Garden Bears' World - Winter at Biddulph Grange

Hello everyone!  It's Endon Bear here with an episode of Garden Bears' World for you to enjoy and this time, we are visiting Biddulph Grange Gardens.  If you've seen our posts about other visits, you'll know that this is a very special garden with sections based on gardening styles from all over the world.

We paid our latest visit at the end of January, on a still, cool day when some important landscaping work was taking place, so we had to go in through a gate at the back that isn't usually open.  I will be interested to see what is planted in these new borders under the Lime Walk and what style they will be.

After walking down the old toll road, we crossed the tennis lawns and came into the gardens near the big pond.  We had never visited in the depths of winter before, when there are fewer leaves on the trees and almost no flowers, but it wasn't boring as we could see the shapes and structures of the trees and hedges really well.

We let Polar carry us around in the Bear Bag while we explored the neat and formal Italian-style gardens, but jumped out to do some climbing when we got to the Stumpery.

Waverley and Dudley loved it there, as there were easy climbs for very small bears and lots of moss and lichen for them to bounce on.  We all like playing in the Stumpery, although it can be damp and a little bit slippery, as you can see from the picture of Hanley Bear.

I like practicing mountaineering on the rocks in the China garden, which is my favourite part of the gardens here.  In the spring and autumn the acer trees have beautifully coloured leaves, so it looked a little sad at this time of year by comparison.

There was still a splash of colour from the little bridge and the pavilion building and a few little bright berries here and there, and the big, bright orange carp in the pond.

The little cubs were climbing near the pavilion when they found a big stone frog looking at them, so they scrambled up to say "hello!"  

After the spooky cave that leads out of China, there's a rocky valley with a small stream running through, which is a super place for a mountaineering bear like me to do some more climbing practice.  Nearby, I found the first spring flowers - some little snowdrops.

Then it was time to go.  Unfortunately, we were too late to get scones or cake from the tea shop, but Polar said we would have some home-made bakes when we got home (and we did!).

On the way out, we had another look at the work going on along the Lime Walk, and Polar promised to bring us back in the spring, when we can see whether any bulbs have been planted here.

And I will be sure to tell you all about it in another Garden Bear's World post on Sonning's blog.