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This week I was lucky enough to be able to visit one of my favourite places – Fullers Mill Garden near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. Because of the pandemic, it’s been a long time since we visited any gardens.
This year we’ve enjoyed wandering around the open gardens in some neighbouring villages. Great for getting new ideas for our own garden, but I don’t bring my camera to those because it feels like an invasion of the owner’s privacy. It’s a different thing with the big gardens that are open to the public. These provide lots to keep me and my camera busy!
My previous visits to Fullers Mill were both in September, so by then a lot of the most interesting flowers had gone over. This time I saw many of the large collection of lilies in flower. (These will be shown in a later post.)
It was a huge pleasure to be in the gardens when so many of the plants looked their best. There has been some rain recently, which has helped them stay fresh and vibrant. Suffolk can be dry and drought-ridden, so garden-visiting is best done before the summer gets too hot.
The planting combinations appealed to me and made me think more carefully about those in my own garden. I particularly liked the yellow and blue mix above. The yellow of the ‘red hot pokers’ with that of the broom, but having totally different flower shapes, was something I’d love to plant in my own garden.
The combination of herbaceous clematis with the seed heads of the Allium christophii was another combination I’d love to try. It’s the way that the soft purple remaining in the allium flower stems echoes the brownish-purple of the young leaves and the buds of the clematis that pleases me.
The garden is beautifully maintained by Perennial (The Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Society). It was gifted to them by Bernard Tickner, the owner and creator of Fullers Mill Garden. They keep the garden well stocked with plants but allow some areas to feel more relaxed and natural (around the rivers that run through it, for instance). I think this makes it more relaxing for the visitor too.
I plan to visit Fullers Mill again during the summer. I’m sure there will be plenty to see and to photograph too. (There isn’t much that you haven’t already seen in my own small garden, so I’m glad to find something new to share here.) It’s a visit I’m certainly looking forward to. You can read my earlier post about Fullers Mill here.
Ann Mackay: Inspired by Nature 
Those big tall yellow flower heads are really stupendous!
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They were very impressive! The garden is beautifully planted and I enjoyed seeing the different flowers at this time of year. 🙂
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That is a delightful garden…awesome pictures, Ann!
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Thanks Indira – it’s an amazing garden, full of lovely things to photograph. 🙂
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Thanks, Ann!🙂
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This looks like a lovely English garden, Ann. Compared to our native flora in Colorado, the plantings appear downright lush and tropical, and that despite your mention of Suffolk being prone to drought. That was news to me, likely because the UK has the reputation of being rainy more than not.
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I suspect that there is more moisture in the ground there because they have two rivers running through the garden. The west of the UK is the more rainy side and East Anglia is (I believe) the driest part of the country. It’s a wonderful garden to visit. 🙂
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That makes perfect sense, Ann, thank you for the geography lesson. 🙂
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I’m surprised by how appealing I found this spot. I confess I’m not always impressed by certain English gardens; maybe it’s the formality. This one seems somehow more creative, and more relaxed. I agreed with your comment about the yellow flowers: how the different shapes but one color is very pleasing. I’m glad you were able to make the visit — I’ll look forward to more views of the place.
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The garden is very informal and sits very happily in the natural landscape around it (woodland and rivers). I much prefer this kind of garden that feels more in tune with nature. I’m not much of a fan of very formal gardens, though they can provide some interesting opportunities for photography. Going to visit another garden with a very natural feel tomorrow. 🙂
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What a fab place. I can’t wait for the post entitled Fullers Mill revisited revisited.
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LOL, me too! 🙂
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Here it is two-and-a-half years later and only now are many of us gradually getting to do familiar things again.
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True, Steve. And Covid is rising again here, so we are being ‘sensible’ about what we do…luckily garden visits are amongst our safest options!
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Gardens are wonderful places to enjoy nature, even though it is quite controlled there, and escape the world for a short time. This garden looks so nice and comfortable and worthy of many visits.
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Absolutely! It’s a very relaxed garden that allows nature to do it’s thing too. Very relaxing and good for the soul and somewhere I’d be happy to visit frequently.
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This looks like a fabulous place to visit! It is so nice that England has such beautiful gardens around. Is it far from your home?
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It really is fabulous! (One of my two favourite gardens.) Lucky for us, its only around 20 miles from us, so easy enough to get to. I’d love to spend a few weeks just touring round UK gardens – maybe someday! 🙂
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I believe I read where Thomas Jefferson and John Adams traveled on vacation to several formal English gardens back in the late 1700’s. Kind of nice that we can still enjoy the beautiful gardens in this day and age. Wish we had one nearby.
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