RHS Harlow Carr, Harrogate

I took advantage of the Bank Holidays to book some time off work over the past couple of weeks. D managed to take a day as well and we had a day out at RHS Harlow Carr in Harrogate. I had never visited an RHS garden before and wasn’t sure what to expect but we had a fantastic day.

The whole place is beautiful and there was no way we could get all around it – we were overwhelmed by how much there was to see. From the heathers and the alpine house, which made us want to run home and replant the unkempt area above the drystone wall that we usually refer to as the Frog Patch (for obvious reasons – the frogs loved it last year) to the kitchen garden with the clever rope paths through the herbs, through to the stunning borders of spring bulbs, we didn’t know where to look first. Although it was busy, it is so huge that the crowds were quickly absorbed and some areas felt very private and secluded. We came upon benches dedicated to people who had loved the garden in years gone by and upon shelters and summer houses, tucked away and just waiting for us to rest a minute and take in everything we had seen so far. I took over 100 photos in just a couple of hours, partly to remember what some plants were and partly because everywhere was just so beautiful to look at.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Eventually, we picnicked in a newly planted area, currently a field but it will probably become a woodland in time. There were also some interesting meadow areas, which showed us what an organic lawn can look like- full of different plants and providing far more interest (to me at least) than a perfect bowling green-style lawn. We even saw the odd dandelion in and amongst the rest, proving that even the professionals can’t totally obliterate them, so maybe I am doing all right after all.

The garden is clearly a thriving workspace as well as a tourist attraction. There were student allotments and a large education centre and an experiment was underway to discover the best way to control slugs and snails. I will be interested in the outcome of that one, as we have invested in a Nemaslug programme this year and are hoping it will work. Gardeners were out and about, planting, weeding and generally doing their stuff and the whole place made me want to retrain immediately. I know – I have already retrained and am working towards a new career in soft furnishings but I can combine curtains with horticulture, right? Gardening in the sunshine, curtains when it is cold and raining, would that work?? OK, maybe not but I am certainly thinking about some of their day courses.

When we had taken in as much as we could – and there was a lot we didn’t see – we inevitably made our way to the shop. With so many plants for sale, it was as overwhelming as the rest and we had to be very firm with ourselves – we could easily have bought far too much. Eventually, we settled on a dicentra with perfect heart shaped flowers and eye-catching acid yellow leaves, a new thyme plant to replace the one that died over the winter and – hooray – I finally got my gooseberry bush – one with red berries, just to be a bit different.

After signing up as fully-fledged members of the RHS, we rushed home to plant our new purchases and make our plans for the future of the frog patch, totally inspired by what we had seen. I can’t wait to see how Harlow Carr changes through the seasons and I am sure we will be back very soon.