Obsessions

I visited two exceptional gardens tonight, both brilliant but very different.

Norman,who made my slate troughs, is an Alpine Garden Society friend. His small town garden was packed with interesting plants and features but the light was 'difficult' by the time I got there so I'll save the blip for another time.

Barry has a country garden, extending back a long way from the road, absolutely stuffed with plants. A dedicated plantsman he has massive collections of cacti and succulents but the garden also includes many bamboos, a Monkey Puzzle tree, magnolias, rambling roses, dense herbaceous borders plus fruit and vegetable patches at the rear, all linked by circuitous and often overgrown paths. A garden to get lost in! But it is the glasshouses of Cacti that are most remarkable, extending to perhaps thirty feet in length and 9 feet high, there are cacti of every shape and size, from tiny mounds to towering columns with flowers well above head height. The scale of it makes my crocus collection seem trifling. This is where collecting has become an obsession.