Astilbe and Primula sikkimensis, the Himalayan cowslip, beside the stream at Minterne Garden, Dorset
I recently wrote about Minterne House, half-way between Dorchester and Sherborne in Dorset, but the place’s main attraction is its woodland garden.
The U-shaped trail is just over a mile long and we went very early in the day, so we were alone to enjoy the tranquillity among the trees, which are mostly tall beeches, oaks and conifers around a chain of ponds and streams.
Ivy on a conifer trunk
I featured one of the great beeches in this post.
There are some exotics, too…
A palm tree – and I’m now told by the head gardener it is a Trachycarpus fortunei, the Chinese windmill palm or Chusan palm…
…and apparently the female plant bears globose fruit, so I guess that’s what these are
It is sometimes called a Himalayan garden, as many of the shrubs were brought back as seed from China, Bhutan and the Himalayas by famous plant hunters of the late 19th and early 20th century such as Kingdon Ward, George Forrest and Edmund Loder. The rhododendron collection was started by Edward St Vincent Digby (1809-1889), the 9th Baron Digby, who inherited Minterne in 1863.
But let’s begin our wanderings back up at the house.
Perennial borders
Close to the house are a couple of perennial borders…
There are herbaceous borders around the house
Cardoon in the borders
Dark penstemon
Buddleia
Eryngium
Along the ha-ha
To enter the Himalayan woodland garden you walk along the ha-ha or sunken pathway, below the level of the lawn in front of the house…
Walking along the ha-ha towards the woodland
Yarrow or milfoil on the edge of the ha-ha, looking back at Minterne House
Yarrow or milfoil
Yarrow or milfoil
Ribwort plantain flower beside the ha-ha
One of those dandelion-type flowers I can never identify, possibly cat’s-ear?
Flowers of the forest
A sign of the rhododendrons that had bloomed here earlier in the year
Minterne Garden is famous for its collection of rhododendrons, but they are in flower much earlier in the year, so we had a chance to look for less obvious treasures.
There were hydrangeas in all their colours…
Pink hydrangea
Pale blue hydrangea
Purple hydrangea
Acid-blue hydrangea
White Hydrangea paniculata
Hypericum or St John’s wort
Cyclamen
A Japanese maple…
…already showing signs of autumn
Quite a new nesting box
Ferns, fungi and mosses
As the wooded gardens surround a stream, there is plenty of moisture…
Asplenium scolopendrium or hart’s-tongue fern
Ferns beside the stream
A log made into a bench…
…covered with bracket fungi
Mossy rocks in the stream
Equisetum or horsetail is a “living fossil”
Beside the stream
A small waterfall
Astilbe and Primula sikkimensis, the Himalayan cowslip
Primula sikkimensis, the Himalayan cowslip, after flowering
Crocosmia
A variety of chicory, I think
Wooden bench in a quiet spot beside running water
Polygonum, or perhaps Persicaria, as I’m not sure how to differentiate
Hemerocallis or daylily
A wooden bridge across the stream
A couple of butterflies
Butterfly on Echinacea or coneflower…
…a faded meadow brown or Maniola jurtina, I think
Red admiral (Vanessa atalanta) on hemp agrimony (Eupatorium cannabinum)
A closer look
From Himalayan woodland to Capability Brown
The stream widens
There are waterlilies
A closer look
On the far side of the stream from the woodland garden is parkland in the style of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown (1716-1783). Although he did not design it, apparently when he came down to Sherborne Castle to visit, Admiral Robert Digby (1732-1815) would ride over from Minterne to pick his brains and then designed his own gardens in a naturalistic way, based on the existing stream and paddocks.
There’s a formal stone bridge
The grassy bridge leads across to a landscape inspired by Capability Brown…
Capability Brown created parkland like this
Not quite a Mr Darcy in the lake moment
We thought we were alone in the gardens, until we spotted these…
Boots on the bank of the stream…
And there in the water was a pleasant man, keeping cool on a quite warm late summer day. He turned out to be the head gardener, Mark Bobin, and was happy clearing the pondweed – which looked like quite a big job but it needed doing.
