Enchanted Garden

A blustery Sunday in February took me to Chirk Castle where I walked in dappled sunlight and sprinkles of rain through its beautiful gardens with my guide Head Gardener David Lock.

The castle hugs the hillside overlooking extensive landscaped grounds to the east of the fortress combining formal structured gardens with wilder bosky areas.

The entrance to this enchanted place is via huge iron gates which lead to a pathway lined with carved topiary.

 

Immaculate statues, Lucchesi nymphs softly draped in cast bronze, wait patiently for the hour when they can awaken from their static pose to glide gracefully across the dew-laden lawns their lustrous skin shimmering in the moonlight.

 

The sorceress Taccus baccata leans against the prevailing wind, arms outstretched and tangled hair streaming behind, the fuzz of new yew growth covering her wizened bony body.

Sinuous rhododendron trunks form into twisted limbs of a witch, silently sashaying through the boscage.

 

The Miscanthus sinensis maidens murmur in drifts as their feathery villus is caught by the breeze.

Woodland fay hand-colour the faded sepia of hydrangea a pale duck egg blue to incite the coming of Spring. 

 

Three giant spectres guard the terrace which overlooks the borrowed landscape of Shropshire and beyond. 

The turfed incline and retaining wall of the ha-ha act as a recessed barrier over which potential invaders cannot cross, cleverly protecting the garden and all its inhabitants. 

Galanthus nivalis nymphs sway as they meander across the woodland floor, winter sunbeams lighting up their demure white heads.

The sunshine yellow spiders of Hamamelis mollis, spill out of suede textured buds like strips of sticky, crumpled tissue paper.  A mass of tiny golden explosions, their spicy fragrance fills the air.

Galanthus 'Sam Arnott', shelters in the corner against the chapel wall; a thousand white moths, flawless, hang quietly in repose ready to take flight at the slightest breath of wind.

Charity Art Exhibition

Professional artists, sculptors and jewellery designers exhibited their work at Aldford School, the Junior Department of Abbeygate College, Cheshire on Thursday 13th February in aid of the Gem Appeal charity.

The school won the competition for making the most profit and appeared on BBC Breakfast and Radio 5 live on Friday 28th February.  Read/listen/watch the coverage here.

The exhibits included diverse representations and interpretations of the landscape.

Sea Scene
This ceramic canvas depicts the full force of a powerful sea against the backdrop of a threatening leaden sky, the savage surf cooking up a melange of sand and spray to hurl towards the shore. 

The artist, Annie Midwood, is inspired by sights and sounds of the ever-changing seascape in Trearddur Bay, Angelsey  As well as producing ceramic canvases like this one, she also paints large pieces using acrylic or oil and with brushes or palette knives.

Seaside
In contrast, this seaside scene is all about summer.  The azure sea looks like glass as soapy waves meander in irregular arcs, fizzing on the sand and gently lifting marine debris back and forth.

Children, nets and buckets in hand, scour sheltered rock pools for shrimps and small fish attempting to outwit limpets by creeping up on them from behind to prise them from their barnacle covered homes. 

On occasion the opportunity to awaken rich red-coloured sea anemones lurking beneath the surface presents itself.  These predatory animals have the appearance of harmless flowers put the stinging nematocysts in their tentacles is enough to paralyse their prey in order to move them to the mouth for digestion.

Barbara Layfield's textiles are constructed using a combination of wools, string, fabric, beads and driftwood and shells collected at the beach. 

Larger pieces of driftwood, decorated with many different coloured paints included metallic and luminous hues are placed in her garden amongst the planting to glisten and shimmer in the sunshine.

Suburban Bird
This graceful urban stork is adorned with scrap metal, nuts and bolts and held together with papier mâché which is coloured bright yellow and neon pink.  Its crest and tail feathers are festooned with plumes of plastic flowers and drapes of chains mimic the fuzz of soft down underneath.  This gaudy suburban bird wades through rubbish tips, its keen eye seeking out food in urban trash and its oxidised beak picking through tin cans in the alleyways to the rear of 'The Suburbs' bar in Hoole, Chester.

 

 

Bee Buckmaster is an artist and garden designer based in Malpas, Cheshire.  As well as creating sculptures of figures, birds and animals using scrap materials and rusty metal items she also designs greetings cards, illustrates children's books and designs children's gardens for schools and nurseries. 

