REAL CUT FLOWERS

February = first wedding of the year

2012-02-14T15:48:00.000Z

I do so love taking a bit of the wilder countryside up to the City, Saturday saw Piper and Sam's wedding at the Barbican, and it was all a little curious the week before as we were blanketed in snow on and off! Luckily Piper only wanted pale neutral colours and whites with greens to go in the tropical conservatory and contrast with the wilder blooms in there. Happily the freeze abated long enough for me to pick non-frozen delicious paperwhites and hellebores and bundles of pretty little snowdrops outside and the tunnel was raided for a few earliest tulips and ranunculus and other narcissi to go with winter honeysuckle and lots of foliages. The cottage was full of scent as everything was brought inside to the warmth so things could open up! Happily the anticipated Friday snow stayed off so I got there OK..... Tables were covered in pewter pots and vintage glass bottles of snowdrops and hellebores with paperwhites and foliage, elsewhere I mixed whatever I had for simple but wildish vases full. Everyone seemed happy!

july selection

2012-02-07T13:40:00.001Z

And in response to the request to see what kind of wildish flowers we might have for table flowers etc in July, here are some we had earlier......

winter breaks - august sunshine

2012-02-07T13:21:00.000Z

I'm feeling desperately lazy as I have just returned from another short break, this time in the snow and cold bright sunshine in Austria, I went with one of my best friends to visit a mutual friend who now has an extraordinary gallery in a prison in Austria. If you like odd, and pink, google him, Nick Treadwell.... we had a very very entertaining time but now it is rather wonderful to be back with the prospect of getting stuck in, and the first wedding of the season this coming weekend at the Barbican.

I have just been asked what flowers might be out in mid August. The easiest way to see what variety we are likely to have is to post some photos from a wedding at that time last year.... so even if they're not relevant for many of you, I hope you enjoy thinking of summer!

At the end of October

2012-01-25T08:48:00.000Z

I returned to find a lovely surprise disc of photos from another semi diy wedding where I provided bouquets and buttonholes etc and main arrangements and supplied loose flowers for little bottles and jars. The bride wanted lots of seed heads and structural flowers in the mix for the wedding on 30th October.

Back in July

2012-01-25T08:45:00.001Z

Finally pictures from my favourite home made feeling wild wedding on the edge of the Black Mountains

http://whimsicalwonderlandweddings.com/2011/12/phototom-photography-2.html

The bride wanted poppies in her bouquet but it had been raining the night before so I told her they might not last, though I was fairly sure they'd see her down the aisle. In fact she mailed me from honeymoon to say she had taken her bouquet with her and three more of the poppies had come out since it had been in water at their holiday villa. I was impressed!

Back home

2012-01-24T13:42:00.000Z

I return home to find the skies are not so blue and the air laden with neither scent nor birdsong, the food is less exotic and the cottage rather chilly ......but the cold is invigorating after tropical humidity, the dogs are thrilled I'm back, the moon is the right way up again and the rabbits must be very fed up as Les and Rob have nearly finished rabbit fencing, the new packing shed is going up.... it's not all bad!

The trip was amazing, visiting islands where tourists just can't get to, hearing the dawn chorus in the rainforest before watching red birds of paradise displaying, amazing tropical vegetation, snorkelling over perfect coral gardens, smiling people, superb food and the greatest variety of fruit imaginable. I think my favourite was a large spiky green fruit called something like zirzak that tasted like a cross between a lemon and an apple with the texture of an over ripe mango. (But smelly durian fruit just do not do it for me).

The Asian area director of Flora and Fauna International, Tony Whitten was leading the Wallace fact finding trip for Seatrek (the company who do wonderful trips round Indonesia), and it was fantastic to have him at my elbow showing me different trees and flowers including extraordinary plants that rely on symbiosis with ants to grow and survive. I return fired up to find more about tropical plants though I'm afraid orchids still don't thrill me as much as perhaps they ought. We saw the oldest clove tree in the world on Ternate (and were told a fantastic clove story by writer Simon Worrall who was fact-finding for a future spice islands tour), sadly in its last throes but the next oldest is on the slope below and still thriving, and we got a lesson in nutmeg harvesting on Tidore. Tony's daughter Ruth is a brilliant photographer and will be posting here photos soon for us all to share so I didn't get my little camera out as much as I probably should have done as Ruth's are superb. But here's a little glimpse into January in the southern hemisphere.

Ombak Puthi base for a couple of weeks

sunsets were spectacular

with my new friends (I'm somewhere in the middle!)

yet another orchid

I love the packaging

my favourite fruit

shells and coral fragments from the beach which had to be returned to sea as I didn't realise I shouldn't have collected them

a flower arrangement in the Sultan of Tidore's palace

Ofo, the oldest clove tree in the world

nutmeg flowers

a lesson in harvesting nutmeg

jackfruit tree and cassava in her pack

ants needed

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2012-01-02T11:09:00.001Z

The sun is shining, the sky is blue, portents of a great year to come I hope. HEARTFELT HAPPY NEW YEAR.

