NGS Aviemore

When I contacted Sandy and Alex Robinson about visiting their garden to photograph, they asked me to come in the morning before the garden opened. This was the first time they had opened their garden for the NGS, so they had no idea, how many people would come, plus they said the garden was small and thought I might find it difficult to photograph with lots of people milling about.

A chair covered in lichen

The front garden has lots of interest with shrubs which are in flower at the moment, and packed with perennials like irises and alliums. There is a lawn and a gravel garden with a natural looking pond. I would be very pleased if this was my back garden, it was so beautifully planted.

A welcome seating area under the tree

When I entered the back garden, I noticed that it was anything but small. The garden has been designed, so that you can't see it all from one glance. The lawn was immaculate, helping to set off the plants and the trellis running almost the width of the garden entices you to see what is beyond. On the other side of the trellis was a beautiful and productive vegetable garden.

Vegetable Garden

Cloche

The vegetable garden was laid out with raised beds, which are not only practical but also look attractive. I was very envious when I spotted the compost heap. The contents black and crumbly, something which still alludes me.
At either end of the vegetable garden are ornate bridges, made by Alex, which cross a little stream running through the garden and on the other side of the stream, is a little path meandering through plants, which leads to a little garden room, also made by Alex.

Stream

Stream with garden room

Garden room

Sandy has designed this garden to perfection. It's very inspirational and has given me some ideas for my garden.

Aviemore is open again this weekend 6 June from 2 till 5, so if you are near the New Forest, then I can recommend a visit.

The details for this garden are on the NGS website http://www.ngs.org.uk/gardens/gardenfinder/garden.aspx?id=22289

A gorgeous garden to visit with lovely owners and scrumptious cakes - a perfect combination!

A Shiny New Greenhouse

The greenhouse is now complete! Andy is making some staging to run along the back of the greenhouse and then we are good to go.

I bought some handy plastic trays for the grow bags to sit in and some bottomless pots, so I can plant the tomatoes into those, onto the top of the grow bags, so the roots have a deeper longer run, resulting in healthier, stronger plants and of course I had to buy a book to advise me of the ins and outs of having a greenhouse. I turned to a series of books which used to be my bibles when first learning about gardening over 20 years ago. I call them the doctor books because they were written by Dr D G Hessayon. All the expert books follow the same layout and they are brilliant no nonsense books.

Shiny new greenhouse

I think in hindsight I have too many purple sprouting broccoli plants. We harvested a bundle, blanched and popped them in the freezer but no sooner as my back is turned, it's sprouting again. It's now flowering away looking so pretty but I need to get out there and cut some more for the freezer.

Purple Sprouting Broccoli In Bloom

I think I will have to dig up the plants before they have expired, which is a shame but I really don't have any room to spare.

My three sisters method is starting to take shape although not without hitches. Firstly the sweetcorn has been a disaster with only 3 seeds sprouting, so I had to buy some little plants from the garden centre. The garden centres are now selling plenty of vegetable seedlings, so if you don't have the room to sow or you are too late to start them from seed, the garden centre can come to the rescue. My second hitch, which was really a mistake on my part, is that instead of planting the climbing bean seed next to the sweetcorn, I started them in modules and they are now about 5 inches high and ready to start climbing and the sweetcorn is only tiny but on the bright side, my little squashes are looking lovely; every cloud.............

In the flower garden, I have spotted a dahlia poking through and my Allium Purple Sensation is looking, well sensational!

Allium Purple Sensation

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show is on this week and I will be glued to my television watching and taking notes. (My favourite so far is Roger Platts M & G Garden) I haven't been for many years and although I love going to Chelsea where you can appreciate the scent of the flowers which you can't through the television set, you definitely see more on the box, unless of course your name is Alan Titchmarsh!

A Garden Fit To Burst

We had anticipated that the greenhouse would be up by Sunday evening. The chaps who delivered it, assured us that it would only take a day to put up but things always take longer than you think and it didn't help that the instructions were just a collection of diagrams with numbers for the pieces. I was never any good at jigsaws, not that I did a lot, as I was busy planting out my peas and sweetpeas.

