Once more in Culter Allers Garden

It's almost the end of the garden visiting season and this morning it looked like it was going to be a wash out today. But fortunately things brightened up considerably although it was a very windy day with not that much sun so quite challenging conditions for photography. We once again paid a visit to Culter Allers Garden. It must be our fourth or fifth visit but I always remember the first time we went, back in 1997 when John's mother was with us. She was delighted to find that the teas were served inside the house itself and had a marvellous time enjoying the beauty of the entrance hall. This is still where we had our cup of tea  today(with a delicious strawberry cake) and reminisced about her. In the intervening years much has changed but much has also stayed the same so that it is like meeting up with an old friend that you haven't seen in a while but with whom you enjoy catching up. You can see pictures of our previous visits here and here. Above an overview of the walled garden (almost an acre) with the house (late Victorian baronial) in the background.

 Part of the pleasure of visiting this garden is that there is a 125 year old lime tree avenue leading to rhe village (Coulter) church and graveyard and as we were very early in arriving we made that our first port of call.

 I have visited this graveyard many times before (here and also here) but can never resist another opportunity. Today we were struck by the many shells positioned up and under table gravestones. As a symbol of transience this is quite explicable but it's not something you see often in Scottish graveyards.

 Most of our time however was spend in the flower filled walled garden although I couldn't help remembering flowers too are reminders of the fact that our life on this earth is short and fleeting as demonstrated in those many Dutch flower still life paintings I'm so fond off (and which also regularly feature shells).

Poppies and Love in the Mist make for a wonderful colour combination, specially with the rich green thrown in for good measure.

A close-up of the Ice-cream Rose which did indeed look good enough to lick.

 Love the many textures and patterns in this picture of an old cast iron bench.

I was particularly taken by this beauty, so much so that we returned to the garden after our tea to search out the gardener and inquire which variety of rudbeckia this is. Although some rudbeckias are perennials this one is grown as an annual and is a variety of  rudbeckia hirta. It went immediately to the top of my seed packet wish list!

But the absolute highlight of this garden are the many varieties of dahlia. En masse they are a pure visual delight.

 And from close-up they show off their delightful details!