exactly – a marker for spring!
Jan – I’m so envious I would love to go trekking in Tasmania – have a wonderful trip – hope to hear all about it on your return! Yes, Zeb was being very good at that point sitting admiring the view from the bottom of the Eagle House :)
First look at the snowdrops under the trees reminded me of the Kew gardens in an instant. However, they were crocuses and daffodils in the Spring when I was there. What a joy to see the snowdrops carpet the ground like real snow! Are you blessed to see these and share the pictures with us! Thank you ever so much!!!
The crocuses and daffodils are just beginning to come out this week too and a little cherry blossom here and there…. it won’t be long now.. thanks Arthur!
Lovely blog entry Jo. Three snowdrops in my garden from some bulbs I planted which the evil squirrel must have missed….. Joy
Three is good! The collared dove has been investigating my pathetic home collection, I’m still waiting for them to ‘bulk up’ ;)
what is the bit at the top of the snowdrop that becomes the seedhead called, please?
Hi Dianne, I would guess it’s called the ovary once it has ripened – I looked up galanthus nivalis in Wikipedia just now for you and it says
Just wanted to say thank you for looking this up for me. this is a lovely site.
You’re welcome Dianne, thanks for visiting :)
Those snowdrops are just amazing. I have never seen such a mass of them all together in one gigantic drift – what a wonderful walk Zeb got.