NGS Garden Visit - Washington Old Hall

What better to do with another fine weekend but partake in a spot of garden visiting? Even better is a garden that is free to enter, but had a NGS plant stall, and a very reasonably priced tea shop with a fabulous selection of cake. Just the job. The Intrepid baby, my sister, and I felt it was too good to resist.

NGS Garden Visit : Moorbank Botanical Gardens, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne

First garden visit of the year, and as coincidence would have it, it was in my home city. Moorbank is owned by Newcastle University as a private facility, but opens for e NGS several times a year.

The gardens are made up of two areas - the green houses and an open air area. I went with my sister and the Intrepid Baby. After a minor mystery tour finding the place, and then another to find somewhere to park we made our way through to the entrance and coughed up our entry fee. Our first challenge of the day became immediately evident - the walkways were only just wide enough to get a buggy down, and woe betide anyone wanting to get past us in the other direction. Nevermind, obviously the place was never designed to cope with buggies, so we just had to try and manage.

Garden Visit - Jardines De Alfabia, Mallorca

The other half and I recently spent a relaxing, child free week on the Balearic island of Mallorca. Many will cringe at the mention of it, picturing horrific clumps England transplanted, numerous St. George's crosses and all, to a sunburned collection of cheap all inclusives and "English Bars". Past experience had led me to believe much the same thing. What we discovered away from all of this however was a very pleasant coastal village called S'illot. There were a few hotels and the odd Anglicised pub, but there was also a fine selection of Spanish Bars and restaurants offering local food and drink, which is just the sort of thing we like when we go away. Needless to say, I ate like a pig and we drank a very pleasing amount of local beverages. I still find it incredible that you can buy a carton of very nice Spanish wine for less that 2 Euros... Anyhow, enough of that, on with the point of this post.

Garden Visit - Millgate House, Richmond

I go to Richmond, North Yorkshire, quite a lot. My Grandpa has lived in a home there for a fair few years and over that time I've got to know its mixture of antique shops, charity shops, book shops, cafés and local pubs very well. It's a lovely town and I can quite easily spend whole days there pottering around and relaxing. On top of all of this there is the beautiful surrounding countryside and the lovely local architecture which all adds up to a place where I could very comfortably go and live.

Garden Visit - Durham Botanic Garden

Last week the other half and I visited the Durham Botanic Garden. We've been there a few times before, but we'd yet to see it in summer. The garden is run by the university and is used as a teaching resource as well as a public attraction.

Despite the garden having obviously suffered from the same appalling summer weather that the rest of us have endured it was looking very pretty. It was fairly obvious that the gardeners were battling with the aftermath of all of the rain with lots of massively overgrown plants and several of the paths being washed away.

NGS Garden Visit - Glebe Farm, Sunderland

Today the intrepid baby and I went on our first NGS Garden visit to Glebe Farm in Whitburn, Sunderland. It's been a grey and blustery day, but the good old BBC weather pages gave hope that the rain would stay away, so off we went. The garden was very easy to find with clear signposting right from the main road. It obviously helped that I live in the area and know Whitburn fairly well anyway, but I'm quite sure visitors from further afield would have had no trouble finding it.