“The Secret Garden Tour”

This was to be our HQ for the trip. The tiny figure by the church is a famous gardening writer.

My schnauzer, Peanut, took a drink from the pond while I drew this, on the day we arrived.

The irises were just perfect.

In a day or so, they’d be past their best.

We arrived at Chilcombe after rain.

The travel writer and photographer Sophy Roberts, famous for books set in Siberia and Africa, took care to photograph every detail in the secret gardens of Dorset.

Honestly, the garden at the Old Rectory is astonishing. What you see here, looking back at the house, is just the beginning.

After we’d admired this for a while the owner turned us around to lead us along a pond full of lilies, with a pagoda, along a tree-lined avenue, and up a slope where we were watched by a stag.

After the architectural quality of other parts of the Makepeaces’s garden, we were hit by an abundance of colour.

Everybody went looking for the best place to take photos.

I hadn’t known we would be coming here. I assumed we were just looking at the garden, Chilcombe.

But then we stepped into the studio. And because I already followed Flora on Instagram, I instantly recognised her paintings.

What I mean is: I knew the artist by her art.

In the orchard, bees buzzed overhead, pollinating Simon’s apple trees.

We stopped to watch, briefly.

During one of the talks, by an export on apple trees, Hector came over to sit beside Simon.

On the right, as you look towards the main building, there are chickens clucking happily among the dahlias.

They’d come a long way to Dorset. They had very different gardens at home. But everywhere we went, they found ideas and inspiration.

At the Old Rectory, they walked past an ocean of red tulips.