Blue Grotto
This painting by Carolyn Dutton suggests that, as our plane navigates to its destination, the setting sun has been banished and a thunderstorm is developing beneath us.  Lightening illuminates the thickly charged cumulonimbus clouds while sprites dance above them, their flashes shooting up into the stratosphere.

Patchwork Flowers
This charming row of daisies, chrysanthemums and sunflowers turn their heads towards the sun - pretty maids all in a row.

Eliza Brown studied painting and drawing at Manchester Metropolitan University and as well as producing beautiful greetings cards, also paints landscapes inspired by windswept beaches and wild stretches of coastline.  She also writes and is currently working on a series of books for the under fives.

Stormy Night
In this crepuscular scene, sooty clouds build over the skyline to envelop remote dwellings where inhabitants sense the foreboding of an advancing storm.

 

Monique Clifton originally trained as a water-colourist with the occasional dabble with oils but more recently discovered the pleasures of painting with acrylics.  Her inspiration comes from the beautiful city of Chester and the rugged beauty of North Wales.

Silver River
A pluvial season has saturated the ground, no longer capable of absorbing any more water.  The lambent torrent, once a rivulet, has swollen and moves swiftly, bursting over the footpath in a deluge of mud and detritus.

The Starlit Border
As dusk falls and the light of the day fades, stars appear one by one like pin pricks on the inky sky, tiny apertures into an alternate universe.  The heady perfume of night-scented flowers rises into the twilight; Mattiola longipetala (Night-scented Stock), Zaluzianskya Ovata (Night Phlox) and Nicotiana sylvestris (Flowering Tobacco Plant) release their fragrance towards the watchful nebulae.

Jenny Ryrie is a contemporary British artist who specialises in watercolour and acrylics, pushing the boundaries of expression with a wide variety of techniques. The Starlit Border was painted in response to the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, was exhibited during the Baudelaire Festival in Chester and won the Kate Fryer prize at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists Open Exhibition.

A Clear Midnight
This is a detail from 'A Clear Midnight' by Leo Augustine Donaghy.  It was inspired by a poem of the same name by Walt Whitman who describes midnight as a time during the day when the mind is clear from the stresses of the day and has time to reflect.  The subtext of the poem, however, likens midnight and sleep with death; a death that consists of peace and tranquillity like that experienced at the end of a long day.

All of the artist's works on show at the exhibition were inspired by poets, and all are linked to the moon in some way.  This link has been a mild passion/interest since childhood although this is the first time he has expressed it through his work.

Another piece of note is 'Where Willow the Wisp and Glow Worms Shine', inspired by a poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow about an imagined but fated dance to freedom for the Negro slave.

The medium is mono printing which is then deconstructed then reformed using colour and glazes.

 

Bead necklace
This piece evokes memories of a day at the seaside; lazing on deck chairs under parasols in front of colourful beach huts, ice cream in hand.

Theresia Cadwallader is inspired by works of art, her childhood in Indonesia and nature: beaches, hills, rock formations, trees and flowers.  She uses a wide variety of materials including precious and semi-precious metals and stones, fabric, paper, wood, plastic and recycled materials.

Fields of Corn
As a light summer breeze creates ripples through the corn, the flexuous field whispers softly and indices me into its expanse.  The sunshine fills my entire being with contentment as I meander, serene in my solitude, towards the hazy horizon in the distance.

Lady's Lace
A inflorescence profusion of Lady's Lace (Ammi majus) and Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus Carota) line the hedgerows in late Spring and Summer, swaying gently as we pass.  A myriad of tiny white flowers form in delicate, lacy canopies and as they ripen, their prickly seeds attach themselves to birds, animals and clothing to be dispersed far and wide to propagate once more.

Ellie Ashby trained at Exeter School of Art and Design.  Her work has been exhibited at the Business Design Centre in London, The Gorstella Gallery in Chester and the Grosvenor Museum.

Working and travelling through Asia for over a year, Wendy Connelly was struck by the enormity and importance of the sea, how it fulfils and nourishes, responds and destroys.  The reliance on the resources leads to earnest respect.  Consumed by its vastness Wendy was drawn to transient climatic conditions of the tropical heat, the burgeoning and thunderous passage of tropical storms and the subtle vanquish of the sublime.  The delays in the sea in return to calm became and effervescent veil slowly being lifted t reveal layers of warmth and serenity.

