Sometimes when things are on your doorstep you never quite seem to find the time to do them. There’s always some other distraction that prevents you making that commitment. For many years we lived in London and frequently said, “we really ought to go out to the theatre or to a gallery or museum”, but in reality we didn’t go anything like as often as we should have done and it was right there begging to be taken advantage of!
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- Peacock at Corsham Court
Many years have passed and now we live on the outskirts of Corsham, a rather different environment to the hustle and bustle of the big city. There are some parallels though! We have some amazing attractions right on our doorstep and yet we still seem to be too busy to find time to take advantage of them!
One such opportunity is Corsham Court, and today I made the commitment to visit. The first day of spring and the house and gardens were open as part of the NGS Scheme. The gardens should have been awash with daffodils and spring bulbs. The owner had been round in the morning and counted just two daffodils actually in bloom! Not quite what he had hoped for in throwing open the gates for this event!
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- Using structure and focal points
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- Evergreen structure
What was interesting though, from a garden design perspective was to see the structure of the gardens when they were void of floral interest. It serves to highlight the importance of getting this right when we look at the layout and design of our own gardens.
Structure is so important and can be achieved using hedging, trees and ornamentation.
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- Positioning focal points
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- Using focal points
Using focal points to draw the eye through the garden and to encourage us to explore further in to the garden we can also create intrigue and a sense of the unknown.
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- Feature gate
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- Reverse angle through the gate
Granted most of don’t have gardens on the scale of Corsham Court and they probably weren’t laid out by the great English landscapers ‘Capability’ Brown and Repton, but the principles that are used are exactly the same.
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- Ha-ha
I am really glad I made the effort today and I will certainly make the effort to go back in a few weeks when the daffodils and Magnolias are in full bloom. I will also note with interest how the structure that is so evident in the winter months plays its part when the garden is full of plant life in the summer months.
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- One of Corsham peacocks strutting his stuff!
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- Peacock
Tags: enjoy · focal point · garden design · Garden Network · Inspiration · opportunity · structure · sunshine2 Comments
I had a similar experience at Hidcote last weekend. It was great to see the ‘naked’ garden before all the herbaceous perennials start to grow. Gives a chance to see the structure and layout of the garden.
Corsham Court is a lovely garden. Last year they had a border planted up with just Dahlias and Verbena bonariensis which unexpectedly worked.
Hi James – thanks for your comments, it is amazing what you can learn at this time of year, do let me know if you are in Corsham again or fancy a ‘garden visit day’ any time, always good to share views.
Regards
Tim