An Immersion of Senses
An Immersion of the Senses
Serendipity. Luck – whatever you want to call it. It’s perhaps more often than we might like the way we end up doing something.
A beautiful blue sky, warmish temperature, no threat of rain, a brief lull in between two storms. A day too good to waste. On top of all that, it was St Dwynwen’s Day – the Welsh saint of love and lovers. And so it was that I opened an email from Visit Monmouthshire with their ideas of things you could ‘love’ on this day.
The things you want to see are always the things that jump out at you. So when I saw the words “Snowdrop weekend” and “Wye Valley Sculpture Garden” in the same sentence, I immediately clicked to read further.
An hour later, I was on the road to Tintern. Far too early for their opening time of 1.00 pm but there were other things to do in the area, not least a quick call into the Abbey – which never fails to impress.
I arrived at 12:30, getting the last space in the tiny car park. When I left, cars were parked on the verges all the way down the drive. They would have had a productive day!
A Winter Landscape in White
It’s winter, very few flowers are blooming, and there isn’t necessarily a huge amount of colour in gardens, so in some ways, this was a fairly monochrome landscape. The predominant flower colour was, of course, white! Great carpets of snowdrops climbed the slopes of this wooded garden. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many different varieties in one place. The owners have spent many years finding and planting different species, which really made me want to look at them individually and note their differences – rather than just seeing them all as ‘snowdrops’.
There were masses of hellebore plants – one of my favourite plants – but with just a few gems in flower. They provided a splash of colour, alongside some cyclamen and winter crocus. If it wasn’t white, it was purple.
But the flowers weren’t the only things providing colour – this is after all, a sculpture garden. It hosts the work of the owners’ daughter all year round, plus an annual exhibition for other artists. I will go back for that, but for now, this seemed about the right amount of sculpture. The works added to the garden, providing focal points or appearing around a corner. They also provided colour, and I loved the stained-glass works which, on a sunny day, simply radiated joy.
Scent and Surprise in the Winter Garden
A key part of a garden is also smell. Snowdrops do have a scent, but it’s subtle – a bit too subtle for me. I always look forward to bluebell time when the scent just overpowers you, or walking through a rose garden on a warm day in June. However, in winter, there are a few plants which just knock you back as you pass. Often unprepossessing to look at, you walk by and then stop in your tracks, muttering ‘wow, what was that?’ and turn. The humble shrub I had passed without noticing had the most delicious scent – strong but not excessive, sweet but not cloying. I just stood and inhaled. Sarcococca or Sweet Box – a wonderful winter addition to a garden.
Touching Art and Nature
So what about ‘touch’? Well, that’s one of the beauties of a garden – there are things to touch almost every step of the way. So often we just use our eyes and look at things, but getting right up close to nature and touching it adds to the connection you feel with it. And then there’s the sculpture. What I love about this as an art form is that it just demands to be touched. If it’s outside, that is… The first time I saw mass sculpture in a garden was at the Barbara Hepworth Garden in St Ives – stunning. Her work, of course, is incredibly tactile, and you can’t help but want to run your hand over the stone, feeling its shape as well as observing it. Some of the pieces here were more visual (like the glass), but others had textural forms which called out to be lightly caressed.
Unexpected Harmony in Sound
I said ‘all the senses.’ And here’s the one which was unexpected and unusual. I’m used to going around gardens just hearing the sounds of nature – birds, hopefully, perhaps the wind in the trees, running water if I’m lucky. Sometimes gardens are very quiet – and I love that too. But here, a guitarist was sat in a gazebo, playing beautiful music which reverberated around more than half of the garden. It was an added bonus, an enhancement to the ‘feel’ of the garden, and I truly loved it. Normally, I can’t stand music in public places – it’s too much of an assault to my senses – but this was just right. The right instrument, the right type of music, the right sound level.
A Sweet Finale
That’s four of the five senses – sight, smell, touch, and hearing. That just leaves taste. Well, it wouldn’t be a garden if you couldn’t enjoy tea and cake after, right?! I’ll just say ‘the carrot cake was divine’!
