Visiting Gardens with Kate Hardy

 I love flowers, but I have to admit that I’m not a great gardener. Our back garden is mainly lawn and a few mature shrubs and roses. I did try a veg patch on our patio during lockdown, but our younger spaniel Dexter (aged about 12 weeks at the time) ‘helped’ me by harvesting every single carrot. And when I thought I’d planted some herbs, there he was scampering around the garden with the thyme plant in his mouth…  (This is Dexter, aka Junior Edit-paw-ial Assistant, exploring the veg!)

 

Dexter

 

So my gardening is all vicarious. I *love* visiting stately homes where I get to wander around a pretty garden, so when I started writing The Body at Rookery Barn I had to give Sybbie an amazing garden in Little Wenborough Manor. I also gave Georgina the garden I’d love to have, with lots of summer flowers.

 

No spoilers exactly… but Sybbie becomes one of the suspects because of some of the plants she has. This part of her garden was based on one near me, at Stody in Norfolk, UK, which has an amazing collection of azaleas, including a beautiful pond. It’s open to the public at weekends in May, so we always go and take a look. (The dog in the photo is Archie, aka Senior Edit-paw-ial Assistant.)

 

 

I particularly love walled gardens – this one is at Hoveton Hall in Norfolk. The delphiniums were glorious, and these unusual ‘ladybird’ poppies.

 

 

 

And wildflower meadows. When the Superbloom moat was sown around the Tower of London, I absolutely had to visit!

 

 

 

And then there are the really special bits of an English spring. The snowdrops in the woods (this is at Walsingham Abbey in Norfolk, UK – my regular birthday treat!), and the bluebell carpets (this is Blickling Hall in Norfolk, UK). Literally millions of flowers, everywhere you look. 

 

 

 

 

 

 And just one last one of the wildflowers from Helmingham Hall in Suffolk, which I visited recently – it was done in the form of a spiral, and I honestly had no idea that cornflowers came in so many colours. Absolutely gorgeous – and I think I’m going to sow a sneaky patch of wildflowers in my own back yard, next summer…

 

 

About the Author

Kate Hardy lives in Norwich with her husband, two grown-up children, two spaniels and too many books to count. 

She’s won three Romantic Novelists’ Association awards for her romantic fiction – and is thoroughly enjoying her new life of crime! When she’s not writing or researching, she’ll be out at a gig or the theatre, at ballet class, doing cross-stitch, taking photographs of the sunrise while persuading the spaniels to stay still for one second, fossicking around on a beach or in archives, or exploring ancient buildings. 

She loves learning new things, which is why you’ll always discover something different in a Kate Hardy book…

Kate Hardy on the web:

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Storm Publishing.        BookBub

The Body at Rookery Barn: A totally gripping cozy mystery (A Georgina Drake Mystery Book 1)

 

Outside, Rookery Barn glows in the mid-morning sunshine while fat bees flit lazily between the forget-me-nots. Inside, a body lies dead…

Widowed Georgina Drake has no regrets about moving to beautiful, sleepy Little Wenborough in rural Norfolk. Until she opens the door to her rental property and finds the dead body of her latest guest, irritable university professor Roland Garnett. And on top of that she’s suddenly hearing a woman’s voice through her hearing aids.

Completely shaken by the discovery, Georgina can hardly believe it when the police conclude that Professor Garnett was poisoned, with a dinner delivered by Georgina herself. Is she about to be accused of murder? Georgina needs to pull herself together, try to ignore the distracting voice, and clear her name!

Asking around, it seems Roland Garnett offended half the village during his three-week stay and made unwelcome advances to the rest. But who was provoked enough to poison him? Georgina’s best lead is the deadly oleander found in Roland’s system. Her gardener, Young Tom, had access to the plant, but before she can talk to him Tom becomes the killer’s next victim.

As the crimes mount up, so do the clues, but does Georgina have what it takes to follow them to their conclusion? Even when her amateur sleuthing puts her next in the killer’s sights…?

An addictive and completely gripping cosy crime novel. Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, Faith Martin and Midsomer Murders.

Buy on:

Amazon Kindle

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