A VISIT TO MAPLE ROCK GARDENS

We took a neighbors trip to an event that High Hand Nursery was sponsoring at Maple Rock Gardens. I had never heard of this place, but it's up near Newcastle.  We got  directions from their website, so I'll assume it was in Newcastle, though we never saw the town.  

Anyway, this place is  really fabulous.  I believe someone lives there, but for all the exotic-ness of the gardens, the house is pretty unprepossessing.  It's about 3/4 of the way up a hill, and has a 180 view of the surrounding countryside.  The rest of the hillside is gorgeously landscaped with paths, steps, waterfalls, streams, courtyards, and fountains.  They even have a model railroad that has about a block worth of tracks.  

I only took close up pictures of things, so I'm putting in pictures from their website.  

We had a really good time and got lots of ideas for plantings and designs.  Most are best suited for a huge estate, but we saw some nice specimens.  I'm including a couple of pictures of them.  

They had a contest where yo,had to cunt the number of bridges up crossed, the number of water features, the number of bridges, etc.  it was pretty much impossible.  There were so many trails, things that wind back around each other, and the question of whether a waterfall is a water feature, or is a a stream, or are just the fountains water features?    

The picture below is the only one I took.  I like the ghost fern in this pot.