My new favourite gardening tools

The garden centres are full of tools and bits and bobs to tempt us into spending money but I wonder, do you buy additional spades and forks once you have your basics gardening tools?

After seeing Monty Dons immaculate potting shed with all his tools hanging up, I looked at my pile of gardening paraphernalia, heaped up in the corner of the garage and thought I needed to have a sort out.

I don't tend to have lots of tools, probably one of everything I need and I have collected some old second hand tools which I picked up at an NGS garden I visited but I have to admit I was tempted by Burgon and Balls stand at my local garden centre, Stewarts Garden Centre near Wimborne.

This seed and planting measuring tool and dibber is absolutely fantastic for a person like me who has no concept of space and especially as I vowed to space my plants correctly this year, it will be a god send.

Not only does it have inches and centimetres marked out but it gives the recommended planting distances for popular plants too.

Check out their website http://www.burgonandball.com for all their garden tools and your local stockist.
I especially love their Grow Your Own range, which is were this ingenious tool comes from.

Below is a sneak peak of their children's gardening tools, which I will be reviewing along with some other fantastic children's gardening tools from www.craftplay.com on the blog by The PR Mummy which I am writing a weekly guest post on, to give help and encouragement to parents who want to garden with their children and are completely new to gardening.

I think my most favourite gardening accompaniment, is a kneeler I received for my birthday, from Cath Kidston.  (She didn't give me the kneeler my friend Linda did!)

                  
                                                                  Cath Kidston Kneeler

I am a big fan of Cath Kidston products, so I absolutely love this pretty kneeler.

Last weekend the weather was absolutely glorious. I had to take a trip to the DIY store and I saw lots of people buying bedding plants and the naughty store didn't have any signs up to warn the shoppers of frost, which could still rear its ugly head, even here in sunny Dorset.

There was a seed sowing frenzy going on in the greenhouse.
Courgettes, sweetcorn, cut and come again lettuce and squash were all sown and whilst I was at B & Q, I bought a length of drainpipe to sow some peas in. The idea is that you fill the drainpipe with compost and then sow your seeds. When they are ready to plant, you just make an indentation in the soil, with the drainpipe and then slide the seeds, compost and all into the bed. I have never done this before, so it's an experiment but if it's good enough for Sarah Raven, it's good enough for me.

The flower garden is growing at a rate of knots and my orange tulips look magnificent.

                                                                  
                                                                      Orange Tulip

With major reconstruction work going on at the top of the garden, I will soon have a couple of new beds to plant up. I have a few ideas of the kinds of plants I am going for, Miscanthus and Verbena Bonariensis so I now need to decide, do I grow them from seed or buy big plants for instant impact. Decisions, decisions but how exciting, those are the kinds of decisions I enjoy.


 

Gardening for the first time

 If you have decided that this is the year you are going to plant up your garden and learn how it works then firstly congratulations, I hope you get the absolute joy of gardening and it becomes a life long passion but if you just want your world to look a bit nicer, then that's good too but where do you start?

Well you could just rush to the garden centre and buy everything which takes your fancy. Now I am not adverse to the odd impulse buy or two but firstly there are a few basic bits of info you need to know before you could potentially make some expensive mistakes.

What condition is your soil in?


Is your soil full of clay, sand or a mixture?
If it is clay, then the good thing is it does keep hold of nutrients but it does dry out in the summer and becomes rock hard and is sometimes waterlogged in the winter.
If it's sandy like mine, then the nutrients leach out of the soil, it's rather thin but it is free draining, so the plants don't tend to sit in water like they do with clay.

Then you need to know the pH balance. In other words, is it acid or alkaline.
This is easy to find out by buying a soil testing kit from the garden centre for a couple of pounds.
You add soil to a test tube some water and wait to see what colour the soil goes. A visual guide on the packet will tell you the pH of your soil.


