Kitchen garden path

English country houses generally have three types of garden. The best known is the landscape garden, the remodelling and improvement of the middle distance and far distance landscape by, for example, creating lakes, planting trees in clumps and as individuals, and adding "eye catchers" such as classical temples, Romantic ruins and interesting follies. Then there is the formal garden that can be seen from the house windows and when walked through. It will have plants, shrubs and small trees, all arranged in beds that frequently organised geometrically. Then, usually hidden behind a tall wall all around, there is the the kitchen garden where vegetables and fruit are grown for the table of the owners. This may have small workshops and glass houses to enable tender and non-native foods to be grown. Today's photograph shows part of the kitchen garden at Croft Castle, Herefordshire. The rustic path is made of bricks, pebbles and tiles, and on either side, with name tags dangling from them, are different kinds of apple trees.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Public rights of way

The U.K. has a web of public rights of way spread across it. These are footpaths across private land over which the public are legally able to walk. Land owners are required to keep such paths accessible both in fields and where they cross into other fields by gates or stiles. Most do this well: others make little effort, and a few are deliberately obstructive. I saw these walkers from the summit of Coombe Hill, near Wendover, in Buckinghamshire. The farmer had done a great job marking the path in his carefully prepared field and the walkers were sticking to it - a win win situation. It also made for an interesting photograph.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Sunlit woodland

As we walked through some woodland on the slopes of May Hill in Gloucestershire we came upon an area of coppiced sweet chestnuts. It's unusual enough to come upon coppicing these days - trees seem to be grown and cropped like cabbages in most places. But why sweet chestnuts, we wondered, as we stopped to get a shot of the sunlight penetrating the trees on the path ahead? I couldn't come up with an answer and I must have a trawl of the internet to see if I can discover the reason. Some of the coppicing is just visible at the left of the photograph.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2