Wrest Park in Springtime

We visit Wrest Park in Bedfordshire quite regularly as I love to see it's grounds and landscapes through all the different seasons. These are photos from an April visit this year. 

There were plenty of spring plants to see in the gardens. Cowslips were making an appearance in some of the grassy areas and there were some beautiful displays of miniature daffodils, tulips and pansies in the formal gardens. They looked rather stunning grouped together in their shades of pale yellows. There were more tulip displays by the orangery, which were just about to come into bloom - only a few had started to flower, but they're going to look stunning over the coming weeks. 

There are always some new developments at Wrest each time we go, this time some lovely new and more formal gardens were now in place to the right side of the house with further gardens being developed over to the left side, so it will be interesting to visit again in late spring or early summer to see how things are coming along.

Find out more about Wrest Park:

English Heritage - Wrest Park

Cowslips making a welcome sight

New formal gardens on the right side of the house

Peaceful spring walk by the waterside

Gorgeous shades of pale yellow

 

An early tulip

I spotted this little group of Easter wind flowers, one of my favourites for April, a small, colourful and delicate plant. They're also known as the pasque flower and thrive in rock gardens and borders - a sun lover with silky cup shaped flowers. 

See Wrest during different seasons - more blogs on Wrest Park:

Autum

Swans at Wrest

At Wrest With Snow

Cowslips

Sometimes you just go out for an afternoon and then come across something you weren't expecting that suddenly takes your breath away. We were having an afternoon at Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire and were just walking in the woods when through the trees I spotted this huge swathe of yellow in a clearing. I had to have a closer look and cut through the trees to see. Cowslips - just thousands of them! 

The cowslip is such a bright and cheerful sight and I've never seen a field so full like this before. It is a common plant in meadows and hedgerows and it's often a cheerful sight when you spot them growing under hedgerows on banks by the roadside. They have declined over the years - especially during the seventies and eighties with advancements in agriculture - so to see it growing like this is a rare thing. 

They are an intricate flower with their crinkly leaves and tube type clusters of flowers on tall stems stretching up to the sunshine. The name 'cowslip' is derived from old English for cow dung, because it was often found on cow pasteurland; it can also be interpreted as simply 'slippery', as it was often found in boggy areas. 

It has other 'folk' names: herb pevier, key of heaven, fairy cups and palsywort to name a few. I love 'fairy cups', as it's little delicate flowers resemble just that, as they sway to and fro in the breeze! 

For more pics of the grounds at Anglesey Abbey take a look at my other blogpost on Life is for the Living