Snapshots from a long weekend of gardens

Part of the Perennial Legacy Garden, designed by Paul Harvey-Brookes, at the RHS Tatton Park Flower Show (Thursday) - deservedly 'Best in Show'.

 My friend Gary Keim  from Philadelphia has been visiting, and by taking a day off, and fitting garden visits between meetings we were able to get to see a number of good gardens and the Tatton Park Flower Show. Each could have its own blog post, but I've chosen one shot from each as a representative of things to see in each garden at present. Not an easy choice!

Amazing mulleins in the tropical border at Harewood House, at peak flowering (Friday), presumably mostly derived from Verbascum olympicum.

A shimmering mass of perennials in Piet Oudolf's central section of Scampston Walled Garden (Saturday).

Sunglasses needed: Corn Marigold (Glebionis segetum) at Breezy Knees garden (Saturday).

Mist in my garden on Sunday morning (Agastache 'Serpentine' is conspicuous).

Clematis 'Mme Julia Correvon' at the Garden House, Condicote, Gloucestershire (Sunday)

Helianthus 'Little Becka' in the sunflower trial at RHS Garden Wisley, a superb multi-branching short cultivar, with very attractive flowers.

From Ryedale to Holderness

Eryngium alpinum in evening light on Saturday. These are a few pictures from a pleasant weekend of gardening and botanising.

My garden is currently full of flower, colour and interest - I'm very happy with how it looks.

Wharram Quarry is my most local Yorkshire Wildlife Trust reserve: it has an excellent chalk flora, currently in full flower. Masses of Dactylorhiza fuchsii were conspicuous yesterday afternoon.

One of the special plants of Wharram Quarry is the nationally rare Thistle Broomrape, Orobanche reticulata subsp. pallidiflora, which parasitises Woolly Thistle, Cirsium eriophorum.

The reserve was gifted to the YWT to preserve the population of Bee Orchids, Ophrys apifera.

A plant fair today gave an opportunity to visit the gardens of Dalton Hall in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The productive kitchen garden  also has large blocks of  wildflower meadow, curiously with wigwams of sweet peas in each corner, though the mixture of formal and informal was rather pleasing.

The plant fair was merely a diversion on the way to the annual National Garden Scheme opening of the Pottage family's garden at Withernsea - a location that always makes me think it's 'to Hull and gone'.

Cultivated for centuries, but there are still few plants that match the scarlet of Lychnis chalcedonica.

A view across the top of a Hebe cupressoides in the Pottage garden. As always, an enjoyable and educational afternoon there. 

I returned home through a thunderstorm south of the Wolds, and found another had just cleared this side, leaving the garden well washed and watered. Chamaenerion angustifolium 'Stahl Rose'.