Waxwing

Waxwing
"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour."

From "Auguries of Innocence"

by William Blake

Tuesday 16 September 2014

Dahlias and Scarecrows at Baddesley Clinton








D and I went along to Baddesley Clinton last Sunday afternoon. I always tend to visit at this time of year to see the dahlia border and scarecrow display in the vegetable garden. Apologies to anyone who has been visiting this blog for any length of time as the dahlia photos will probably be familiar although the scarecrows are different each year.

Baddesley Clinton (a National Trust property) is a moated manor house built in the late 1500's by Henry Ferrers, a diarist, lawyer and antiquarian.





The Walled Garden




The dahlia border is just stunning and runs almost the whole length of one side of the garden.





I'm still working to confirm the identity of this hoverfly but think its one of the Eristalis species.























Lots of plants still flowering in the herbaceous border. In the past I've managed to take some nice butterfly photos at this time of year as they feed on sedum flowers but the two Red Admirals I saw refused to settle although there were several bees about.








You can see how long the dahlia bed is in this photo.








Scarecrows in the Vegetable Garden - I've attached photos of the signs with captions as some of them are rather amusing :)




























If the real Benedict Cumberbatch had been around I have to admit I would have gone into "swoon mode" !! :)


Dark skies were developing as we re-entered the walled garden.





Before we left we had a look round the second hand bookshop - I did manage to resist buying the Complete Illustrated Thorburn's Birds but I did buy this little book for 40p which is stuffed full of information





We had planned to drive onto Lapworth as it was the Scarecrow Festival weekend but to be honest we felt we'd seen enough scarecrows for one day so stopped off instead at Temple Balsall NR. I've uploaded far too many photos already for this post so I'll do a separate one on the nature reserve.









5 comments:

Rohrerbot said...

Oh my gosh, I am drooling over your flowers!!!! I hope you don't mind but I saved one as my background for my desktop. How incredible! Seriously amazing colors and form. I know you go there at least once a year during this time but WOW, they really have an eye popping mouth drooling selection this year. Thank you! Fantastic!

Anonymous said...

Such a fantastic display of colour. And I love the sense of humour with the scarecrows, particularly 'withering tights'! :o)

Ragged Robin said...

Chris Rohrer - Thanks so much Chris - so glad you liked the flowers. Of course I don't mind re: the desktop background - in fact I am very honoured :)

Countryside Tales - Thank you - yes I think Withering Tights was my favourite too :)

SeagullSuzie said...

I'm not a dahlia fan, but the colours are fantastic and I do love to see them like this. Great scarecrow names or themes, aren't people full of fun!

Ragged Robin said...

SeagullSuzie - Thanks so much. I think the scarecrows are a great fun idea too :)