Ness Botanic Gardens.

                With my apprenticeship in Essex at an end, the chance to spend time with the family up in Chester is a welcome one. It's also an opportunity to see some of the gardens to be found here in the north west.

                One of the best known is Ness Botanic Gardens, which lies on the Wirral peninsular between the estuaries of the Mersey and Dee rivers. Other than that - its location - I wasn't sure what to expect. I had visited a couple of years ago, very briefly and at a rather solemn time of year, and as my Grampy would say, "there wasn't much to write home about!" However, the sun was out and three of us (Mum & her friend Sue, both possessing far more horticultural knowledge than I do) set out to see what there was to be seen.

               It didn't take long for me to start questioning whether my last visit had been to a different garden, as the place we entered into this time was filled with colour, interest, and - if I can use a term rarely used in horticultural discussion - genuine coolness.

                Although the longevity of the summer plants at Powis Castle impressed by absolutely denying autumn's arrival, at Ness it was possible to see an intelligent and balanced response to the oncoming season.
                  On the one hand, some of the gardens (much like the RHS gardens, Ness contains an array of themes) remain untempered by seasons due to their style and plant choice. In the rock garden, creeping tufts of shrubs, herbs and grasses sit between crags of (mainly) local sandstone to create a pleasingly naturalistic form.

In the water gardens, the impact of bamboo is immediate - the visitor wants to look at them and through them to the water's surface. Apart from their obvious structural benefit en masse, their stripes add such pizzazz without breaking the green theme. I must jot the species name down next time.

                On the other hand, large parts of the garden have been set to utterly embrace autumn. Of course it is no secret to any gardener that deciduous foliage can transform into attractive colours, but the combinations and concoctions at Ness produce deep, rich tapestries. It truly left me wondering whether those who had chosen the plants could have cared about the other seasons as much, or if such perfect choices for autumn meant horrible clashes in springtime! However, the very fact that the area photographed below is named 'The Azalea Walk' suggests no such sacrifice has been made.

This dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), stood in a less bamboo-ey corner of the water gardens, may still be bright green but will look extraordinary once its foliage turns to a fiery orange.

Moreover, as with any garden that contains the katsura tree (Cercidiphyllum japonicum), attention has clearly been given to autumnal scents as well as to sights.

It may not relate to my enjoyment of the garden's autumnal treats, but I must mention one other aspect of Ness: labelling. One only has to look at the titles of the katsura and dawn redwood trees mentioned above in italics to suspect that I did not venture into horticulture out of love for botanical latin names. They are hard to spell, and harder still to pronounce. However, it is far more of a headache to walk away from a beautiful plant without knowing its name whatsoever, rendering the chances of finding another for one's own garden an impossibility. With this in mind, I must offer the gardeners at Ness my highest praise, for the most thorough labelling effort in any garden I have come upon. Not only is it something tremendously helpful in practical terms (and I do strive to do the same in whichever garden I come to work in), but it also generates a friendliness about the place. It is very much appreciated, and one of many reasons why I am glad to be home.