The weather since the beginning of March has been quite disappointing and unseasonable, I have been waking up to dull, cloudy, and overcast mornings and more often than not it has been raining. I seem to have been washing filthy, muddy, and wet dog towels after our early morning dog walks every morning recently. It was very much the same this morning, so with the dogs suitably fed and watered and contently asleep, after breakfast we decided to head over to RHS Harlow Carr for a walk around the gardens. The weather wasn’t much better by the time we arrived at the gardens, although it had stopped raining. I popped into Betty’s restaurant for cake and a takeaway coffee before passing through the visitors’ centre. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of visitors here today considering the weather. After passing through the visitors’ entrance and down the steps I always stop to admire the views across the garden, be it the heather beds on the right which are currently in full flower or the view looking across to the stream, there is always something that catches your attention, even on a dull and miserable day like today. Passing the rockery on our right, we headed down the gentle slope to join the ‘Winter walk’ trail with lovely scented and colourful borders including the vibrant red and orange stems of the shrubs Cornus (dogwood) and Salix (willow) set against the white bark of the Betula utilis (Himalayan birch). Clusters of flowering Hellebores, Cyclamen and miniature Iris provide lots of colour at ground level too, and not forgetting the huge swathes of lilac and purple-coloured heathers. Many of the flowering shrubs along the ‘Winter Walk’ are strongly scented, and their intoxicating fragrances drift through the air before you can find them. One in particular was the Sarcococca, a bushy evergreen shrub with glossy, dark green leaves, their small creamy white flowers some tinged with pink produced a beautiful fragrance that just lingered in the air, Viburnum was another, its rounded white and pink flowers also produce a beautiful fragrance.

After leaving the ‘Winter Trail’ we headed up the slope to the ‘Edwardian sunken Garden’, the entrance to the pagoda was looking particularly striking today, with the channel of conifers lining the short path to the sunken pond. We continued our walk down to the ‘Queen Mothers lake’, stopping for a few moments to admire the view across the water at the ‘Thaliana Bridge’, the water level has dropped since my last visit by at least a metre and the floating duck house looks to have disappeared, so I can only presume the staff are carrying out work in and around the lake. We followed the path around the lake to pick up the ‘Streamside Walk’. I love this section of the walk; I think it is that I just like being close to water. Huge swathes of miniature daffodils and flowering Hellebores provide lots of colour especially along the banking on your left-hand side as you head towards the ‘Old Bath House’, much of the planting along both sides of the stream has yet to come in to flower. Work on the replacement stone bridge continues apace, it has been interesting watching the bridge develop with every visit, it will look good when finished, though there will have to be some significant landscaping in the surrounding area. Work continues around the ‘Old Bath House’ so we avoided that area and crossed the stream at the next bridge past the one being rebuilt and headed up the slope to the ‘new’ rock gardens. Heathers, Iris, Hellebores, and daffodils lined the borders and provided lots of colour on this dull day and overcast day. We stopped for several minutes to enjoy the view over the ponds before heading further up the slope to the garden centre. Work on replacing the huge greenhouse was continuing and well out of bounds. We had a pleasant browse around the rest of the garden centre and more so the book shop, before heading back to the car and the journey home. It is amazing that even on a dull, cloudy, and overcast day there is always something to see in these beautiful gardens.