Geranium

Dec. 16: Floral advent calendar: Pelargonium quinquelobatum

While we’re on the subject if indefinable flower colors, I must include Pelargonium quinquelobatum. This member of the Geraniaceae family actually stopped me in my tracks while walking through Derry Watkins’ Special Plants nursery near Bath this August.

Its flower is another of these colors that’s hard to capture in a photograph. Perhaps the best description comes from Wooten’s, which calls it “an iridescent moonbeam color. Truly beautiful.”

I’d call the color quixotic. I’ve never seen anything like it in a flower. It simply doesn’t seem possible and yet I held it in my hand.

I bought some seeds of Pelargonium quinquelobatum from Special Plants and sowed a batch this summer on the off chance they might take. No germination. Good thing I held back the second packet and I will try again this spring. Derry said it’s a bear to propagate from cuttings but easy from seed. I hope the season will be on my side when I try again because this is definitely a pelargonium I want to add to my growing collection.

Broadwoodside Part 3: The Courtyards

After leaving the House Field and walking back toward the South Garden, we ducked through a large stableyard door and into the Upper Courtyard. 

This garden is structured on a grid of paving stones interspersed with lawn and square planting beds containing Acer platanoides trained into standards. I especially liked that each tree was underplanted with a different evergreen species. An aviary--built around another Acer--is the centerpiece, and on this day it was home to this bright-looking African grey parrot.

Beneath an open shed is a fantastic picnic area painted one of my favorite colors and festooned with Wisteria. It would be a lovely space not only for relaxing but also for outdoor projects requiring open air under roof. I find these types of spaces incredibly useful in a garden, and miss the ones I had on my farm even though using them usually meant clearing the area of snakes, dead and alive, before entering. I am sure I will enjoy living in a country where that isn't as much of an issue!

The tour carried on into another courtyard, through a beautiful ochre building dating to 1680, and out into the Hall Garden, which was another of my favorite spaces. It was full of frothy, delicate plants that looked as though they just been poured into the container created by the building and surrounding hedges.

Brunnera, Anthriscus, Rosa rugosa, Nepeta, Phlomis, Aquilegia, Geraniums and ferns all joyfully tumbled beneath pollarded Tilia creating the effect of a stylized woodland glade. I loved it. 

Behind the buildings was the Orchard, where the only fruit in sight was cast bronze. What I loved most about this area was evidence of the chickens that must very happily forage there. There were many other treats to be found in this garden and further afield on the estate, including a temple and pond. I'll leave you to discover those for yourself, and end our tour here. 

Broadwoodside is one of the creatively inspiring gardens I've visited. I appreciate its domestic scale and came away full of ideas I'd like to implement when I have a large garden again. I like the use of art and color throughout the space and the way the owners' sense of humor and wit translates through their choices in the garden. Gardening, like any art, is a very personal form of expression and one at which Broadwoodside excels. I can't wait to visit some day in the future and see how the garden continues to evolve.