Greencombe Gardens — Attraction in Porlock

I first came across this garden in a lovely book "Secret gardens of Somerset" beautifully written (Abigail Willis) and with superb photographs (Clive Boursnell).The garden is very compact, a small garden to the side of the house and a woodland garden to the West with views of Porlock bay. I wanted to photograph the Azaleas and Rhododendrons and they did not disappoint, they are stunning. However this garden is tricky to photograph. Like most plants Azaleas and Rhododendrons do not photograph well in sunlight/anything approaching bright light (petals will look burnt out) you will lose saturation. On the other hand light very quickly drops to a low level in this garden. To get the best images choose a day with no direct sunlight or wait for the shade to come across the top garden. With digital cameras opt for a higher ISO setting (this increases the sensitivity of the sensor) and unlike the old 35mm film you will not notice any grain. You can now even do this on some phones. Shoot keeping any sky totally out of the viewfinder, this will expose for the lush greens and the colours will "pop". If you shoot RAW, add light (0.3 of an F stop) in processing but add a touch of saturation to compensate.

I hope you can tell from the images, I absolutely loved this garden. It is soft, gentle and intimate. It is an old fashioned sentiment but I feel it has been a privilege to be able to photograph it, I will...

A Hidden Gem

We first heard of this lovely garden from a speaker at our local Gardening Club, he called the talk Hidden Gems, it certainly was!!! After a 5 mile walk 30 of us visited this enchanting garden and were greeted (pre-arranged) with a spectacular cream tea on the lower lawn with views overlooking the sea and Porlock. We then strolled around the delightful and fascinating garden with national collections of plants, largest and oldest holly tree in the British Isles and a truly amazing chapel. The guardians of the garden are wonderful hosts, I'm already planning a return visit...

Small but very pretty gardens, near Porlock. Lovely views from the gardens to the sea. Takes about 30 to 40 minutes to walk around, on average. It is a long thin plot with paths on several levels. We took about 45 minutes, but stopped for photos and to look at things in detail. Beautiful rhodedendrons and azaleas. Quite shady woodland paths, some covered in moss which are a bit...