Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Keppel Croft Garden

Our destination for the jaunt on Sunday was Keppel Croft Garden, in Big Bay (see yesterday's map).  It's a private garden, but is listed among the Rural Gardens of Grey and Bruce Counties, and is open to the public 5 days a week.  They ask for a donation of $3.00 which is very reasonable.

We've been here before, more than once, so it was a bit like visiting an old friend.

There are of course flowers, it being a garden, but they are usually presented in a more creative way than you might expect.  

Red Valerian and a few Day Lilies add a lot of colour at this time of year.

But it's the other features and settings within the garden they've created that appeal to me.  I like this setting of two comfy chairs looking out to the meadow over a 'ha-ha' wall.  Beyond those chairs is a 2 foot vertical stone wall that effectively separates the chairs from the meadow.  In England it would prevent sheep from raiding the garden!

Bill Loney, who with his wife Dawn, created the garden, claims to be the "guiding spirit of the garden".  And he likes playing with cement.  So you find cement edging and stepping stones like these in various places.

A new feature this year that appealed to me was this dead branch of an apple tree, which was retained and painted a bright blue (with a few decorations added).  Since I've dealt with old apple trees here, I thought I could use that idea.  So simple, but quite effective.

Bill, working with a neighbour, also created Keppel Henge, a stone circle modelled after those in England and Scotland.  Each stone here is aligned with the shadow from the central pillar at a particularly significant date during the year, like the solstices and equinox.  There's more to it than it seems at first glance.

More flowers - Grey-headed Coneflowers and a very blue Clematis.  Such an interesting garden to visit, because there's so much more to it than the flowers.


15 comments:

  1. There are some really nice ideas here. I use to have two green chairs like the ones overlooking the meadow. They were garden sculptures for me as I didn't really like sitting in them. I left them in the yard year round, as snow collects on them very nicely. You had a beautiful place to visit. You are having spring or early summer there.

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  2. Such creative people! The blue clematis is unusual and lovely!

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  3. Beautiful, and flowers, chairs, a ha-ha, and the cement stonework, everywhere shows off the talent.

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  4. This is a very pretty garden with quite a bit of features to enjoy. I'd have to sit on the swing hanging for the tree branch --it looked nice and shady and cool there. The stone henge also looked interesting.

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  5. Can't ague paying that to see such a wonderful garden

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  6. $3 sounds like a bargain to me - lovely. I like the nod to the stone circles - well, more than a nod, but you know what I mean.

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  7. Beautiful place! My favourite is the blue tree branch. I had a dead branch here that maybe I will try it with. It survived our last storm but I wonder how long it will remain there. :)
    Thank you for sharing this garden today.

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  8. What a beautiful garden and landscaping, the painted branch is quite effective.

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  9. Thank you for sharing this garden with me. I enjoyed it very much. Wonderful place indeed. :-)

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  10. The stone circle is quite a surprise!

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  11. Oh, how I love these...love that blue clematis! I would love to visit this place.

    As to the dead branch...that is cool.

    We used to visit this town that is around an hour and half away from us. Most of the way there is 2 lane road...at one time there was a dead tree...it had the limbs cut back, different lengths, and a birdhouse at every cut. It was just so neat...but we seldom went there... maybe once every year, or ever 2 years...so I would forget about this tree. The one time I remembered to have my camera at the ready, it was gone. It was a place wehre there was no place to stop and pull off, and on a fairly curvy road! This blue limb make me think of it and regret not getting a shot all over again.

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  12. I love creative gardens and a few years ago there used to be a couple garden shows on TV that featured gardens like that. Wished those shows were still on. Those types of gardens are always great for picking up ideas.

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  13. Gorgeous, I like what they did with the apple tree too!!

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  14. Keppel Croft Gardens, Big Bay: See 9 reviews, articles, and 24 photos of Keppel Croft Gardens, ranked No.1 on TripAdvisor among 4 attractions in Big Bay.
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