Roseville’s Formal Gardens, Open to Visitors

When Suzy’s father arrived fifteen years ago, the garden was hidden beneath years of overgrowth. Clearing it revealed a fountain, a sunken garden, pebbled pathways, stone walls and water troughs — the bones of a formal garden laid out generations ago.

He spent the next fifteen years restoring it and planting hundreds of trees and shrubs. Today there are over 250 peony, David Austin and other roses, flowering cherries and pears, thousands of daffodils and irises, the arch garden, the sunken garden, the tall conifer garden, a row of mop-top robinias and a 154-tree orchard of apricots, apples, nectarines and cherries.

Past the roses, blossom and bulbs of the formal garden, 154 apricot, apple, nectarine and cherry trees fill the orchard — a sea of blossom in spring and a wall of gold in autumn. And in the paddock, the two Highland cows who moved in this winter and immediately became the most photographed residents at Roseville.

Then there’s the stone fire pit, the dark skies (no light pollution up here) and Toast, our groodle, who has appointed himself Director of Farm Operations.