Culter Allers Garden

Today was the last garden visit for this summer and the season went out with a bang! First of all the sun was shining, almost a first, and then the garden was one of the largest and most magnificent ones we've been to. In fact this was our 4th visit. The first time we went was over 12 years ago and my mother-in-law was with us, who was delighted to find that tea was served inside the house! A chance to look around there too. I'm pleased to report the teas are still wonderful, and  still served inside Culter Allers itself and we were even able to sit in a newly restored room.  The garden is contained within walls, which are not exactly square all around but in a very pleasing higgledy-piggledy arrangements. And there was plenty of colour to delight the eye and this photographer.

 There was soft colour, looking almost luminescent in the sunlight, 

 this delightful fluffiness (I think it's an astilbe)

 as well as this brushlike bloom

 and the soft grasses blowing in the slight breeze

and of course gorgeous roses. This is a Rosa Mundi

 And then I was bewitched, and completely bedazzled by the dahlias!

 John walked away pretending he had absolutely no connection to that mad woman with turquoise camera in hand who was climbing into the dahlia beds and exclaiming out loud (I though he was still nearby!) about them. I was raving, really! Some things are so beautiful that you just have to oooohhh, and aaaaaaaahhh about them.

 I decided there and then that next year I'm going to gorge on dahlia tubers and put on our own festive display of these over the top, baroque blooms, in every colour and sort. I'm getting positively feverish just thinking about them already!

 What detail!

 And the colours!

and the pure, delicious shapes of them!

And from the garden you could also walk to Culter Graveyard which I've visited previously here and here.What more could one possibly ask from one place? It was perfect!