Author Archives: Alastair

Hidden head

Intentional Garden Design – Reviewing the Walk

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The details of this Dorset garden, where my walk this week took place, show just the kind of garden I like – informal but with elements of intentional design.

hanging basket

It is a mistake, in my opinion, to try to control nature – nature will always come out on top in the end – but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy arranging different aspects of it in our gardens. That is how we end up with  interesting collections of patterns and textures connecting the man-made with the moss, the rust with the rose hips. Continue reading→

Honeysuckle

Colour To Be Found and Hidden Reflections

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It may be a wet late Autumn on my walk this week through this Dorset garden but there is still colour (other than greens) to be found as well as some hidden reflections. Red, purple, yellow, white – all natural colours compared to the bright plastics in my previous post.

hidden reflections

I love all the shades and tints of green as well, whether blurred in reflection or crisply in focus, the range is phenomenal. I have heard that we are more attuned, more perceptive of greens than any other colour – whether or not this is true, it is easy to believe.Continue reading→

rust wave

Growth and Abandon

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Exploring some details on my walk this week, I found growth and abandon simultaneously in this Dorset garden. Nature will always take over if given the chance and in the broken leg of an old swing, it found an ideal opportunity.

broken swing

RGB or red, green and blue I found in the plastics which never disintegrate however long they are left while the patterns of rusty metal could tell or prompt any number of stories. You could weigh inContinue reading→

rose hips

My Walk this Week – Dorset Garden, An Alternative View

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Without identifying where this place is other than the English county of Dorset, I thought I would take an alternative view of of the garden as I walked around it. I was attracted by some of the details and in particular the old watering cans and wood, metal containers and mossy walls.

Dorset garden

It is late Autumn and the rose hips are getting tired – the garden is preparing for Winter and the cosy covering of moss on the walls or contained in bracketed buckets makes the place feel well wrapped against any of the cold that will come.Continue reading→

red red rose

A Red Red Rose – Reviewing the Walk

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I selected a very beautiful deep red rose as my featured image for this post but if you first see the post in an email, you will have to click through to see the image which comes at the end of the selected images for my review of the walk.

Museum in the Park

The rose itself I found in the orangery which was being restored at the back of the Museum in the Park in Stratford Park, Stroud. I was visiting the museum to see the exhibition of knotted tapestries by Anne Jackson but I also plannedContinue reading→

Gerbera? arrangement

Garden in the Museum in the Park

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It may be that the title of this post sounds a little odd, but the Museum in the Park is the name of the museum and it has a beautiful new garden at the back of the building. The park is Stratford Park in Stroud and my walk this week took me around it after viewing  a Anne Jackson‘s exhibition of knotted tapestry in the museum gallery.

Gerbera?

I entered the garden by the entrance beside the orangery (see previous post) and enjoyed every visual, aural and tactile moment in the place. I can’t includeContinue reading→

Fountain - Black and White

Fountain Photography in Stratford Park

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My walk this week through Stratford Park in Stroud brought me to a viewpoint where I could see that the fountain in the centre of the lake is offset from the vertical and rotates in at an angle. The effect against the dark background of trees was quite mesmerising.

fountain close up

Photographing the fountain was great fun at the time, and also afterwards when I increased the contrast in a couple of the shots and submitted one to Leanne Cole’s Monochrome Madness blog post – MM 4-28.Continue reading→

Stratford Park - Stroud

My Walk this Week – A Walk in the Park

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The park in question on my walk this week is Stratford Park in Stroud, England. I’d driven up there to see a friend’s exhibition of knotted tapestries – Anne Jackson in the Museum in the Park. It was well worth the drive and having spent an hour enjoying the exhibition in detail, I still had time to take a walk in the park.

Stratford Park Autumn Leaves

All the classic features of a British urban/suburban park were thereContinue reading→