Spring Open Day at Saumarez

Saumarez is a large country home near Armidale built back in the 19th century by a wealthy grazing family and is now part of this country's heritage operated by the National Trust. One can take tours of the home, which Dot and I have done several times, but in Spring the main feature is the gardens planted with bulbs and other flowering plants. Last weekend the gardens had an open-day and we headed there in warm and sunny weather. In fact, this has been a warm winter and many of the plants were flowering earlier than usual. Dot, I and a friend spent perhaps 2 hours there having a rather nice lunch and strolling around the garden displays and absorbing the beautiful rolling New England countryside with, amazingly for this time of year brilliantly green pastures after all the heavy rain we've experienced.

Here's the rather grand house ... by Australian standards ... and the sundial in front of it with the interesting inscription.

And the surrounding undulating green countryside where, on a clear day like we experienced, one can readily see landscape features 20-30km away.

It's time now for some bulbs .... daffodils, tulips and so on. This year the displays were rather subdued.

And, on the other hand, we saw a lot of shrubs and trees in full blossom ... and the odd flower ... perhaps because Spring arrived early and took them by surprise.

If you'd like to visit us, September is a lovely time of year to come.

AS