Visit to Mountain Ash, report and photos by Janet Bignell

On August, 18 members of the garden group ventured north into Leicestershire to visit Mountain Ash, a garden in Newtown Linford. The current owners of Mountain Ash purchased the property 20 years ago, attracted by the beautiful views over Charnwood.  It is a large garden, 2 acres, originally just laid to lawn and sloping down away from the house.  At the bottom of the slope is a large wildlife pond and down the sides they have created woodland areas, planting over 200 trees, including Californian redwoods and eucalyptus.   The slight snag, however, is that these beautiful trees are now limiting the view that enchanted them in the first place!  However, the walk through the woodland area was delightful and I’m sure the natural canopy gave welcome respite during the recent heatwaves!

Close to the house they have a greenhouse and vegetable beds, the brassicas looking healthy behind the protective netting.

For further interest there were, originally 50, ornaments and statues dotted about.  Fortunately there were no prizes for spotting them as I missed the lion flolopping in an apple tree first time round!  I did, however, spot the panda amongst the bamboo!

The visit ended with tea and the obligatory cake – well you just have to, don’t you!