A Grand Day Out at RHS Tatton Park

Last Saturday, me and my lovely Mum went to the RHS Flower Show at Tatton Park. We'd packed a picnic for lunch and were excited to have a grand day out together.

We got lucky with the weather too, one small shower and plenty of sunshine. Here are some of the pics I'd taken.

The gardens were fabulous.

This was a beautiful shed, decorated with lots and lots of cut flowers.

The flower displays in the big marquee were amazing.

So were the Hydrangeas that you could buy from the local nurseries there. I have a soft spot for Hydrangeas, but I didn't buy one.

There were even mega crocheted flowers on display.

So what did I treat myself to? A small metal dragonfly ornament to go in the garden border and the potential for a 100 flowers...so long as I knit or crochet them from this book I bought...

Till next time...

A Cutting Patch

The day I fill a vase of flowers from my garden will be a very happy day indeed.

I remember saying, at Christmas, that I wanted to put plants in my garden that would give me flowers to decorate my home.

Well, not that long ago, I bought a book; The Cut Flower Patch by Louise Curley, see her blog and book details here, and how amazing and inspiring it is. Louise describes her flower patch as a dedicated area of her allotment to provide her with cut flowers all year round. She then goes on to describe how you can achieve this using only a small part of your garden or a raised bed.

This had me gripped, I spent most of a weekend reading and planning how I can incorporate my own cut flower patch into my garden. I already had two decent size spaces, either side of the climbing rose, which I could transform.

After studying the book with numerous cups of tea (and cake) I made some notes and lists and headed off to the local nursery to see if I could get some of the plants recommended as plugs, to put straight into my small plot. I bought a small tray of Cosmos and a small tray of Dianthus – I’ve no idea what varieties they are, as the labels were very vague. I didn’t see any other plants that I had on my list, but I was pleased with what I had, to give me a start.

More reading with more tea (and a bit more cake) gained me some knowledge on a few seed packets that I had gained as freebies with magazines – cornflower and wild carrot could be sewn in the ground now (it was still May when I did this).

As soon as the weather allowed, I was out in the garden planting my small nursery of plug plants in the top section and sewing seeds in the bottom section of my now dedicated cut flower patch.

I still have a little space left for something, not sure what yet, but I find it all very exciting. My only problem is that I’m impatient to see the seedlings breaking the surface and the first flowers on the plug plants.

Ahh well, there’s time for more tea (and cake) then.

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It wasn’t that long after, that I got my first pot of loveliness.

A pot of Cosmos with a few stems of Lavender took pride of place on my hearth, making me very happy.

Till next time…

How Does The Garden Grow...

With the 'pond' completed, my attention turned back to the main part of the garden again.

I've added a light coloured, iron, trellis to the very end of the left-hand bed. I'd have liked a statue of some sort, but I'm not that grand and nor is my pocket, so an iron trellis which was on offer suited my needs and my pocket very well. The reason for the trellis was so that your eye has something to finish on once you've followed the plants up the bed, all from the comfort of the sofa in the lounge. It was far better than looking at a blank piece of fencing.

In this same bed I've added a Euphorbia 'Ascott Rainbow' which gives a cloud of yellow flowers and looks great with all the greenery.

I've also moved a Berberis, 'Rosy Rocket', to be it's next door neighbour. This was to clear a patch in the right-hand bed that will become my cut flower patch (more about this in a later post).

Mum and Dad came over and we built and installed a wooden, pergola style, arch together. The hardest job was thumping in the steel 'cups' (for the legs to stand in) into the ground and then leveling the whole thing up. We had completed the task by lunch time, so I rewarded my workers with tea and bacon butties.

I'm really pleased with the result. The arch frames the bird bath, tree stump and gives height just where I needed it, to stop your eyes from travelling over the back fence and into the garden behind. My next job will be to find some suitable plants to grow up and over it.

Other Notes:

One of the Digitalis has started to flower. a lovely purple/magenta colour, although its label said it was going to have primrose yellow flowers!

And, the climbing rose has some lovely buds on it just ready to start opening up with a bit of sunshine.

Till next time...

My Little Wilderness

Who'd have thought I would get into gardening? Certainly not me! Surely gardening is for retired people, who don't know what else to do?

At the start of the year I promised that my home would come first. 'My home' also included the neglected wilderness that tried to be a garden. It has a lawn - a mass of green weeds cut to a short level. It has a tree - crab apple - too large for me to look after, and a few shrubs - I can count them on one hand but can't name them!

It was time to sort it! I wanted a garden to enjoy and be happy to spend time in.

First things first, I needed to get the tree cut down and cleared. I hired a chainsaw that, luckily, came with a man and his Son who did the cutting down and clearing, for me. I asked for a half meter high stump to be left, I had a plan for this.

The difference was amazing - de-cluttering in the extreme! Looking out from my kitchen, I thought I had cleaned the window, it was lovely and bright and clear.

A couple of months later, once the 'borders' had finally dried up and stopped looking like parts of a swamp, I started my garden regime with enthusiastic verve.

Drastic pruning of the shrubs was my first task, followed by the weeding - Oh! The Weeding! It went on forever! But I finally got there with a spectacular finish, forking over the remaining couple of meters like a woman possessed!

The lawn was cut and a new, crisp, edge defined, this gardening lark was very satisfying. Each day I was seeing a new improvement, and I was looking forward to the next task, even when it was fence painting.

A week off work gave me a chance of really getting stuck in. Mum and Dad came across and mucked in with some fence repairs and more fence painting. When I wasn't out in the garden, I had my head buried in gardening books and magazines, giving me endless ideas.

I treated myself to a garden chair, after all,  I will need somewhere to sit in the sun and admire my hard work. It looks great too, a relaxed style with arms wide enough to hold my mug of tea. So far, I haven't sat in it for long, just long enough to figure out my next task and reason to rise again and get on with it.

The day I couldn't wait for, had finally come, I was off to buy my first lot of plants. My shopping list included plants for the shady area, plants to give form and structure and plants just because I liked the look of them. Quite a few extras went in the trolley too!

Nobody warned me about the hard work it was getting them all in the ground, I thought this was the easy, fun bit. Now, I realised the knowing looks and comments of 'someone's going to be busy' from the seasoned gardeners at the garden center. Well I was busy, all of the next day in fact, planting my new plants into their chosen positions. By the end of that day I sat in my garden chair and felt proud of my new garden, my wilderness tamed.

I also have ornaments adorning my garden. There is a bird bath on the stump of the tree with a stone, stargazing, hare staring upwards towards it, and bird feeders above.

There is an obelisk in the middle of a blank piece of border, with a climbing rose, just waiting for its own cue to flower, and ceramic bird feeders, on steel stalks, threaded into my tapestry.

The joy, I feel is wonderful, and the story of my garden is only at the beginning.

Till next time...