Friday Outing!

Now it's quite late in the year to be visiting gardens, but we've been meaning to visit The Potager in Constantine, Cornwall for months and it closes at the end of this month so off we dashed for a look.

Toad Lily

The Potager is, in it's own words, 'a relaxing and beautiful haven to rest a while'. Set on the 4 acre site of an old nursery, the garden is a mix of fruit trees, vegetables, ornamental plants and lovely places to sit. Many of the plants/trees are stock from the old nursery that had rooted and taken over in the 10 years that it lay abandoned. Purchased in 2000 the site has slowly been reclaimed and transformed. The vegetables were not so evident on this trip and the plants not looking at their best but it would definitely be worth another trip next season. The garden is maintained wholly by volunteers and gardened organically, and also has studios for artists/craftspeople.

Olearia (I think)

The garden is still developing, a new car park and entrance is underway as the site extends down the hill, and a nut orchard is planned and maybe some livestock. There were certainly some very picturesque and busy looking chickens already in residence.

There are two greenhouses, one of which houses the cafe serving vegetarian food made from produce from the gardens. We had delicious bowls of warming soup with homemade bread as we sat round the wood burner. Every table in the cafe had a game/activity on it, and there was certainly no hint of moving us on at any stage (which was lucky as we had a lot to chat about!).

The other green house has more places to sit, a table tennis table, one of the biggest Abutilon I've ever seen, numerous Echiums, Lavenders and Aloes. It also has a section for tender vegetables and propagation. At a warmer time of year, there were lovely places to sit outside too.

And as we were leaving I spotted the most beautiful Medlar tree, groaning under the weight of fruit!

Perfect for Nigel Slaters Medlar Jelly

The Potager is not the most extensive garden, nor does it offer a wide range of plants for sale, but it was altogether a lovely place to sit, chill out and chat about gardening.