A Bronze Memorial of Geoff Hamilton created by his Son Chris. Geoff’s son Nick took over the running of Barnsdale after Geoff’s death and opened up the 8 Acres to the public. The site consists of 38 individual gardens in different styles and planting schemes. I’ve visited Barnsdale a few times before at different times of the year, I only live 40 mins drive away and always try to visit at least once a year. My most recent visit was on a sunny Saturday in early August. Arriving just after opening, I set off to explore and see what I could find. A couple of years ago when I visited Barnsdale I took part in a guided tour of the site, where the tour leader told us that Geoff’s planting and design style was very much with the ‘ordinary’ gardener in mind.

In that in many of his 38 gardens throughout the site we would find a secluded area with a seat, a compost bin, and you wouldn’t be able to see all the garden from one aspect. During this blog I’ve focused on only a few of my favourite Feature Gardens.

Jul 19, 2011 Emma Plunket's Hammersmith garden was featured on Alan Titchmarsh's Love Your Garden series on ITV1 prime time on 1 July 2011. Apr 3, 2009 - 7 min - Uploaded by Ann SamulPlanning a cottage garden for a hundred year old house in New England. Driver Placa De Retea Windows Xp Sp3 Universal Download more.

A wonderful archway of scented roses. I almost got to meet Geoff personally in June 1996, which was only a few months before he died, I was helping a past employer set up a stand at at the N.E.C in Birmingham, when I saw Geoff striding purposely nearby, a friend I was with shouted over towards Geoff “OY, Geoff, Alright.?” and waved feverishly whilst I stood frozen with embarrassment, as Geoff looked towards us, he looked puzzled for a moment, then gave us both a big smile and hearty wave and walked past. The Gentleman’s Cottage Garden I found my way into the Gentleman’s Cottage Garden, which was built for the TV series Geoff Hamilton’s Cottage Gardens. The garden was built to show the luxuries available befitting a Gentleman, and to show how to deal with a garden which is much wider than long.

The garden was divided into 3 sections, the picture above shows the middle section with a nice brick paved path, an alcove seating area, and slightly raised beds with an informal cottage garden style planting where the plants are allowed to ramble and find its own best growing position. The section to the right, through a wooden arch way led to a small area where some edible crops were grown, several small raised beds were planted up with Courgettes, Beetroot, Climbing Beans, Lettuce, Kohl Rabbi and Celeriac, which were interspersed with English Marigolds and Tagetes.

There were also pots with some herbs in and a small bed planted up with Black Currants, Rhubarb and Red Currants, also a lovely wooden Hexagonal Greenhouse with Tomatoes growing in. The Parterre Garden. I came across another of my favourite feature Gardens, it was called the Ornamental Kitchen Garden and was another subject for a TV series of the same name which aired in 1990. The idea for this garden is to show how ornamental plants can be grown alongside Vegetables and fruit plants and still achieve a pleasing garden design. With edible crops being harvested regularly, it has shown how with succession planting a garden can always be full of plants, be pleasing on the eye and be productive. A Peacock Butterfly.

I thoroughly enjoyed my walk around the gardens, and paid a visit to the adjoining plant nursery on the site where I purchased Penstemon ‘Geoff Hamilton’ as a souvenir of my visit. I think the highlight of my visit was seeing that many of the gardens that Geoff created and designed for the relevant tie-in TV series were still just exactly how he left them, the plants and features as shown in the accompanying books and TV series where still very much in evidence. I have many of Geoff Hamilton’s Books, and I think his style of gardening, where he shows how you can maintain a full and pleasing garden, that can fit into any size or shape, which can be achieved by gardeners of all ability’s and means, and a garden that can be full of wildlife is just as relevant to today’s gardeners as it was 20 years ago.