Hardy Yellow Orchid

We spent a most enjoyable afternoon at the National Garden Scheme event at Sutton Bonington. Dogs were welcome too.

Our first stop was at Piecemeal Plants which is run by Mary from her cottage on Main Street. She is a connoisseur of garden plants all of which were carefully labelled - in Latin. Her tiny garden is cram packed. It was busy when we first called but we stopped to say Goodbye on the way back to the car and she asked if we had seen the hardy yellow orchid sitting on the edge of the well. Here it is. Lovely flower.

Forge Cottage and No 118 were offering teas as well as having bigger, perhaps more conventional gardens. Forge Cottage had an area at the bottom of its garden called 'Lockdown Wood.' It contained tree ferns.

No 118 had a stunning wildflower area at the top of the garden in which I was able to identify Ragged Robin. The owner of the garden identified comfrey for me. Something I'd heard of, but never seen. He told us that Monty Don uses it after flowering for making a compost mixture that smells ghastly.

Anyway, there was room for us to sit down and have tea here in the shade of an umbrella. The lady of the house had even made gluten free fruit bread which was delicious.

Before leaving the village we took Basil for a walk on the playing fields.