On this occasion both parked and took coffee at the station, with the station car park being about two thirds full, mid morning on a Friday.
Over the river and into the royal cabbage patch of the previous post, where there was lots going on, including lots of unusual cabbages, mostly netted. Furthermore, both carrots and leeks were netted, something which I never did, but the young ladies told us that this was against carrot fly and leek moth respectively, the nets being quite fine on closer inspection. Looking at the RHS site today, it seems clear that I should have been netting my carrots. But the leek moth seems to be a relative newcomer, having been spreading west from its native Siberia over the past few decades, so I think the declining performance of my leeks towards the end of my allotment life was down to failure to feed, rather than failure to net.
We were pleased to hear that theft was not a problem. A few quinces had walked but that was about it. Perhaps cabbages are a bit conspicuous during the day and I think that the Palace is secured at night.
Through the wilderness to find the pay kiosk at the entrance to the formal gardens empty and shut up, so we get to visit for free on this occasion. Perhaps we will get stung for an annual membership next spring - and I expect we will pay up. The gardens are convenient, well kept and no doubt expensive. Someone has to pay.
Herbaceous borders getting a bit ragged now, but still a fair amount of flower to see, particularly on the more heavily used southern stretch, that is to say, the stretch heading towards the river.
A chunk of the northern stretch of the canal had been given over to reeds (see snap above), which I imagine had whoever laid out the formal gardens back in the 17th century turning in his grave. Fish to the north - mostly small but including at least a couple of large black carp and a heron to the south. I speculated about how many small fish you need to keep a heron going. There were also some water lilies which must have looked well earlier in the year. A point to remember for next.
The twentieth century garden very peaceful, with the various trees and shrubs looking very well. We also came across a lady who was the gardener part of some kind of garden design course operated, she said, out of one of the grace and favour appartments. It all sounded a bit odd and we wondered whether it was really some kind of rehab operation for sloanes. Nothing to do with the cabbage patch operation. I speculated about whether the Palace had been broken down into a whole lot of profit centres, each with their own budgets, staff, targets and all the rest of it. All the good Osborne stuff. But if it had, how did grace and favour fit in? Free loading older sloanes would be a terrible drag on any kind of respectable balance sheet.
Tilt Yard café for lunch, where they were, we thought, a bit caught out by this fine autumn day, with a lot more visitors than they were expecting. One result being that the very pleasant young man - quite possibly not long in this country - who worked the till only managed to charge us for one of our two meals, but by the time I had worked this out I thought it would cause more bother than it was worth to put the matter right. I shall pay up in some other way.
Sunken gardens their usual splendid selves, with a fine selection of exotic pot plants outside. Privy garden being tidied up for the winter and some of the heritage wooden steps were in working order, although not the ones leading into the beech arcade, which we did, nevertheless, find our way into. Rather good on this autumn day, and it must have been quite something in its hey-day on a hot summer's afternoon.
A few aeroplanes overhead, but they all seemed to be taking off, taking off east and then swinging around onto their proper course in fairly short order. Didn't count towards a landing queue count at all.
Reference 1: http://www.psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/hcp-1.html (lily).
Reference 2: http://www.psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/hcp-2.html (cabbage patch).
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