White wall with gravel

The side garden at Twyntre is as clean and modern as you would expect for such a modern house. But even if you did not know that there was a nice house next to it you can still appreciate this part of the garden for it own beauty.

Spring Chicken

I am going to find it difficult to remember which of the Petersham Open Gardens I took each of the 150 odd photos in but that hardly matters so apologies if I get any of them wrong.

This lovely chicken is early on in the set so was almost certainly found in Twyntre. He seems to be enjoying the patch of meadow as much as I did.

The back of the Huf Haus

One of the nice things about Open Gardens days is that you get to look at the houses too. This is what the Huf Haus on Petersham Road looks like from the back garden, and its magnificent.

The front of the house is private and reveals few secrets to people passing by whereas the back opens itself up to the garden to allow the view and the light flood in to the house. The whole point of a Huf Haus is that it is individually designed for the plot and the owners' lifestyle so you always get a great home.

A warm welcome at Newark Lodge

Around a year ago I reported that Newark Lodge was being upgraded and now the results are there for us all to see.

The entrance on Petersham Road is small and awkward so it has taken some skill to make so much of it. The white paint and porous gate make it light and a few carefully placed pots make it interesting. I like it.

An explosion of colour

I find Dickens Close off Sudbrook Lane dull and dreary which, to be fair, is a comment you could make about almost every modern fake-Georgian development with their silly pillars.

However I have nothing but praise for the front garden of one of the houses there which is ridiculously rich and varied in colour. If this does not brighten your day then nothing will.

AD 1898

If you were wondering when The Old Vicarage in Sudbrook Lane was built then it's a good guess that it was in 1898. Either that or something happened in 1988 instead. Or it's a red herring. Either way its a pretty sign to have on a house.

A collection of pots

The Old Vicarage in Sudbrook Lane has an abundance of nicely battered old pots that look great either with or without flowers in them.

Just think lovely thoughts

What really made the garden at The Old Vicarage stand out was the careful zoning to create multiple gardens within one and the attention to detail paid in each. This swing is a perfect example of how that works.

The fact that there is a swing at all shows that the play side of the garden has not been forgotten and while a simple swing above a lawn would have done what we have here is something decorative hanging among bluebells.

The Old Vicarage in Petersham

The Old Vicarage in Sudbrook Lane has joined the National Garden Scheme and I was not going to miss an opportunity to explore.

The house is large yet manages to look less so through its good proportions and the amount of open space around it. A large part of that open space is its garden that has had a lot of time, care and money spent on it.

There are the pretty formal gardens next to the house and you can see these clearly from the wooded hillock in the corner of the garden adjoining Richmond Park. Elsewhere there is a tennis court, a duck pond and a rose garden.

Ham Parade (north-west) in April 2012

My cataloguing of Ham Parade in 2012 now moves to the north-west quarter where there has been little change in recent years, apart from the off-licence which changed name and colour before going bankrupt and being replaced by the Mind charity shop.

Awakening trees

Ham Lands is a generic name for the untamed area between the river and the bravest houses that creep towards it. The land changes character several times as it follows the Thames around the long slow curve towards Richmond making it a collection of wild places rather than just one.

Each section has its own attractions, its own reasons for drawing you there, and here (by Beaufort Court) it's the trees and the paths threading through them.

Pollarded trees

Turning past the Texaco garage in to Dukes Avenue the line of trees looks very different now that some of them have been severely pollarded. This may have just been routine work but having one of these trees blow over recently probably made the work happen earlier and more aggressively.

Ham Parade (south-west) in April 2012

The west side of Ham Parade has seen only a few changes in recent years, unlike the east side which seems to have been in constant change.

The only change at the southern end is that the pharmacy has reduced from two units down to one thus making space for the new opticians.

A crowd of daffodils

Richmond and Kingston Councils have both planted bulbs in otherwise plain grassy areas in order to bring some Spring cheer to residents and passers-by and one of the best examples of this is on Ham Village Green.

Here the sheer number of flowers gives a richness of colour that some other planting schemes lack.

A collection of sheds

The allotments along Riverside Drive, at the Ham Street end, are a constant source of delight to me because I love the jumble and the activity. And the sheds most of all. Even Ham House in the background seems envious of its smaller neighbours.

Working on the pavilion

The relatively new sports pavilion on Riverside Drive is having some serious work done to it, judging by the amount of scaffolding that surrounds it.

Unfortunately the only photo that I have of it was taken during its construction, in August 2007, so I do not have a record of what it looked like before the current changes to tell me what these changes are.

Shed with wild flowers

I walk off the beaten track a lot to see what I can find in hidden places. One such place is the track from Lock Road to the pumping station. I venture down there once or twice a year to see if anything has changed, especially as there were plans to build a four-bed detached house in an abandoned plot of land at the end.

There is still no sign of that house being built but my walk was not wasted as I found this healthy blossom and other wild plants trying their best to hide a tidy shed.