So now you know what condition your soil is in and the pH balance, you can buy your plants to suit your soil. Whatever your soil, clay or sand, you will need to feed it with some compost. Garden compost, well rotted farmyard manure or green compost like Eco Compost are good ones to go for. Spent mushroom compost is cheap and cheerful but it does have lime in it, so don't use it if you are going to grow acid loving plants like Rhododendrons or Blueberries.

What aspect is your garden facing?


You need to observe the way the sun moves across your garden.
It's no good buying a plant which loves full sun, if the bed is in shade most of the day.

It's well worth finding this out first as it will save a lot of disappointment and money if you buy the wrong plants for your conditions.

So now you know your conditions, what plants do you buy?

Well it's purely down to what you like and how much time you want to spend in your garden.

My favourite style of planting is cottage garden. You can use shrubs as the backbone and perennials as the stars with roses and climbers for colour height and scent and not forgetting spring bulbs, to fill the spaces whilst the perennials are growing.

Perennials grow, flower and die back in one season, to return again the next year. You can either cut them down to the ground at the end of Autumn or if they have pretty seed heads, leave them through the winter and cut them down in spring.

It's good to spread the flowering times throughout the garden and throughout the year, so you have something of interest in flower every month.

Here are some of my favourites, which I wouldn't be without:

                                                                           Dahlia

                                
                                                                         Peony

                                                                              Iris

                                                                           Poppy

                                      
                                                       Angelica for height and structure


but the list is endless.
Roses for scent and beauty. Grasses for grace and movement. Lavender and honeysuckle for scent.

Visiting gardens open to the public like NGS gardens, are a good way to get inspiration and RHS shows like Hampton Court or Gardener's World live at the NEC are both good as you can buy the plants you see, at the shows.

Your local library has a good source of gardening books and the Internet has endless inspiration and information. I always find Gardeners World or the BBC/gardening very good sources.

Whatever your style of gardening, I hope like me your get enjoyment and pleasure from your connection with the soil and with the warmer weather heading our way this week, there is no better time for getting out there and getting your hands dirty.

National Garden Scheme The Yellow Book 2011- Press Launch

Today I felt very privileged to attend the NGS press launch for the 2011 edition of The Yellow Book.

I had been invited as a photographic contributor for their book and it was the first time I got to see which images they had used, in their first all-colour edition.

Last year the NGS raised 2.6 million pounds, going to beneficiaries as Macmillan Cancer Support, Help the Hospices and Marie Curie Cancer Care. For every pound that is raised 80p goes to these charities, which is pretty good going.

I am very proud to have the following images in the book.

                                                                  Aviemore Hampshire

                                                              Fritham Lodge Hampshire

                                                 Dahlia New Baby from Hilltop in Dorset
                                                  (A whole page was given to this image)

On a large screen one of my favourites taken at Knowle Farm in Dorset, was shown, to illustrate that you can stay at some of the gardens. Knowle Farm is also a B & B. info@knowlefarmbandb.com

                                                                       Knowle Farm Dorset


and if this wasn't exciting enough for me, a large banner showing one of my photographs from White Barn in Hampshire, was displayed for everyone to see.

                                                               White Barn Hampshire

                                     NGS Banner with image of White Barn in Hampshire


After the presentations, it was wine and canapé time and a chance to catch up with some of the lovely people I met last year.

I am now making my list of gardens in Dorset and Hampshire to photograph this year. I met up with a lovely couple who have a garden in Hampshire and who are happy for me to photograph it, so there is one on the list.

It really is a privilege to be involved in this wonderful charity.
Visiting an NGS garden is such a wonderful afternoon out. The garden owners are always happy to give advice and visiting the gardens is such a good opportunity to get ideas for plant combinations for your own garden. Of course the tea and amazing cakes are literally 'the icing on the cake'.

The average entry price is £3 and under 16's go free into most gardens and The Yellow Book is available for £9.99.
If you only want the garden details for your county, most libraries and garden centres have these for free.


