East Essex: Essex Girl For A Day

East Essex: Essex Girl For A Day
24 June 2003

Location	I visited East Essex. First on the agenda were Beth Chatto's Nursery and Gardens in Elmstead Market near Colchester. Afterwards I went to Copt Hall, a National Trust nature preserve.

Weather	Some sun, some cloud. Nice and warm all the time.

Click on the images to see larger versions. There are also links to desktop-sized versions of some images. Please help yourself to them.


	This is the dry garden at Beth Chatto's. It hasn't been watered since its creation more than a decade ago. With only 50cm of natural rainfall annually, that's quite remarkable, at least in the UK where people get the hose out all the time in summer.

The true blue of the perennial flax, Linum perenne, is right at home in the gravel. I love the colour but it tends to be short-lived on clay.

	The sea holly, proably Eryngium alpinum. It's another perennial that is right at home in a dry garden. It's hard to see in the photo but they get quite tall, 60-90 cm.

The seed head of a popular, old-fashioned annual, Nigella damascena. The foliage is dill-like and quite curious. Nigella self-seeds if it's happy and creates a wonderful misty effect in the border. The common name of Love-in-a-mist is apt.

	Once inside the garden I started by poking around the wetter parts. Here a strong-growing Gunnera manicata provides some shade for water forget-me-nots, Mysotis scorpiodes, and orange candelabra primulas. Desktop

Some local wildlife calls the ponds their home.

	Near water we can often find another true blue perennial, the iris.

The atmosphere was completely different here than in the gravel garden above. It was shady and moist and exciting in a slightly furtive way. Desktop

	Gunneras fascinate me.

This is what the leaf structure looks like up close. Desktop

	On a much more restrained scale, the arum lily, Zantedeschia aethiopica, shines with its own simple beauty.

I wanted to capture the shape without the distraction of colours.

	Beth Chatto seems to be inordinately fond of campanulas. As pretty as they are, I'm afraid I can't really keep them all apart. I think this is a Campanula carpatica. Desktop

With its hairy flowers, I think this is a Campanula latifolia var. alba. The flowers are quite spectacular but I can't say that I care for the fringe.

	Rather daintier are these violets that I found in the woodland garden.

In the part of the garden that was just a plain flower garden, I found another of my favourite flowers, the musk mallow, Malva moschata. I can never get quite enough of that delectable pinkness. The white form is quite nice too.

	Another obsession of mine are poppy seedheads. In fact I sculpted a giant one in clay when I was at art school. It was about 40 cm tall and proportionally wide. It looked stunning in my garden.

A closer look at the ridges on top of the seed head.

	Another close-up, this time of some hosta leaves in the woodland garden. The softly curving shapes in muted green are calming and centering. Desktop

There were turks cap lilies, Lilium martagon, everywhere in the woodlands. Some were wine red, some where white like this one. The effect was charming but this was the only picture of them that came out.

	In a sunnier corner, I found this waterfall of variegated grass. I have no idea what the name is but I liked the relaxed, airy texture. Desktop

By the car park at Copt Hall there was an disused barn.

	The landscape this close to the sea was very flat. This is the kind of flat I grew up with so it has a certain home-like feel to it, even though it's in another country. Desktop

There were quite a lot of wildflowers in grass, like this birdsfoot trefoil, Lotus corniculatus. I love the sunny colour. Desktop

	Another view out over the very flat landscape. I really like how big and blue the sky is in this picture. It gives a sense of freedom that is hard to get in a more hilly landscape. Desktop

On a quite different scale, a seed head of a Compositae. When each seed has it's own little feathery parachute, it's not hard to guess that the seeds are spread by the wind.

	There is a church by the Copt Hall settlement. It didn't appear to be used much and was in fact locked. Still, somebody seemed to care enough about it to have planted these roses on the backside.

The grille in front of the door was quite impressive. Apart from that what I liked most about this church was the higgedly-piggedly approach to architecture. There appeared to have been no plan when the windows and doors were installed. Thankfully it hadn't been restored. I would have loved to go inside.

	I end the way I started with a look inside the disused Copt Hall barn.