Her playful use of an old pair of wellies planted next to petunias speaks of someone having fun in the garden. No wonder she was awarded Bray Garden of the Year in 1997. What's the same is the love of gardening. Herman Dool has been at Mount Congreve for 36 years. Delphiniums are everywhere, stately spires from palest tints of sky blue to a saturated blue-purple.
Foxgloves color the meadows with the color of crushed raspberries.
Montbretia, a tender corm we need to lift for winter protection has naturalized and grows thickly along the roadsides. Plants we grow indoors they plant out in the garden. I was especially taken with variegated forms of New Zealand flax, Phormium cultivars, and cordylines as large as small palm trees. I was so taken with these that, quite literally, I took some. We stopped at nurseries, always a problem, a pleasant one for me.