Hornsea Open Gardens

Today we headed out to explore local gardens as part of Hornsea open gardens. I will warn you this is a photo heavy post but there are many beautiful gardens. We’ve seen many people as we’ve gone round so hopefully, lots of money has been raised.

Garden one

The first garden was on St. Nicholas Drive opposite our street. I was interested to see this garden as it was only moved into last year and it was pretty much a blank canvas. They’ve managed an incredible amount in a little over a year. The garden has been split into an area for the dogs and a dog exclusion zone at the back with what looked to be an impressive Summer house.

The borders were filled with large rock spires and lots of interesting found objects. Driftwood and pieces of rusted metal rose out the ground.

This garden was all about the details. Lots of little arranged objects to discover. Tons of good ideas to take away.

Alice liked the water feature.

And running back and forth along the path and jumping along the stepping stones.

Garden two

The second garden we visited was just a little further along the road. This was a surprise in how far it went back. This had a well-manicured lawn surrounded by lush planting. A nice mixture of flowers and foliage plants. I imagine even in winter it still has a lot to offer with many structural evergreen plants.

Gorgeous rose on the way into the garden.

There was a good mix of scale here with large trees down to dainty flowers all very well looked after.

The garden had lots of provision for wildlife with bird and bat boxes and several ponds.

I’ve had lots of clematis envy today and seen some spectacular varieties.

Alice on the hand just had slide envy.

Garden three

Garden number three was a little walk along the road and round onto Ashcourt Drive. This was another garden of two halves. The top half of the garden was lawn and seating.

Then the bottom half was dominated by a little stream which had been made into a great feature.

The neighbours have also included the stream with bridges being key features. The gardens seemed to blend together quite nicely down along the stream. I like the planting through the garden. Nice cool shades of green with a mixture of manicured and more naturalistic planting.

Alice insisted on a photo on the bridge.

Garden four

Garden four was a bit of a walk to get to heading out of Hornsea. Well worth the walk as this was filled with lots I loved. On entry a paved pond greeted you. Currently filled with what I’m assuming to be lovely irises.

On the other side, the lawn lowered to another tier surrounded by trees.

The borders were filled with activity today with bees, butterflies and damselflies swarming around. I didn’t want to spend lots of time changing lenses today but I could happily spend time with the telephoto shooting the insects and birds flying in and out of this garden.

Millstones led down to another small pond under the cover of trees. Alice was quite taken by this pond and kept returning to it.

Rock spires have been a feature in many of the gardens we’ve visited today. Here there arranged with some alpine troughs.

A scrumptious arrangement of ferns and hostas. Anyone who has been following the blog will have seen me hoarding ferns and hostas for the front garden. This garden has great mixes of pot arrangements of these plants and ones in the ground through the woodland areas.

The clematis envy was back with some growing over arches and others up obelisks. Some lovely varieties on show.

At the bottom of the sloping garden, a more naturalistic pond was hidden away. This garden exemplified the design element of having areas hidden away. You turn a corner and find a bench to settle on, or another pond, sculpture or topiary. You can’t take it all one glance. There was so much to see. Alice made multiple laps enjoying running up and down and in and out the paths. It’s a garden you could happily get lost in exploring.

It’ll be a little while till my acer reaches this point.

Closer to the house lots of succulent pots are sacttered around on the edge of paths, in nooks and crannies.

Peony looking fabulous.

A cobbled area close to the house.

A dainty little fountain bubbling over a rock.

This was one of my favourite gardens, as you can see from the number of photos I’ve included, with lots of my favourite plants. Lots of foliage and ponds to scan for life.

Garden five

I didn’t take enough photos of this garden as Alice was getting to the hungry and tired point. She was switching between manic happiness and grumpiness. A large lawn with a few trees in the lawn surrounded by rich borders.

The most spectacular calla lilies.

Wonderful striped canna.

The borders were filled with mass lupins, alliums and foxgloves all looking great. The lupins looked well established with solid clumps.

Ferns and log pile.

We had a grumpy child on the long walk back to town before she’d been refuelled. Then she wanted a play in the Mere park.

Garden six

Now having been fed and had a play we headed for the next house, ‘the nook’. This was the smallest garden we went to but it was making the most of the space. The courtyard at the back had a number of plants in pots. The house is owned by one of our local councellors who does lots of good work planting up areas of Hornsea, sorting hanging baskets through Hornsea Urban Gardeners (HUG).

The roof of the shed had been used for planting then other vertical spaces had been made use of.

Hanging baskets had been used at the back.

Windowboxes had been used along the side of the house.

The front always has lovely pot displays when we come past. A number were for sale today.

Brass band

We stopped in the park for ice cream and to listen to the Driffield Brass Band playing today in the Memorial Gardens.

Alice sat and watched for a bit.

And squashed her grandad.

Then she had a good run around the Memorial Gardens. She managed to rope other children into playing hide and seek with her.

Garden seven

This was the last garden we made it into and the only we have visited before. It’s a lovely garden looking out onto the memorial gardens.

The front garden is always well maintained when we go past. The banks are in place with large volcanic looking rock.

Then the garden is a hidden gem. It has multiple tiers on different levels.

One of the elements that impressed me on previous visits was the strong use of geometric plants and this was still in place. Many succulents used in borders to good effect.

As with garden one there are lots of interesting objects scattered around the garden.

Ponds have featured in the majority of the gardens we visited today and I was happy to see another one. It is one of the best things you can add for wildlife in a garden so it’s good to see so many in the local area.

Alice was excited to find this ladybird.

Alice loves this garden going up and down the steps and around the paths.

There is an old air raid shelter doubling as a shed.

Conclusion

It’s been a great day wandering through other people’s gardens. We’ve only managed a third of the gardens on offer but I’m grateful to all the people who opened up their gardens. Everyone was very welcoming. I din’t manage to add many more ferns or the blue hostas I was looking for for the front garden in the plant sales but nevermind I have come away with lots of valuable ideas. Hornsea is a wonderful place to live, raise Alice and while it may sound corny people do take civic pride seriously.

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