Blogtober 2021 :: RHS Harlow Carr

A visit to Harlow Carr is always a treat and the last time I visited was back in July 2019 when the sweet peas were in full bloom (that blog post is here). The trip I made yesterday was planned quite a while ago when Christine bought herself a membership to the RHS (which stands for Royal Horticultural Society - a very well know institution in the UK but if you aren't from this quirky little isle then you may not have heard of it). An RHS member can have unlimited visits to any one of the five RHS gardens in the UK and take a guest in free of charge. So being the wonderful  friend that I am, I very kindly offered to be available at ANY time if she needed some accompaniment to Harlow Carr, or any other garden for that matter. We set a date, and I have been really looking forward to it for many weeks.

Harlow Carr is near Harrogate, so about a half hour drive from my house, making it a very easy day trip for us. We arrived around midday (of course we had to go out for breakfast first) and honestly I was so, so, so insanely happy about the weather that the gardens could have been half dead and I still would have been delighted with it. If you hadn't already gathered, the weather was absolute perfection. It was quite chilly (around 8 degrees I think) but the sky was completely free of clouds and the most gorgeous shade of clear blue, which meant that the sun shone it's little heart out all day.

We had a printed map to follow, but as I'd been before we just decided to work our way around on instinct, following the meandering pathways through the various different areas of the garden. In the summer the above bed is usually filled with meadow planting, and the amazing kinetic sycamore seed sculptures gently turn in the breeze above a sea of wild flowers. It looked a little sparse at this time of year but the sculptures were still lovely to watch.

I had been expecting colourful foliage in October and I was not disappointed - there was lots of it!

The grasses were also very beautiful and were incorporated into a lot of the large flower beds. I loved the combination above - the tall purple flower is Verbena Bonariensis and it looked wonderful planted with the yellow daisy flowers which are a variety of Rudbekia. Yellows and purples seemed to be a bit of a theme throughout the garden.....

....and the colour contrasts were very striking.

We continued to follow the winding pathways around ponds and flower beds, eventually finding our way into the more natural part of the gardens.

There is quite a bit of woodland at Harlow Carr....

....and in the early afternoon it was magical. The sunlight was beaming through the treetops, and it was so nice just to stroll along chatting and breathing in the fresh woodsy air.

Eventually the pathways lead us up to the kitchen garden which is one of may favourite parts.

The extreme orderliness of the raised beds is somehow very appealing to my brain, and I love that the beds themselves are made out of recycled plastic milk bottles, how brilliant is that?

There was still quite a lot of veg growing in the beds, but obviously this part of the garden is at it's very best in high summer. This is where you will find a lot of the sweet peas in summer, scrambling up and over those gorgeous rustic arbours. 

There was still lots of colour though - a whole long row of neatly trained crab apple trees.....

.....and these amazing yellow flowers which must have stood about seven foot tall. I had to gently bend a stem down to take the above photograph. They look like dainty sunflowers, and I think they are in fact a perennial variety of sunflower.

I would love to grow some in my back yard - imagine that - seven or eight foot tall golden beauties right outside my window!

I showed you into this green house in yesterday's blog post - it was roped off so you couldn't venture inside, but the doors were open and it had been very beautifully staged for the season.

Just look how gorgeous it all is!! Pumpkins galore!!

There were lots of chillies too, and I loved the whole look of it in here. 

We are entering the Sub Tropicana garden now which is full of exotic looking foliage and bold planting.

There were brightly coloured dahlias here (although not as many as I would have liked) and lots of different varieties of Salvia. In fact I noticed that there were salvias of all varieties in pretty much every part of the garden - they are easy to recognise because they have flowers that look like baby snapdragons, do you know what I mean? Salvias are a humungous plant group and if you search for them on the RHS plant finder thingy, there are over 2000 results. The ones we saw at Harlow Carr were mainly deep purples and very dark pinks and they really were gorgeous. 

It's around 2pm now, and we've been walking and talking and oooooing and ahhhhhhing and taking umpteen photos for two solid hours. Time to find a bench in a sheltered sunny spot and have a bite to eat.....

.....doesn't this look yummy? Before setting off, we'd called into the farm shop to have our breakfast and pick up some lunch to take with us. I chose a vegetarian sausage roll with a filling of Mediterranean veggies and it was delish! We had some baby tomatoes on the vine, and some fruit for afterwards - a simple lunch really, because we were saving ourselves for a bit of an afternoon treat in the very well known Harlow Carr café (more of that in a bit).

After  our rest and refreshment we were raring to go again, and set out to explore the main borders. These aren't like your average garden borders at home because of course they are completely ginormous, so the planting is equally ginormous in scale. In fact the borders were so big that it was hard to photograph them, they just wouldn't fit into the frame.

What I did do was take lots of pictures of the colours that I liked, building up a floral colour palette in my photo album...

