OPEN GARDENS
Summer walking in the Chilterns – up Bacombe Lane to Cedar House and the vista on arrival
Found it again! Tracking down tucked away and exciting gardens is part of the delight in spending a few hours on an NGS (National Garden Scheme) trail. On this occasion we tracked down Cedar House, Bacombe Lane, on the outskirts of the delightful market town of Wendover. With apparently limited parking at Cedar House we chose to walk up from a car park in Wendover, up being the optimum word, there was no doubt that we were climbing up a ridge of the Chilterns and therefore anticipating lovely views on arrival – we weren’t disappointed.
Cedar House was billed as ‘A plantsman’s chalk garden with a great variety of trees, shrubs and plants. A sloping lawn leads to a natural swimming pond, with wild flowers including native orchids. A lodge greenhouse and a good collection of half-hardy plants in pots’. We were ‘blown away’ by the sweeping long borders and the high quality of the planting with every plant sporting a metal identification label but nothing had prepared us for our first ever experience of ‘a natural swimming pond’.
The glorious extensive pond, semi-irregular in shape, had been deeply dug into the chalk layer creating a freshwater pool inviting nature in rather than killing with chemicals – eco-friendly and harmonious with the rural landscape. Zoned with a deep pool for swimming, the swimmer has to be prepared to share their swim with the life that helps to keep the water clear and clean, in this instance dozens of newts and irridescent dragonflies flitting through the surrounding reeds, and a shelf dense with water lilies. Sitting on the decking projecting over the edge of the pond we had our inspiration and a few mindful Monet moments…
A frog’s eye view of the wild swimming pond – hundreds of newts as swimming companions!
Orchids growing in the wild garden – protected from walkers by mini-fences
(As previously mentioned, The National Garden Scheme (NGS) opens privately owned gardens for charity – “… gardens of quality, character and interest…’! The scheme has raised over £60 million since it began in 1927, and now opens over 3,700 gardens a year.)