We had coffee outside this morning, the winter blossom is shining, the new grass that I sowed post landscaping in early December is already germinating and growing, and things are looking wintry but positive. There are all sorts of exciting things afoot here in spring, but in two days time I am off to explore the Spice islands for a few weeks, expecting to spy all sorts of exciting exotic flora and fauna. While I am away Anna is kindly dealing with all office stuff and Dianne calling in to the gardens so it will be winter business as usual here, and I hope to return with new energy and enthusiasm for what I hope will be a wonderful year. For all of us!

I am very glad 2010 is over as my wonderful friends and family, my flowers and my amazing customers all helped me through a pretty rough personal journey last year. All a bit like a terrible old joke where a man goes into a pub looking miserable and the barman tries to cheer him up but the man says he's miserable because his dog has died. Cue cheery chat and the barman thinks he's winning then the man says '... and my wife has left me', cue more attempts at cheery chat, then 'and my mother has died' at which point the attempts at cheery chat are becoming exhausted, before a final 'and my only brother hasn't spoken to me since the funeral...'. Well yes, all that and not a joke (only I had a husband, not a wife) but I'm sure 2012 is going to be a really positive year. Fortunately I am blessed with a huge innate store of optimism, and I am looking forward to all sorts of exciting developments in flower world, and this spring my darling daughter and her wonderful partner are getting married here, so that's certainly a highlight to get going with.
Happy New Year!

End of the year flowering

2011-12-29T17:20:00.000Z

Feeling rather low after a major Christmas infection that hurled me into bed for a few days despite having my wonderful family at home for a few days, I ventured into an incredibly windswept field today and was delighted to pick an end of year table decoration to include hellebores and heleniums, scabious and snow-in-summer, cornflowers and astrantia, eryngiums and even an Oriental poppy and a shirley poppy! Was there ever such a strange year. At this rate the already-budding paperwhites will be flowering with poppies, certainly some very usual bedfellows. If the rain and wind stop for a while tomorrow I may get to venture further! There are quite a number of hellebores out already in the top garden, some that were already here, but some that I brought back from my mother's garden, so were delighted to pick some of those to have on the Christmas table as we toasted her health.

I'm looking forward to 2012. Lots to do, and hopefully lots more energy, this year has been a bit tough on the personal front here but god bless those little flowers which really do help to keep me smiling.

There will be some new mail order services from here from spring, and some special bridal offers, I'm already looking forward to our first wedding in London in February. And I've discovered a glorious dress shop, if you're planning your wedding do check out Belle and Bunty, which now has to be my favourite dress shop particularly for brides to be, and they have posted a lovely piece on our flowers - Thanks Girls!

http://www.belleandbunty.co.uk/blog/?p=815#comments

This time next week I will be on my way to some warmth, so I'm about to dig out the bikinis from (very) cold storage. The phone messages will still be answered every few days, and mails replied to, and I shall be back towards the end of Jan. Hopefully with a bit of sun on my skin and renewed energy for what I hope will be a fantastic flowery year. A New Year resolution will be to improve admin and actually do some marketing, so watch this space!

November with Rock and Roll antlers

2011-12-07T18:51:00.002Z

Ali and Dan did a huge round trip of hundreds of miles the day they came to visit, and all they wanted was bouquets and buttonholes. But now I see the photos of their November 12th wedding - featured on Rock 'N Roll Bride today - I understand why they went so so much trouble. Amazing ideas and some rather wonderful photos from Laura Babb

http://www.rocknrollbride.com/2011/12/a-psych-folk-horror-themed-wedding-ali-dan/#more-97849

Lots of brides ask about the differences between the wedding flowers we send out by courier and the wedding flowers where we bring everything to you and do the whole arranging service. Basically the flowers are broadly the same, at the same prices, but we can only send certain types of bouquet and decoration by courier, other times we need to come and set everything up for you. And some of the more delicate flowers or types of arrangement won't travel so we only use these when we are arranging everything for you. Our bouquet and buttonhole service is Increasingly popular and we have designed new packaging for this and other wedding flowers for 2012.

We also have an increasing large collection of vessels, from pewter pots and glassware through very individual vintage jugs and teapots as well as candelabra and churns, buckets and baskets.

I can't resist this bouquet picture, it might just be my favourite of the year!

It's August again

2011-12-06T12:10:00.002Z

Lovely photos just in from Fiona Kelly, of Lottie and Jake's wedding at the beginning of August. I'm rather pleased with them - and the flowers of course! I think Fiona really captures the freshness of the day. And how lovely to be looking at sweet peas today when outside it is drear, and seriously clarty.
All Photography by Fiona Kelly Photography
www.fionasweddingphotography.co.uk

January

2011-12-05T16:39:00.001Z

I won't be around much in January. I haven't told the gorgeous but needy dogs yet that an interloper will be house sitting.

It's the one time of the year when I can take time out completely with no flower concerns and although I was assuming I'd just be hunkering down at home and getting on with planning and sorting, something rather wonderful has just happened. Completely out of the blue some friends have asked me to join them as their guest on a trip around the Moluccas. It seems to involve a schooner, nature and volcanos.

