Regency House, Hemyock

 This year's Garden Tour with Lyn took in North Devon gardens and those around Bruton for part 2 of the tour. We stayed in a lovely B&B called Bideford Beehives where the welcome was warm and accommodation very comfortable. On the way to Bideford, we stopped at our first garden, Regency House in Hemyock, open for the NGS, owner Jenny Parsons gave us a warm welcome, despite the fact we arrived almost two hours before the allocated opening time!! We wondered why the field we parked the car in was completely empty, especially since the gardens were so magnificent. This is the description in the yellow book:

'5 acre plantsman's garden approached across private ford. Many interesting and unusual trees and shrubs. Visitors can try their hand at identifying plants with the plant list or have a game of croquet. Plenty of space to eat your own picnic. Walled vegetable and fruit garden, lake, ponds, bog plantings and sweeping lawns. Horses, Dexter cattle and Jacob sheep.' 

It's a beautiful inspirational garden, which we thoroughly enjoyed walking round and trying to identify plants. I'm not sure what I'd consider the best bit, possibly the Stipa gigantea bed surrounded by box hedging. It sounds quite ridiculous, but was wonderful, also in that area of the garden was the wonderful white Geranium 'Nimbus' which I'm searching for.

The arrangement of the pots was very effective, something I haven't been able to replicate here, but looking again, the pot at the back is a bit taller than the others

As with all gardens we saw in mid June, the white foxgloves were very much in evidence

This is Regency House set in the middle of the gardens, with a lake to the left of this photo, and most of the gardens to the right

It's hard to guess what this might be, it's a rose bush

A view of one of the borders, filled with plants, but hard to photograph

And here's a photo of the gorgeous, floriferous Geranium, I can't find it online, maybe it wasn't Nimbus, There are over 1000 plants on the plant list which it would be great to be able to see online, here's a link to the garden page of their website.