Crocus at the NGS is the perfect way to purchase plants, which you have seen whilst visiting the gardens, with 15% of the purchase going to the NGS and if you purchase plants now and spend £50 excluding bedding and seed orders, you get a free copy of The Yellow Book.

I hope I have inspired you to visit some gardens open for the NGS, it's an afternoon well spent!



                                                      

The First Day of Spring

Today is the first day of spring and the weather did not disappoint.

This week I have potted on my seedlings and popped them into the greenhouse. I got quite a shock when I woke up on Saturday morning, to see quite a hard frost had visited us in the night. I feared the worst and imaged my little seedlings had perished in the night but I need not have worried because they were still hanging on in there. I think they had had a little shock but soon recovered when the sunshine warmed the greenhouse up.

Because this year I have a greenhouse, I have started my seed sowing earlier without realising it, hence I wasn't quite prepared for the frost. The seedlings had been kept in my utility room, which isn't heated but it is warmed up from the heat of the house, so I think going out into the greenhouse, was quite a change for them.

Since this fright, I have been tucking my seedlings up in fleece, just to give them an extra layer of warmth, at night.

It still is a bit early to be doing lots, so I have been nourishing my vegetable bed with a nice thick layer of well rotted manure.

I adhere to the no digging style, when it comes to the vegetable plot. I just fork over the soil lightly, before adding the manure and over these past three years, the soil has improved enormously. I know this because my once sandy poor soil, is now dark and delicious and full of worms. Oh I am so happy to see those little souls squirming about in the soil.

After adding the manure, I covered a small area of the plot with my two cloches, just to warm up the soil, ready for my first batch of seeds.

Rows of Garlic with cloches behind warming the soil ready for planting

I have been adding ericaceous compost to my two blueberries in pots and trimming them to a healthy bud, where necessary and they are looking lovely and healthy.

Blueberry plant surrounded by ericaceous compost

After first deciding not to grow potatoes this year (apart from my sweet potatoes) I have changed my mind but opted for potatoes which you can't buy in the shops.

The last couple of years has found me growing Charlotte which I love but those are now available in the supermarkets, so instead I have gone for a variety, which I grew a few years ago and that is Pink Fur Apple.

This knobbly pink beauty, is so tasty, so this year they are going into the potato sacks again but I intend to be more vigilant and water more frequently, in the hope that I get a better yield.

But for now they are chitting in the utility room, whilst I dream of simply boiling them and smothering them in butter........hmmm

March Is Upon Us

Well they say time flies when you are having fun and I suppose I am.
My new portrait business is going well and that is definitely lots of fun and I have found out that the National Garden Scheme has used some of my photographs in the 2011 edition of the Yellow Book and that has made me very happy indeed. It means a trip up to London at the end of March for the press launch and that is exciting!

A little while ago, I was up in London, photographing one of my other favourite subjects cake. These images are going to be used on packaging and really tested my photography skills as I didn't take my lights with me and had to rely on window light and the camera, and talking of cake, I have just purchased a gleaming red Kitchenaid. Something I have wanted for a long time but sadly a Weight Watchers diet is preventing me from using it to it's full potential.

                                                                   My new Kitchenaid

With March very much upon us, the garden is bursting into life. Today has been the big tidy up, using my new sharp secaturs. Perennials have been trimmed, to reveal new growth and dead leaves have been swept away.

                                                                               Sedum

In the flower garden the miniature daffodils Tete a Tete have been nodding in the breeze -

                                                                        Tete a Tete

                                                             A beautiful yellow trumpet

 in the kitchen garden, the rhubarb is flourishing and this year we will be able to pick a few stalks for the first time. I have to admit that I have never tasted rhubarb but my boyfriend assures me it is tasty.

                                                                              Rhubarb

                                                                      Abstract Rhubarb

We have added some fruit to the garden this year. A red and blackcurrant and a family apple tree, which is a tree with three different varieties grafted onto it.

