We visited Dewstow Gardens in the morning, arriving just as the rain cleared. Following lunch at Dewstow Golf Club, we travelled on to Veddw House garden.
Here are some photos and a newletter article describing the visit to Veddw.
I do not pretend to be a gardener. My wife Bev is the gardener and I am an "appreciator" in our house in respect of the garden -- in fact I am the person to whom Kipling refers to in the poem The glory of the garden, ie I sing "Oh how beautiful" and sit in the shade! However, if the garden at Veddw House were mine, even I could not sit in the shade and read, I'd have to do some weeding at least.
It was an interesting garden to see. Lots of good ideas such as the shaped yew hedges breaking up the garden into sections and giving it structure, and the views from the higher end across those hedges and over the Welsh countryside were very striking. However, in my view it fell between two stools.
If it was intended to be a wild, even a wilderness, garden, there was too much structure (those hedges again) and too many beds that had cultivated plants and flowers, or were intended to have them anyway.
If it was intended to be a formal garden, then there was too much wildness, not enough tender loving care, and (let's not beat about the bush) too many weeds.
The owners may have intended this effect all along, and in fact the handout we were given mentioned that Anne Wareham did not mind weeds and did not necessarily discourage them. Every garden is the personal taste of the person that created it; some (maybe most) of our party may have liked this garden, so disagree if you like, but it was just not for me.