Breath
'Breath' was the 'glow' of change, as the light announced the air, moving and bring the front to the land.  This small painting is one of a collection inspired by a journey, a period watching the seas and changes of weather, in particular the monsoon.  The tranquillity of the beach was transformed by a shift in light and air that moved the waters and clouds with a sense of weight.  The changes were fleeting and threatening.

Wendy Connelly studied at St Martins School of art and has exhibited at the Barbican Centre, The Royal Academy, The Mall Galleries and Connaught Brown.

Julia Midgley spent time understanding the anatomy of horses as a student and since then they have appeared in her personal work.  They are used metaphorically to represent a variety of things from Struggle; to Contemplation; to a thread that leads from one piece to another.

 

 

These two lino cuts are the beginning of a Horse Alphabet. 

H is for horse is a skittish juvenile creature prancing through fresh spring grass. R is for Roan is more mature; an athletic beast biting at its rump to nip away hovering insects.

Other exhibitors included David Wilson, Elena Roman, Emma Long, Gregory Long, John Ingram, Christine Mayer, Zoe Walker, Laurie Kitchen, Mary Pilkington, Nichola Burton, Nicholas Ferencczy, Pam Parton, Susie Lyon-Heap, Trushi Hunter and Valerie Thompson.




Sculpture Garden

A field of ragwort and grass up to the waist preceded this delightful small garden.

The garden layout plan was designed specifically to accommodate the orientation of the plot.  The back of the house faces east so in summer the sun retires from the area immediately outside the back door at around noon.

The triangular shaped terrace, constructed from large flags, tapers into a point on either side of which are situated two elliptical pools, furnished with iris, grasses and water lilies.

Irregular shaped moss-covered stones embellish the edge of these reflective bodies of water.  Lily pads are drawn onto a single level plane by the cohesion of the surface tension providing shelter for the pond life underneath.  Hidden away from the howling winds and driving rain, and the penetrating beaks of herons and raptors, a myriad of water creatures, amphibians and aquatic nymphs take refuge and wait for Spring.

A worm's eye view of the winter jungle beneath umbrella shades of soft mauve of hellebores (Helleborus orientalis) leads to lush planting behind which can be found a backdrop of flat sculpture fashioned from mild steel taken from redundant steam locomotive carriages.

The sculptor, Sandra Tickle, drew upon wabi-sabi principles when creating these works of art.  This Japanese aesthetic refers to the flawed beauty of imperfection and irregularity, embracing the serenity that comes with age when the impermanence of the object is expounded in its patina and wear.

 

 

The understated elegance of these sculptures forms a backdrop for bamboo and the softly arching fronds of hearts tongue ferns (Asplenium scolopendrium) with their frilled edges and guitar-like frets.

 

 

The deliberate absence of flags in some parts of the terrace have allowed the incidental planting of evergreens such as the castor oil plant (Fatsia japonica), a flowering species of the Araliaceae family, native to Southern Japan and South Korea.

 

 

Sculptures and quirky ornaments emerge from the undergrowth at every turn.  This proud lady marches, hands on hips, past the twisted stems of Virburnum (Virbunum x botnantense), a deciduous shrub which in Spring is covered in clusters of fragrant pale pink flowers.

The sculptor, Darren Yeadon, is famous for transforming raw materials such as Bluestone, Whitby Sandstone and Carrara White Marble into beautiful and unusual carvings.

 

 

This Silk-tassel bush (Garrya elliptica) hugs the wall of the house and its lower branches been cut away to create an interesting trunk silhouette.

Shaped like bees swarming, this bird house nestles, camouflaged amongst its branches.

At the front of the house apricity coaxes the gentle petals of snowdrops to open.

Bamboo canes lie dormant dreaming of a distant Summer when afternoon tea can be taken underneath the old winter flowering cherry covered with a Kiftsgate rose, a vigorous rambler with strongly scented flowers. 

Children squeal and laugh as they take part in the Garden Olympics high Jump event using two canes as uprights and another as the bar held in place by two clothes pegs.  Ready, steady, jump!

The soporific effect of the afternoon sun encourages adults to take shade in the gazebo sipping tea until dusk when the fairy lights begin to glow.