Head gardener Mark Bobin clearing pondweed
Pondweed
More pondweed on the surface of the water
A clematis pergola
Clematis pergola
Before the end of the garden we came to a pergola covered in clematis.
Clematis
Clematis
Clematis
Clematis seedhead
Mystery plants
As always there were shrubs I couldn’t identify, but perhaps you can?
Mystery 1: I’m not even sure if these are flower buds or seed cases?
Mystery 2: These berries are translucent white and the ID should be obvious? Shaz suggests Viburnum…
Mystery 3: I’m kicking myself that I can’t put a name to this one!
End of the walk
This is where we came out of the woodland garden to return towards the house
I hope these pictures might tempt you to visit Minterne, which was beautiful even though it wasn’t the rhododendron season. It’s open from 10am to 6pm from mid February to early November and admission is £5 (children under 12 free). Here’s a link to the website.
The Squirrelbasket 
Not sure if mystery #3 is a genus of viburnum Pat …
I see that dogs are welcomed on leads so now added to my list. Thank you!
ps had a chuckle at the not quite Darcy moment 😀
Thanks for that – a lot of things I don’t think I recognise turn out to be viburnum!
The gardener was very nice!
Best wishes 🙂
Quite an amazing place! And some very nice photos, Pat.
Thank you for saying so.
Best wishes 🙂
Rhododendrons and hydrangeas look very similar to me. How do you tell the difference? Love the ‘not quite Mr Darcy’ moment!
I don’t know where to begin with Hydrangeas and Rhododendrons! They are so very different except that they are both big and bloomy. Although I admit that in my head I sometimes say Rhododendron when I mean Hydrangea. And it was lovely to see another human being in the gardens…
All the best 🙂
Awesome update thank you for sharing have a blessed day
All the best 🙂
ah that was a cardoon I saw at the Chelsea Physic Garden.
Yellow mystery might be hawkweed?
I’m told it depends on the shape of the leaves whether it was hawkweed or cat’s ear but stupidly, as usual, I didn’t bother to take a picture of the leaves.
All the best 🙂
Another terrific blog post about Minterne, thank-you so much! I will forward it to Head Gardener Mark Bobin to help with image identification.
Would you have any objection to us using your wonderful pictures on our website (fully credited obviously) and adding a link to Minterne.co.uk? As these links really help with our publicity.
Many thanks in advance.
Geoff
Feel free with any of that. And if you need slightly bigger pictures (and even more of them) you can copy them from Flickr here, although they aren’t as well labelled.
All the best and good luck with your publicity 🙂
The Palm tree is a Trachycarpus fortunei and the female plant bears globose fruit.
Bang on with the Cats Ear.
I shall leave the last three for others.
Very glad you enjoyed Minterne gardens.
Many thanks,
Mark Bobin
I’m chuffed you have looked at my blog – and sorry if the “Darcy” comment was in any way embarrassing.
Thank you for all the information and good luck with the future of the gardens.
As for the hawkweed/cat’s ear, I am notorious for not being painstaking enough to take pictures of all the parts of plants for identification. Just TOO hasty!
Best wishes 🙂
The Cats Ear had rounded lobes on it’s leaves. The Hawkweed doesn’t. Other then that the two are very hard to distinguish.
Best way to ID plants is too gather as much information about the plant as possible i.e flower, stems, leaves, location, aspect, bark, smell etc. Then I find you can narrow it down quickly.
This is one of the few gardens in the area that I have never visited. Thank you for showing me it’s delights, it is now on my list of places to visit. Sarah x
Excellent – well worth it, I think…
Best wishes 🙂
You can’t beat a lovely peaceful stroll around a beautiful garden, admiring the highlights and gorgeous blooms that someone has taken the time and trouble to point out and name for you, and all from the comfort of your own sofa! Thanks for sharing that Pat!
Thanks.
It annoys me, though, that sometimes I see a flower I have identified before and now I can’t recall what it was. Luckily I remembered that I had already identified the Himalayan cowslips at Aberglasney a couple of years ago, for example…