....from the pale purple asters (of which there were many)....

....to the deep and gorgeous burnt oranges of the heleniums.

I really fell a bit in love with the heleniums, they looked so beautiful in the glow of the afternoon sun.

I took way more photos than I am showing you here, but I'm trying to be careful not to send you over the edge with too much floral abundance. 

The last part of the garden we visited was one that I hadn't really seen a lot of in previous visits. I said to Christine that when you visit with Little People, you tend to have a different pace and different priorities. With children in tow, we would spend a lot of time playing in the woodland, and then time allowing the LP to run, run, run (and roll and cartwheel) across the wide open grassy spaces. By the time we got to the rock gardens, they would be a bit on the tired side and then it was all about wanting an ice cream, or a drink and something sugary to eat. So it was nice to be able to stroll slowly through this part, and it really is made for visiting in Autumn.

This area is called the Sandstone Rock Garden, and it's a mixture of giant sized rockery rocks, watery pools and the most beautiful shrubs and trees chosen especially for their foliage. 

I mean, just look how beautiful it all is!

The blurb on the website describes this area as reaching "a crescendo of colour" in autumn and it wasn't wrong - there is a large collection of Japanese Maple trees here and the foliage was spectacular.

I hope you can tell from my photos how special this place is - the atmosphere is a curious mixture of highly energising and calmly relaxing and you can't help but feel hugely inspired by it all. I love that there are soooooooo many benches of all shapes and sizes positioned around the garden, inviting you to rest or simply stop and enjoy the nature surrounding you on all sides. 

Of course our visit was hugely helped by the weather which was nothing short of perfection, we honestly couldn't believe our luck, especially after so many days of grey, wet weather earlier in the week.

It was quite honestly one of the nicest day trips I've had in a long time, well I would even rate it alongside my seaside jaunt which tells you just how happy it made me.

Now before we leave Harlow Carr, there is of course the pressing need for some top notch refreshment, and the café here is rather special. It is none other than a branch of the famous Betty's Tearooms and it is one refined and civilised place. A cup of tea is served to you quite literally on a silver platter with silver tea pots containing real leaf-tea which you must remember needs to be poured through a silver tea strainer. You must not forget this important fact, or your mouth will be full of leaves (please don't ask me how I know this).

Bettys is also famous for its baked goods, so we opted for a simple but very delicious toasted sultana scone to go with the tea. The toasting of a scone isn't something I've ever heard of before, but apparently it's a Bettys Speciality. It arrives already buttered so that the butter is completely soaked into the warmth of the scone, ooooooo, it's just melt in your mouth good. All very sophisticated and a very lovely way to end a sunny, colour-filled day.

I have decided that we must visit HC on a more frequent basis, because I would really like to see it change through the seasons. I imagine that even in winter there will be many delights, and oh, can you imagine Spring?? And early Summer?? Picnics on the grass, and some wonderful time idling amongst the flowers....I am all for it.

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Comments

[Mavis Hewitt]

Just catching up with blogposts now and this post was utterly delicious. We are on a week of very grey, windy, wet, half term days and the the colours in this post have soothed my soul! Note to self: must visit more gardens. Thank you Lucy, photos are just lovely and I was eating the mouth-watering. goodies along with you at 7.13 am lol.

[Rachell]

Fantastic blog post Lucy! I have really, really enjoyed my visit here too. Thank you for sharing XX

[Joanna H]

This post has persuaded me onto Betty's website, I'm hovering over a box of Fat Rascals now. Oh dear....

[Lyn]

Thank You for sharing you day. Oh the color and the amazing range of it! My favorite is the burnt orange heleniums. And the sandstone rock garden with the Japanese maple trees. Sigh! Gorgeous!

[Fiona]

Toasted scones are even better if the scone is slightly stale and a bit drier than when freshly baked as the butter soaks in more. Fruit scones can be topped with a sliver of cheese before toasting for the ultimate post gardening treat!
Your blogs this month have been wonderful. Thank you.

[Kevin]

That post was great! It's nice to take time out and relax,you certainly dropped lucky with the weather. Beautiful Autumn pictures of a place I haven't been. Thanks for taking the time to share it.

[Margaret Thorburn]

Thank you Lucy for your wonderful Blogtober posts. This visit to Harlow Carr was very inspiring and the photos exquisite. It reminded me of a visit I made with my 19 year old daughter at the time to the Beth Chatto gardens, Colchester in July 2017. We were visiting London for three weeks as a gap year savings adventure and this garden has inspired many an Australian gardener, making the most of a drier English landscape. Hope to visit Yorkshire during the next few years whilst my son is now in the UK doing a PhD.