In my vegetable bed, I have allocated a slice to growing flowers. I have two small wigwams of sweetpeas, plus seedlings which have self seeded from last year. The purpose of growing the flowers amongst the veg are two fold. They will bring in beneficial insects plus they look pretty. I suppose if you were relying on your vegetables for sustenance, then growing flowers may seem a bit frivolous and maybe as I get more experienced at growing vegetables, then this practise may become a thing of the past but for now I just about have the space to indulge my passion for cut flowers.
My seedlings are doing well. My squashes and climbing beans are looking good but the sweetcorn, which has an important role to play in my three sisters planting scheme, aren't showing themselves yet. I have taken action today and popped them into my heated propagator, to chivvy them along a bit.

Much of the garden is ready to burst. I enjoy the anticipation, almost as much as the flowers themselves. My Allium Purple Sensation purchased on my visit to Sarah Ravens Perch Hill are ready to burst.

Allium Purple Sensation

And I have two enormous Angelica's with bulbous buds ready to explode.

Angelica

Once the greenhouse is finished, which really is only a matter of putting in a couple more pieces of glass, I can move my seedlings into their new home, and then I can tidy up the summer house and put up the bunting I bought to make it look pretty instead of practical.

So much to look forward to, it's not only the plants which are ready to burst!

NGS White Barn

This week I paid a visit to a wonderful garden near Ringwood in Hampshire called White Barn. It's owned by a lovely couple Marilyn and Barrie Knight. They extend a welcome to their visitors every Wednesday from 19 May to 28 July. Last year they had over 2000 visitors, raising an enormous sum of £3500 for the NGS and this year should be no different, with 6 coaches booked to visit already!
This 3/4 of an acre garden is definitely one for the plant lover. They have over 250 clematis with all the cottage favourites, in abundance. Although still quite early in the season (plus it's unseasonably cold) the garden was filled with wonderful spring flowers, tulips, rhododendrons, azaleas,  magnolias and fabulous tulips and a sweet scent filled the air as I walked around.

Many visitors to the garden come back for a second visit to catch different plants in flower. Every week there is something new in bloom, something us gardeners are always striving for. There are lots of paths to explore, with lovely vistas and sitting places and they haven't forgotten to include vegetables as well!

If you come to the South on holiday this summer, White Barn should be on your list of gardens to visit. I for one will be visiting it again, when the roses are in bloom and I can't wait.

A Staycation In The Garden

A well needed break from work this week, has enabled me to spend lots of time outside in the garden. It's not been as sunny as of late and the temperature has dropped but that hasn't mattered a jot to me. The feeling of fresh air on my face, the sound of birdsong in my ears and the smell of  lilac, wafting over the garden fence from next door, has certainly raised my spirits.

This week we have been preparing the space for the greenhouse. Well I say we but really it has been Andy doing all the hard graft, although I have helped move some slabs and plopped some cement down, sometimes more of a hindrance than a help really.
The slabs are down and tomorrow we had planned to assemble the greenhouse but a game of crazy golf at the weekend has changed things around. We need a retaining wall to go behind the greenhouse and as we couldn't decide what materials to use, we were going to build that after the greenhouse had gone up but whilst playing crazy golf with our besties, we admired on the 15th hole, a fabulous retaining wall made out of railway sleepers. After searching the Internet we found a local supplier of railway sleepers and after a swift phone call, money changed hands and the railway sleepers were delivered today.http://www.ridgefarm-sleepers.co.uk/

                                                                     Andy doing his Tommy Walsh impersonation

So tomorrow Andy, with my interference, will be building the retaining wall and the greenhouse will just have to wait a little longer but it will definitely be worth the wait!

Everyday I visit my newly painted summer house, to check on the brown soil in pots and give them a water but today I was very pleasantly surprised to see little seedlings. The squash are finally making an appearance.

