I’ve been visiting the Beyond Limits Sculpture Exhibition at Chatsworth, every year since I was 3

and it’s by far one of my best Autumn days

Here’s a quick video, showing you some of the stuff I got up to at Beyond Limits Sculpture Exhibition at Chatsworth 

Sculptures

The sculptures are amazing, click here to find out more

• The big white sculpture in front of the house is called Lilas Pavilion, it was just incredible. I loved the shape and size of it and how the spray from the Emperor’s Waterfall hammered down through it and it felt like you were sheltering from a storm
• There was this huge, mirrored box with a tree like interior. I really wanted to walk round the inside, it would have been like walking in the TARDIS.
• Check out the giant cupcake, called ‘Fruitcake’. It was simple in design with a steel frame and plastic, toy like fruit. The message here was about temptation – well you got that right, I could easy eat a cake this size!
• I loved the lady at the Cascade and here’s the thing about where the sculptures are placed in the garden, they just always seem to be placed in the right place and there’s been some cracking ones at the cascade over the years
• I really loved the mirrored sphere called ‘The Drop’, which reflected the pond and those looking into it – that’s the thing about sculptures you see something different each time
• There’s all sorts of quirky scultpures placed all over the garden – a pink shoe, an upside down umbrella, a mountain head, each of them are strange but unique

The Kitchen Garden

I love this area, it just always looks lush and the views are amazing. My aspirations would be to work in a garden like this. I love the idea of growing food, harvesting it and taking it into the kitchen to be cooked (by my Mum of course, bot me!). There’s such a big variety of fruit and veg grown here and you can see a difference with some of our veg at home – their squash is much better than ours, but our leeks are coming on ok

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Wildlife

No blog is complete without a wildlife write up and with all the beautiful plants, trees, flowers and ponds at Chatsworth it’s no wonder the bees and butterflies were busy. This female Mandarin duck was gliding elegantly along at Morton’s pond. There’s always fallow deer to be seen at Chatsworth, difficult to get a good shot, because they are always on the move!

Trees and Flowers

We usually visit the sculptures in October so we were a little early and the recent mild weather meant there was still plenty of beautiful flowers to be seen. Another tradition we have is leaf fights, but again the trees seem to be holding on to them!

Monkey Puzzle Tree

I’ve been visiting this monkey puzzle tree since it was planted – look how much we’ve both grown! This has become another Chatsworth tradition and each year we say “was it this one or that one?!?”

Other delights

There’s so much to see at Chatsworth Gardens, you really do need a full day to explore:

• There’s the Victorian rock garden, which I always climb
• The Maze, where I’ve worked out how to get to the middle really quickly
• The redesigned Trout stream, which Dan Pearson designed for RHS Chelsea Flower Show, where I helped to clear the leaves from the stream in January – you can read my blog about that day here
• The Pinetum, which we only recently discovered – it’s a really peaceful area with these HUMONGOUS Giant Redwood trees. Colin Crosbie (I met him at RHS Wisley) once told me, “you should always hug a tree!!”
• I love the Trough waterfall, which leads to the Grotto – it’s like a secret place ready to be discovered
• The Coal Hole and Tunnel is super long and super scary, especially at Halloween, when they decorate it with bats and spider’s webs
• I think I’ve mentioned lots of times that I’m mad about water and there’s loads of it at Chatsworth – the ring pond, Emperor’s Waterfall, the Cascade to name a few
• The Weeping Willow is my absolute favourite thing, I love running around it and getting wet through.

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In a few days I’m travelling to London to visit the RHS Headquarters. As part of this visit I’ll be shown the original Account Book of Capability Brown, how lucky am I !!! Capability Brown redesigned and landscaped the gardens at Chatsworth and there’s loads of information boards displayed to let visitors know exactly what he did. I’ll be sure to blog about that soon

The sculptures are on until 30 October and I’d certainly recommend  it to anyone – me and my family absolutely love it and always come away buzzing.

Thanks as always to Head Gardener, Steve Porter for the invite – he’s got THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD!