We often go to visit the lovely gardens at Trentham but last week, we went with our human guardians to see a different garden, called the Dorothy Clive garden.
The story behind the garden is quite sad, because a nice man who owned the land in the past had the garden made for his wife, when she was very poorly, so she would have somewhere pretty to spend her last days. Her name was Dorothy Clive and the garden was named after her.
There are flower beds, grassy lawns and a big pond to explore near the entrance, a café and gift shop, then there is a woodland area around what was once a quarry, full of flowering shrubs around a waterfall.
We bears wanted to see the wildlife and woodland area first so, after lunch, Polar showed us a little map of the site. She explained where she and Grizzly planned to be for the next couple of hours.
'Meet us at the waterfall at four o'clock and we'll all go to the café for a cream tea,' she said.
We all cheered, then scurried off into the woods. After inspecting the bug hotel for our insect friends, bees and beetles, we found a path which led to one of the loveliest things I had ever seen in a garden.
'Look at this, bears!' I called to Hanley and Endon. 'Isn't it beautiful?'
'It's the laburnum arch,' said Hanley Bear. 'I saw it on Polar's map. Let's go and explore!'
Under the arch everything seemed to be bathed in sunshine. We ran along the path, looking up at all the bright flowers above us and thinking what lucky bears we were to see something so pretty.
There were neat little shrubs and tall purple pom-pom flowers on either side of us. Hanley Bear climbed one of the shrubs and sniffed one of the big purple flowers. He said it smelled of onion!
'They're like very big versions of the chives we have along the edge of our bear garden,' he said.
A little way from what we named the sunshine arch, we found a shrub with sweet-smelling flowers that was very good for climbing. I couldn't decide whether the pink or the orange smelled nicest, as they were both really nice.
In fact, there were dozens of pretty scented shrubs. Later, Polar told us they were azaleas and rhododendrons.
We had lots of fun climbing things and exploring the woods. Eventually, we found the waterfall.
'Is it time for our cream tea yet?' asked little Endon, whose small tummy was starting to rumble.
'It might be,' I said. 'There's Grizzly and Polar!'
We ran out from where we had been sitting in the ferns and called them.
Polar picked us up and gave us a big hug for being good bears and finding the waterfall at just the right time.
There was a seating area outside the café, surrounded by pretty flowers full of lots of bees but bees are good, unlike wasps, and don't try to steal your jam or cream, and we enjoyed our cream tea without being pestered by them.
Then Polar carried us back to the car, past lots of lovely flower beds full of beautiful plants. Some them had nice smells and some didn't, but we bears were pleased to see how much the bees enjoyed them all.
'I hope we have bees on our flowers soon!' I said to Polar. She said she thought we would have to wait a few weeks yet for them to grow.
'Can we make a bug hotel at home?' Endon asked.
Grizzly said he thought that was a great idea, so we bears started planning it on the way home, although we had done so much running and climbing, and had such a nice tea, that we soon fell fast asleep.
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