I have started my seed sowing in earnest. Chillies were the first to be sown and now with their true leaves emerging, will need to be potted on next weekend.

Tomato Ferline have been sown, and I will pot those on next weekend too and in a week or two, I will be sowing my other variety of tomato Legend. I grew both of those last year and I had such a success with them, that I have decided to grow them again.

Gardeners' World has returned to our screens with a new/old presenter Monty Don. I have always liked Monty and I thoroughly enjoyed this programme. The filming was very stylised and the music was very soothing. Watching it is going to be a wonderful start to the weekend but I can't help feeling though, that GW has returned to appealing to the middle-aged, middle class viewers. Toby Buckland and crew from the previous series, really lightened gardening and having Alys in the mix, whom I loved, would have appealed to those wanting to get into gardening, through vegetable growing.

I really think there is room for more gardening programmes than just Gardeners' World and would love to see Alys and Toby, return with a gardening programme designed to encourage new blood into the wonderful world of gardening.

                                                                      Berginia

Happy New Year!

2010 was an absolutely awesome year for me - on the photography front.

During 2009, I completed a photography project, photographing National Garden Scheme owners, on their open days, together with views and plant portraits of their gardens. I donated the photographs to the NGS  and was very surprised to receive an invitation to the launch of their 2010 book and even more surprised to find 4 of my photographs in the yellow book.

                                                                           Wild Garlic

                                                                 Aquilegia Nora Barlow


I photographed NGS gardens in 2010 and donated my photographs once again, to this very worthy cause.
I cannot tell you the absolute pleasure I get from photographing plants and gardens. I work in a studio 5 days a week, so getting out into the fresh air and capturing the beauty of plants fills me with such joy!

My love of gardening and garden photography bought another fabulous opportunity for me in 2010 and that was to write an online gardening blog for the local newspaper the Bournemouth Echo. Although I have been gardening for many years, vegetable growing is still quite new for me, so this blog is about my trials and tribulations in the garden and includes my garden photography.

After thinking about starting a portrait photography business for the last two years, it all came together at the end of 2010. My love of photography started with photographing portraits 15 years ago, so to re-kindle that love has been so much fun.

So what will 2011 bring?

Well, my good friend Darren Hackett and I have started Mirus Wedding Photography.

We have assisted each other when photographing weddings over the past couple of years, so we thought we would join forces under one banner.

We are the perfect team. I love photographing the brides preparations and finding the small details to photograph and Darren is brilliant at the big stuff. Getting people together, making people laugh, he is one of a kind!

Oooh I am so excited for 2011.
Albert Einstein said
'Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions'.
and I am imagining some super times ahead.

Bright Winter Blessings

Today is the winter solstice. The sun is re-born and we can welcome it back to the northern hemisphere, where it has been greatly missed.

This time of year is not usually my favourite but for the first time in many years, I am welcoming the Yule tide festivities. It's all part of the cycle of the seasons and if you do not enjoy the commercialisation, then give that bit a miss. No more bah humbug from me!

The snow has bought chaos to the UK (although we do seem to thrive on something to moan about in this country) We simply cannot fight nature and the sooner we realise this and work with her instead of against, the easier life will become.

Our solstice celebrations had to be cancelled this year but no matter, we all did our own thing at home - gave thanks for the year that's been and wished for peace and harmony for the year to come.

I have been so busy out of the garden these past few weeks. My new blogsite for my children's photography has been launched www.louisejolleyphotography.com which is rather exciting. I absolutely love taking portraits, so it really is a joy to do.


In the garden, I have dug up the parsnips for Christmas dinner. They aren't very pretty but when removed from the frozen ground, they smelt so sweet, I cannot wait to eat them.

I leave you with a couple of photographs taken in the garden at the weekend and wish you happy gardening in 2011.

                                                              Viburnum tinged with ice

                                                         Hydrangea bract covered in ice