Showing posts with label daffodils. Show all posts
Showing posts with label daffodils. Show all posts

Friday, March 28, 2014

Days out: Clandon Park daffodils

We were getting into the whole daffodils thing, so decided to go and visit Clandon Park, down near Guildford, which has a field of daffodils in front of the house. A few years ago we visited and the daffodils were just over, and we'd always said we'd go back and see them properly another year.

So we did. Except when we got there we discovered that the house and grounds are closed on Saturdays (and Fridays), as they hire them out for weddings (hmm, there is a picture of a bride in a swanky dress in front of all the daffodils on their wedding hire website). Should have checked the website...

We had to admire the daffodils from a distance.


However, we then went on to the wonderful Clandon Park Garden Centre, an independent one, and had a cup of tea in their cafe, before buying lots of plants!

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Days out: Valley Gardens daffodils

Last year we heard about the daffodils at Valley Gardens and went to have a look. They are absolutely amazing, and cover a huge area. We went back again this year for another look and a walk along the edge of Virginia Water lake.

Half these pictures were taken with my camera, and half with my iPhone, so apologies if they appear different!


These are the first daffodils you come to. And you think that this is it, until...


a bit further along, there are even more!


And more.

Stream heading down through the daffodils to Virginia Water lake

The shore of the lake

You can tell this side of the river has very different geology - the camellias are HUGE!


Sunday, March 25, 2012

Knitting and daffodils

I've been going a bit mad in the garden recently, including taking a day off work to catch up with some gardening (!), and we had a lovely afternoon out today to see some daffodils, so I'll put some gratuitous daffodil photos in this post, but leave most of the garden update for garden-at-the-beginning-of-April, to make room for the knitting update.

A couple of people have messaged  me to say they've had trouble leaving comments, and I know I've struggled with some other Blogger blogs in the last week or two. If you want to leave a comment and are having trouble, please let me know - my email's in my profile on here or my Rav profile is here.

A couple of projects have been finished this week. I finally finished the KAL blanket from last year (!), just in time as I will be seeing the lucky recipient who's having it as a birthday present next weekend and want to take it with me, as it's a bit big to put in the post.

I'm pleased with how it's turned out. The squares aren't quite all the same size, but the crochet edging helped even it up a bit.

And I produced another tea cosy. Last year I knitted one for an old-lady-at-church, who wanted one to match her kitchen. Well, it turned out that old-lady-at-church thought her friend would like one too, so I ended up knitting another, identical, one! It's the Terrific Tea Cosy pattern that I've made a few times now. I am kind of hoping that old-lady-at-church hasn't got any more friends who would like tea cosies though...


And I'm trying to find some yarn to knit a jumper for my nephew's birthday in May. He apparently would like an Auntie-knitted jumper (thought he might be getting a bit too old for these things) but it has to be soft and bright red. I've settled on the Intrepid Pullover pattern from Interweave Knits, now I just need to source the yarn. I'm thinking either Patons Smoothie DK, or Sirdar Baby Bamboo (but without letting on to him that the yarn has "baby" in its name, as he'll be 6 and would be Totally Mortified).

How did I get so old and wrinkly that my youngest nephew is 6?! Although I now have three grey hairs, so it's obviously downhill from now on.

This afternoon we went for an afternoon out to Valley Gardens, as I'd heard rumours of some amazing daffodils at this time of year. And we weren't disappointed.

Some bits were very familiar. I went to university very close to here, so I've walked past this pool many times (usually whilst avoiding revising for exams/with an essay deadline looming etc)

 But I hadn't ventured into the gardens themselves before, and they're spectacular. With a lot of rhododendrons (we later discovered that it's the home of the national collection of rhododendrons, which would explain why there's rather a lot!).

 And beautiful swathes of daffodils as far as the eye could see!


These are some of the daffodils out at home. I planted the same varieties together, so they group into different coloured clumps around the garden. Apart from at the far end, where I obviously forgot to plant any at all.





Think that's all for now. I'm away next weekend so I'm not sure when my next blog update will be.