My brief annual family visit to the UK always takes in a day in Hay on Wye with my brother, and a day in a great garden with our son. This year marked a return visit after 20 years to Hergest Croft Garden, just a couple of miles from the Welsh Border.
Hergest Croft is gardened by the 5th generation of the Banks family, though their comfortable-looking Victorian house is now actually flats above a tearoom and offices. The garden runs to around 70 acres: they offer an informative website https://www.hergest.co.uk/ Rather than repeat details found there, let me take you on our trip.
I followed this long but inviting path to the front door at opening time.
Knowing our son had been delayed I first enjoyed a half hour in the sunny bay window of the tearoom testing the ginger and mango cake.
Afterwards I wandered round the inviting Victorian greenhouse, full of Pelargoniums and other marginally hardy plants such as this fine Nerine wellsii (we think).
Ben arrived, so we set off past the lawn, then headed down into the network of paths full of interesting trees, with shrubs and underplanting. Autumn shades were in evidence, yet the effect was of tasteful highlights rather than a riot of clashing colours.
Near the house we admired this water feature looking less raw than when we first saw it 20+ years ago.
We passed across the sunny terrace in front of the house, pausing to admire this fine late Salvia conflertiflora with brick red flowers.
From the house we struck uphill along woodland paths packed with interesting shrubs - including some alarmingly large specimens of things currently growing in our back garden!
Visiting the whole garden in detail was beyond me at nearly 70 with a dodgy knee, so we resisted the temptation to go through inviting gates to see what lay beyond!
Instead we set our sights resolutely on reaching Park Wood, at the furthest corner of the garden, a 20 min walk from the house across a slippery field, over a stream, and up a hill on the other side.
Here the hilly landscape surrounding a pond and stream had been turned into an English conception of a forest in the foothills of the Himalayas! Mighty trees formed a dense canopy, under which grew Acer palmatum and other shrubs, with a stunning collection of large-leaved Rhododendrons.
The quality of the garden felt equal to Bodnant or other great woodland gardens, but the lack of pressure from huge numbers of visitors allowed the place to be maintained in a more natural way - natural paths, uneven surfaces etc.
Time was running out on us by now, so we returned to the house for tea, and for a look at the Sales area at all the plants that Brexit bans me from bringing home as souvenirs!
(Acer palmatum - not sure the variety, they all look great in autumn!)
Hydrangea macrophylla 'Quadricolor' (four shades on the leaves, set off by white flowers)
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