                                                                                            Squash Seedling

The chilies are doing well

Tomatoes aren't doing too badly either

But my most successful vegetable to date definitely has to be my purple sprouting broccoli. It's now growing in abundance and tastes absolutely lovely. Today I blanched some and popped it in the freezer and we added some to our stir fry - yum! My best friend Linda bought me a book by the RHS called Allotment Handbook and in there it states that the broccoli needs to be in the ground 42 weeks, also if you sow it in succession, you can be harvesting broccoli for 10 months of the year, although I think I might get a bit bored  of it, if I ate it for that long. 

This week I visited my first NGS garden to photograph. The garden was a little slice of heaven. Photographs in my next post. Last day of my stay cation tomorrow -  lots to pack in, so fingers crossed for dry weather or it's cagoules at the ready.                                                                  

Sowing For Success

Purple Sprouting Broccoli

I have started to pick my purple sprouting broccoli and it's delicious. From the moment it's picked to the moment it's on my plate, is a matter of minutes and you can't get fresher than that!

I spent yesterday sowing seeds galore, with the sun shining down on my back, it felt wonderful.  I sowed sweetcorn, butternut squash, climbing green beans and climbing purple beans, in modules. I am going to grow these vegetables using the Three Sisters Method.  This method was used by Native Americans. The Iroquois women of the tribe were the gardeners. They planted these three crops together which grew in perfect harmony with each other. The corn was planted and the beans used the sweetcorn for support and also fixed nitrogen in the soil. The squash scrambled over the ground suppressing the weeds and retaining moisture. What a perfect relationship. (Source: taken from Carol Kleins Grow Your Own Veg). I haven't forgotten flowers, which are not only pretty to look at, in the garden and in the house but also they encourage beneficial insects into the garden to help with pollination and pests. I sowed five different varieties of sunflowers, calendula and mallope, again all in modules, which hopefully will give them a flying start. I did chance sowing some seeds straight into the ground. Some parsnips and a row of carrots which I will sow more of, over the next few months. As the parsnips take an age to show, I scattered some cornflower seeds in between the rows for a pretty summer display and some more cut flowers for the vase.

I am watching episodes of Carol Kleins Grow Your Own Veg, which has just been aired by the Good Food Channel. I have been gardening for over 20 years but I am still very new to vegetable growing and this series is so informative and enjoyable to watch. I have learnt so much plus the background music is supplied by two of my prog rock favourites, Emerson Lake and Palmer and Genesis (The Peter Gabriel years). If you missed her programme, then I can thoroughly recommend her book which accompanied the series and for authenticity, how about listening to some prog rock whilst reading it. I often listen to Plant Rock radio station, whilst gardening. The plants seem to enjoy it and if the neighbours children are out bouncing on their trampoline, it helps to drown out their squawking!

A weekend of two halves

I have had a weekend of two halves. Well all work and no play, makes Louise a dull girl!
Saturday I spent painting the summer house a lovely shade of Wild Thyme and today has been spent eating yummy Purbeck ice-cream, drinking cider and getting sand between my toes, properly for the first time this year.

                                                                                          Sandbanks Dorset

The lovely sunny weather we have had this week, has really got the garden springing into action. The colours of the plants and flowers, this time of year seem to be very vibrant. It might simply be the fact that they are the first flora to visually stimulate the senses after the drab darkness of winter has departed.

                                                                                      Muscari (Grape Hyacinth)

                                                                                                Euphorbia

We have had two episodes of the Edible Garden with Alys Fowler and I am loving it! The way the programme has been filmed including little animations, really makes the programme a treat to watch, as well as being informative and inspiring to those who are new to vegetable gardening. And I definitely  felt her pain, when she spoke about losing tomatoes to the dreaded blight. I am hoping that my little seedlings of blight resistant Legend will restore my faith in growing tomatoes again.
I feel we are on the verge of a growing revolution and I am very excited by it. It really gives you a sense of achievement, working with nature to produce some delicious vegetables and fruit for the kitchen table.