[Caroline]

Beautiful pictures Lucy. The purple salvia is a variety called Amistad. We have loads in pots as they are super easy to take cuttings from. They flower and flower, remind me next year and I’ll let you have a couple. X

[Sandy B]

Those tall sunflower plants look like Helianthus Tuberosus or Jerusalem Artichoke ( nothing like the other artichoke), sometimes called a sunchoke. Its a perennial wild sunflower from South America, which grows to 3 mtres. It grows from a tuber which multiplies and is edible. The brown knobby tubers can be roasted like potatoes. (Jamie Oliver has a recipe for them) This is a great plant for kids to grow. Ive grown them here in Oz.
What a lovely garden to visit so close to home. Thanks for showing us.

[Sandy B]

Those tall sunflower plants look like Helianthus Tuberosus or Jerusalem Artichoke ( nothing like the other artichoke), sometimes called a sunchoke. Its a perennial wild sunflower from South America, which grows to 3 mtres. It grows from a tuber which multiplies and is edible. The brown knobby tubers can be roasted like potatoes. (Jamie Oliver has a recipe for them) This is a great plant for kids to grow. Ive grown them here in Oz.
What a lovely garden to visit so close to home. Thanks for showing us.

[Tineke]

Heliopsis helianthoides scabra, if you can get your hands on some fresh lumps torn from a mother plant you are lucky, they hate wet cold winters so love your part of the UK. Bleeding hearts are orange, Waterperry Gold has double flowers, Summer night dark leaves, Summer sun a bit lighter flowers. They do well in pots, don't overwater. Go for it, must be a nursery in your neighbourhood having them at the moment. I had an RHS pas for years, as I visited the UK more times a year. It is an abundance of splendid gardens and houses you can visit. You lucky girl, having a friend who invites you <3

[Marmalade Kat]

Thanks for a fabulous post, Lucy. Inspiring in so many ways 😊

[CJ]

Wow, it looks absolutely stunning there. The colour! And the greenhouse is amazing. Glad you had such a good visit. CJ xx

[Abby]

The gardens look gorgeous this time of year. Just been to newly opened RHS Bridgewater Gardens in Salford which are worth visiting too. Love Betty's too when I visited in York.

[Mrs M]

Thanks for all the gorgeous garden photos. I agree, that you must visit any gardens in all the seasons to appreciate the changes. Treat yourself and J to a joint RHS membership and that will encourage you to make the time to go more often.🥰

[Linda Graveling]

What a lovely colourful post. We live near RHS Wisley in Surrey. The colours there were glorious when we visited recently. We are so lucky to have such beautiful gardens to visit aren’t we?

[Jacqui]

You are such a kind person offering to keep Christine company😂😂😂😂😂😂
Oh my goodness amazing photos it really felt like I was there, beautiful photo's
Perennail sunflowers just gone on my list!
Toasted scones wow sound gorgeous (scones on list also!
I remember our big brown teapot 1 spoon of leaf tea (very strange shaped spoon) for each person and one for the pot.
Thankyou so much such a lovely blog😁

[Radmila]

A wonderful blog post, I enjoyed reading it a lot. Thank you Lucy for the joy you convey to us through your writing and your crochet work

[Ann Chapman]

The perennial sunflower isn’t an artichoke. It’s a Helianthus, probably a variety called Golden Queen. It’s gorgeous. I love Harlow Carr and it really is a joy at any time of year. You really can have a garden full of colour all year round

[Jennifer]

Lucy, your photos are a balm today . It is rainy and cold here in the Midwestern US. My neighbor brought me some Mammoth Sunflower seeds this summer and told me just to squeeze them in wherever I had some room in a sunny spot. They grew 9 feet tall! I had never grown them before, but they were such a delight. The bumblebees loved them when they were flowering and their size all summer was just astonishing! The chickadees picked all of the seeds out of them after they started to dry. It was so fun for the kids and I to watch. I’d highly recommend a few in your backyard if you have room for them. Against a wall would be best as they get a little tippy in a strong breeze. Thanks again for the gorgeous pictures!

[Charlotte]

What a perfect day you and Christine had. Thanks for sharing.

[Sarah]

What an absolutely gorgeous day! I love,love, love your beautiful pictures of the gardens! It gives me so many ideas, too. Thank you so much for taking us along on your visit and I’m so happy that you got to enjoy the sunshine 😊♥️

[Charlotte Pountney]

Absolutely WOW, the curator of those gardens has done an amazing job to keep so much colour going, so late in the year. I shall review your photos tomorrow, and see if there are any ideas (on a very small scale!) that I can pinch for my own garden!

[Norma]

What a glorious place, must put itnon my itinery for next time I come to visit.
Thanks Lucy for sharing your lovely photos.
Norma

[Sandra]

Toasting scones is what you might do when they are past their best. Scones don't have that much fat in them (traditionally), so are best eaten on the day they are made. Otherwise they are very nice toasted. I remember having them frequently in tearooms as a child, and occasionally at home. As tasty as a teacake but not so big.