Thursday 9 August 2012

Chester (09 AUG 2012)

Last weekend, I visited my Aunt who lives a few miles across the Welsh border.

We travelled by rail from London Euston to the North of England.
Views through the window of a speeding train were of rolling fields mainly...

England's green and pleasant land

... except for industrial chimneys and electricity pylons, which I couldn't help admiring as structures despite what they were spewing out.



Coal-fired Rugeley Power Station is located in Staffordshire, England


We alighted at the historical city of Chester which holds relics from the Roman, Medieval, Tudor, Georgian and Victorian eras, passing a few sites on our way into town for lunch ...

The wall encircling the city which started being constructed by the Romans between 70 and 80AD for defence still stands today, as does the cathedral built on Anglo-Saxon foundations which was completed in the 13th Century.

Chester City Wall and Cathedral

Black and white buildings typical of the Tudor period 1485-1603 can be seen about town, some of them authentic, others Mock Tudor constructed during Victorian times.



Then a short bus ride into Wales.
I didn't plan on writing a post about this trip, as I don't want to turn this blog into a personal diary, but it seems that gardening is gradually making its way into all aspects of my life.

My Aunt lives in a residential estate with no take-away shops or traffic in the vicinity, quite different to the environment where I live near London.
She and her neighbours are house proud; windows are sparkling and gardens neat and tidy. They care about each other and keeping their street clean, even planting the areas outside the boundaries of their properties. I thought that it must be nice to live amongst gardeners who you can actually talk to rather than write comments to, but also realised that a messy, experimental gardener like myself would not fit very well into such a community.




Electric hedge-cutters are mandatory by the looks of it.

Some more gardening ideas which I brought back home were an ivy shed-covering, blonde grasses,  tall vertical hedges, short hedges with visible trunks at the base, a living xmas tree and a creeping rug for the lawn.




My plantings are always in two lines; short plants for the front of the border and tall plants for the back of the border. I admired the way they arranged shrubs of different heights to create tableaus. 



After a weekend of gardening with my Aunt, shopping in the local outlet stores and watching the Olympics on the TV, we got back on the train and returned to London.


Back past the fields to London

I really enjoyed the trip but it was good to get back home to a garden where there are no rules, where I can do as I please. Having said that, electric hedge-cutters are going on my list of must-haves, even though I don't have a hedge yet.


©Copyright 2012 b-a-g. All rights reserved. Content created by b-a-g for http://experiments-with-plants.blogspot.com/2012/08/chester-09-aug-2012.html

18 comments:

Mark and Gaz said...

Looks like your Aunt lives in a nice area and she has a nice garden! And quite a change of scape on your journey to and from there, from industrial to historical and back :)

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed the post and taking the trip along with you. No problems here if you want to show us history and quaint towns. The stormy gray skies seem so much like how I think of where you live.

Donna@Gardens Eye View said...

Seems like gardening in the burbs as we say...rules about grass, what can be planted etc. Thankfully I don't have too much of that and no hedge trimmers or hedge. I do need a few more native evergreen shrubs though like the carpet one shown in your picture which is probably juniper. Lovely trip!

HolleyGarden said...

How wonderful to have a gardening vacation! It's always wonderful to see other gardening styles, and to take some of those ideas and mold them to your own garden. Now you can have even more experiments with plants!

Indie said...

It is funny how after you get into gardening, you start to notice the plants and gardens everywhere you go! I must say that I adore hedges, even though I could never grow one. My very informal garden would be very confused and not know what to do with a hedge!

linniew said...

I would like to plant a maze and I suppose then I would need a hedge clipper. Still, they look scary. (Clippers not hedges.) A very pleasant trip (thanks for taking me along!) but I'm glad to get you home to your unruly garden where ALL things are possible--

Stacy said...

If you get the hedge clippers, then surely a hedge will come along to be clipped by them. The clippers act like bait. How lovely to have gardening relatives in places where you can enjoy puttering and visiting, and finding good ideas--and then come home happily to the garden that suits you best.

Janet/Plantaliscious said...

Hi b-a-g, I've just dug up a lawn carpet rather like that as it was encroaching on the path and getting in the way of where I want my kitchen garden to go! I do love the way that travelling around can give you more ideas of what to do - and sometimes what not to do, but I agree that it is nice to feel you can garden as you please in your own space without feeling the neighbours are going to complain!

Crystal said...

How nice to visit Chester again, albeit virtually. Last time I was there was on a school trip, many years ago.
Also nice to see well maintained hedges. We used to have a lot around here, until the council stopped the free green bin collection. Now many people are ripping them out and putting fences up instead.

Casa Mariposa said...

I'm not much for shearing shrubs into geometric shapes. I think I'd like your eclectic style more. Your aunt's neighborhood is beautiful. A weekend of gardening with someone you love sounds wonderful. :o)

Laura@Patiopatch said...

a busman's holdiay for you then b-a-g but at least you found some inspirational ideas even if the overall spit and polish gardening is not for you. Impressed with your images of Chester and not least the passing train pics.

Carolyn said...

It is always stimulating to leave your garden and visit others---a great way to get ideas but I am not sure about those hedge trimmers.

b-a-g said...

Thanks all for your comments. I wont be blogging for a while as my mother is seriously ill.

Diana Studer said...

slowly catching up. Chester looks fascinating. Admired the rug but our garden is lawn-free. Found the centipede hedge a bit creepy.

Sorry to hear about your mother.

Alistair said...

They all seem to be so very proud of their gardens, lots of ideas to take home. We were visiting our daughter in Cheshire just a few weeks ago. Sorry to hear that your mother is ill, hope she is soon well again.

Andrea said...

Hi b-a-g, it looks like you are not posting lately, i am a bit late here too. Our skies during the rainy season looks like those skies you have. Thank you for touring us to a very neat and elegant residential areas there, it really looks like they are so very prim and proper! I smiled when you said you want yours without rules.

I've just finished the book The Stone Circles, and i didn't know there's a lot of them in UK. Of course it is only Stonehenge which is very famous!

debsgarden said...

I'm a bit late coming to this post, but I am glad I didn't miss it! I enjoyed your tour, and I loved seeing your Aunt's beautiful neighborhood. My husband has an electric hedge trimmer; he is inordinately fond of it and watches the boxwoods too closely for any signs of growth. I don't like the thing because it causes brown edges to form on the leaves it slices apart.

Malar said...

Very industrial place but full of beautiful garden? Amazing!

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