Warmley Waiting Room-a beautiful surprise!

Following a conversation on Twitter I was invited to go and visit a garden in Warmley. A small area of Bristol just across the border in South Gloucestershire. Of course I'm always happy to visit a garden so last weekend off we toodled.

So Warmley Waiting Room is just that-a restored, in stunning detail, railway waiting room that is by the side of what is now the Bristol to Bath cycle track, which used to be the railway line. The waiting room itself has been turned into a cafe, with loads of outdoor seating in the garden, which is also home to a youth community project, ice cream stall, and a loo in a tardis!! And a tardis that makes the noise of leaving for an adventure is the right button is pressed!!

 

To the right is a beautiful lawn and a garden that is beautiful and spans both sides of what was the station wall. Full of strawberries, paeonias, forget me nots, aquilegias, roses, bulbs and more, the garden is the work of Claire Hoggan and her mum who own the land and the cafe and have created a wonderful place for all to enjoy. When we visited the cafe and outdoor space was heaving with local people and visitors arriving by bike on the cycle path,  drinking tea, playing in the lawn and generally loving the space.

 

What a brilliant way to create a sustainable business, support your community and celebrate the history of an area!!

And don't forget the tardis......

 

Robbing the Flower Fields.....

Flowers. No matter who you are it's impossible to be unresponsive to the beauty of a flower, and to be able to combine flowers and food is an extraordinary phenomenon that can lead to a really emotional connection with what it is being eaten. Part of my and Incredible Edible Bristol's remit, if you like, is creating both beautiful and productive spaces across the city of Bristol, and use of edible flowers is vital to meeting that. So imagine my delight when I was asked, with Incredible Edible Bristol, to put together two small raised beds in the new Grow Zone at RHS Malvern; one that speaks of the city centre Urban Food Trail and one that supports the more beautiful side of what we do, in showing beautiful blooms that we use, either as edible flowers or to attract pollinators, and all of which are British grown.

So fast forward a few weeks and I had a chat with Jan Billington of Maddocks Farm Organics who grows the most stunning array of edible flowers, some which are instantly recognisable as such but some which are a surprise, such as Wisteria which tastes like peas, who said she was more than happy for me to pop along and raid her flower fields. Well that is not an every day offer now is it folks, so yesterday, with our amazing volunteer coordinator Hannah, off we doodled to have a look.
Now I am a long time fan of Jan. Anyone who creates an organic flower farm on overgrown Devon fields, and grows not just a huge range of edible flowers but also looks after the land and the soil to high organic principles, is inevitably going to be a hero. And oh my.......when I say the farm is beautiful what I mean is the farm is heart rendingly beautiful. Not only are all the plants stunning, healthy and pest free, but the farm is buzzing with life. We saw three different species if bees in one polytunnel alone. Swallows were swooping and buzzards flying. A gigantic bug hotel sits by a pond teaming with life. Swathes of plants are there for pollinators alone. And of course by supporting those pollinators, Jan is supporting the blossoming and blooming of the flowers that make her business sustainable both for people and planet.

Often we see edible flowers as a by product. We might grow Tagetes for example as companion planting and then pick a few flowers to zing up a salad. We might grow Borage for the bees and then fling a few flowers into a salad or a gin and tonic. We all grow violas as part of bedding or hanging basket schemes. Our Wisterias are dripping in glorious flower. But instead of looking at these flowers as incidental perhaps we should begin to look at them as a great way of bringing beauty into the vegetable garden and treating them as a really important part of our salad offering. A salad with mustards, sweet cicely and chervil leaves and flowers, borage flowers, calendula petals, violas and primroses, wild rocket with its flowers attached and bells blooms, is far more exciting than a sad bit of iceberg, and tastes amazing, with different bursts of flavour appearing with each mouthful. Plus of course the more flowers we grow, the more pollinators we attract.

So perhaps let's take inspiration from Jan and l add beauty to our veg patches with more flowers that we grow to eat whilst marvelling at Jan at Maddocks Farm and the many ways we see people farming beautiful British flowers.

Alliums just beginning to open ready for use.

Beautiful calendulas flooring their socks off in the polytunnels and making a grey day bright.

White borage, sweet and full of nectar as well as being covered with bees, which annoyingly weren't in the mood for posing!

Jan grows an amazing array of tulips, and the petals are used to adorn wedding cakes amongst other things.

Two to three inches of local, organic manure is spread on the beds each year, feeding the flora and fauna in the soil that are vital for good organic growth.

Garden Visits!! Truffles.

This afternoon, having spent the morning potting on plants, we toodled off to Bishop Stanton, a hop, skip and a jump away, to see a garden called Truffles. We always try to see as many gardens that are open for the National Gardens Scheme as possible, but with Mr V's back being so poorly last year we visited almost none, so there's some catching up to do.  

I don't have to go on about why I love the NGS as I've spoken of it often and the statistics in terms of their fundraising speaks far more than I ever could. I do think it's worth saying though that having worked with various people who have opened their gardens, it is akin to opening your soul for all to peer in, and not at all an easy thing to do, so I applaud each and every person who does so.

Anyway, here's a walk through the garden via photos. I'm going to do more blogs like this over the year; less words and more garden beauty!! So I'll shut up and give you Truffles.....

 

Arriving and seeing the yellow welcome signs always makes me smile.

 

A beautiful pond greets you, surrounded by marsh marigolds and this quite magnificent Gunnera. 

 

These 3 Silver Birch lead the visitor from the pond out into an expanse of lawn planted with beautiful raised beds of tulips. The predominant colours used are yellows and blues with forget me nots and stunning yellow tulips everywhere. 

This is a wildflower area and the photo really doesn't do it justice! Primroses, fritillaries and camassia which were on the verge of opening, jostled with clovers and vetches. A true labour of love I would think and I would love to see it in late Spring to see how it progresses.

 

And the veg garden. This was a superb use of space, as it is really in a hidden dell that I suspect gets wet and sodden in the rain, but the raised beds will counteract that. The beds are quite high and even now had some crops in them.

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The veg garden from another angle. The garden is full of slopes and twists and turns which lead you from one area to the next, with no clue as to what is coming. Little did we know that the best was yet to come.....

 

A beautiful woodland glade meanders through the garden at the same level as the sunken veg patch. Filled with ferns, hellebores, bluebells and a carpet of wild garlic it is a stunning space.

 

Whilst this area looks quite wild in the first instance, it is quite obviously managed tightly to stop the weeds from creeping in. 

 

This is both the beginning and end of the woodland glade. To the left the visitor goes around a corner to the sunken veg patch and to the right back up to the lawn area at the back of the house. 

 

A circular herb garden welcomes the visitor back to the area behind the house with the silver birches across the lawn. Not spectacular now but I do like this design for herbs and will be a thing of beauty in a few weeks.

Heading into the front garden here is a much better view of the magnificent veg garden with its great compost bins. I think these are cleverly placed as it would be possible to drop compostable material in from the top as well as in front of them.

 

And finally Tulip Burnt Sugar is placed in several areas in the garden and the scent is extraordinary!! 

This garden has been made, as in designed, built and planted, by its owners over a 20 year period as they have added to their plot with land surrounding it. I think it's a wonderful garden, and one well worth a visit. Plus, the cake was magnificent.....