So on my birthday I shall be in Papua New Guinea. Now that's not something I was ever expecting to say!

wintry wedding shoot

2011-12-05T16:22:00.002Z

After a vile day of wind and rain it was OK on the day for Gemma Williams photoshoot at Wilton castle near Ross on Wye, now a wedding venue. OK so marigolds and cornflowers aren't really wintry flowers but I thought it would be fun to go for some cheery colour to lighten a dreary end November day. Too often winter wedding flower arrangements go a bit green, or are seriously imported.

I think the flowers looked fun and the colours certainly shone brightly in Gemma's atmospheric pictures, I had fun making up a bunch with fluffy grass seedheads too.

Contact Gemma at

www.gemmawilliamsphotography.co.uk

Summer memories

2011-12-05T15:55:00.000Z

A few photos just arrived in my inbox from the gorgeous stylish Lara's wedding at Barnsley House in June. Nothing spectacular of the bouquet unfortunately as it was really beautiful, delicately arching sprays of two different kinds of orange blossom, deleaved. with roses honeysuckle and asparagus fern. It took ages and ages and was very delicate and looked beautiful when she carried it..... Adult bridesmaids had three peonies, little bridesmaids just headwear.... The groom and groomsmen had possibly my favourite buttonholes of the year, dried hellebore heads with brown seeds still in place, with vintage fabric leaves attached to the stems.

The chairs for the ceremony were tied with bundles of beribboned fern which did rather suit the setting, and all table decorations were in random white china, colours throughout were whites, blush and olive or emerald shades.

end November photoshoot flowers

2011-11-29T19:35:00.000Z

Filthy day, blowing a hooli, raining, sleeting, but still I found something pretty for the delightful Gemma Williams to take to a wedding photoshoot tomorrow. Pre-shoot photos here:

end of season

2011-11-21T09:28:00.001Z

Yes it's finally the end of the season for fresh flowers here, ending with Alison and Dan's wild mid November wedding where we used dahlias, eryngiums, scabious, rudbeckias, lots of seed heads, yellow thistle like centaurea, purple little thistle like centaurea (I have got a totally blank spot about my late season centaureas but they are very useful!) and even the odd delphinium. Now we still have some tulips to plant and have just popped in 30 luscious peonies - I love planting peonies as this is thinking of the future, imagining what they will be like when we start cropping in 3 years time!

Then it's on to trees, I'm still cogitating about what to plant and where but I am planning on tree-ing up the field for more shelter and structure. I so wish I had planted more trees right at the beginning but I didn't know whether anything was going to work then and wanted to start slowly and feel my way. The hornbeams have now grown up well, it has taken 4 years to make a good solid windbreak hedge with then, the orchard is struggling in the face of all the wind but one day I'm sure it will be settled and productive. I'm seriously impressed with some of the big cotoneasters which grow like triffids, and I'm looking forward to the now maturing willow plot next spring....

Today is a landmark day as I'm having The Mound moved. Behind the cottage is a flat area which is currently taken up with shrubs and perennials and veg on one side, there has been a parking area on the other and in the centre a large circular earth mound with a little cave in the middle. It is not an ancient burial mound but was my husband's idea of where to put the spoil when we built on to the cottage in 2002. I went along with the idea but it's never been something I have loved. It looks glorious for six to eight weeks of the year when completely awash with ox-eyes, but otherwise is a maintenance nightmare and a block to the view and to everything else. So today it goes. Hurrah! Hooray! In the spring we shall have my daughter's wedding marquee in the same space, (a bit risky to put it on the field in case of what used to be normal April weather) then I'm thinking a bit of formality in what is otherwise a completely informal garden and field. All terrifically exciting..... I intended to post photos but once again the card reader is refusing to function. One day technology and I will have an improved relationship but not yet, I am currently waiting to see if Apple people have managed to salvage the hard drive from my last laptop which had almost all my photos from last year stored on it. I know I should always back everything up but No, I didn't. So I can blame no-one else but myself and say once again Must Do Better.

I'm not doing Christmas trade this year as it has been a bit of a year on the personal front and I need to enjoy a little less frenetic time and some proper planning. Maybe even get that book written finally! And we have saved lots of seeds which will be available in spring, and there is even a slightly new look in the offing thanks to one of my son's colleagues at the branding agency for which he works. It should all be launched in April, if I can bear to wait that long!

DIY flowers

2011-11-07T20:55:00.000Z

Delightful and beautifully photographed piece on Love My Dress wedding blog showing a gorgeous vintagey wedding where we sent Jane the bride the flowers to diy, I looked at the piece and thought "Gosh, those beautiful flowers look vaguely familiar" but as I hadn't done the arranging, just sent them loose flowers, it is so lovely to see what Jane and family and friends did with them!

http://www.lovemydress.net/blog/2011/11/edwardian-wedding-dress-vintage-garden-party-wedding.html

Back in the happy wedding zone!

2011-10-28T17:22:00.000+01:00

And now it's time to start dreaming about my gorgeous daughter Rowan's wedding to Dan next spring, something wonderful to look forward to. And all the other brides-to-be of course, I didn't know how the wedding business was going to take me when I started doing the flowers what now seems like decades ago but is only a few years , I knew I didn't want to do run of the mill weddings but in fact I don't think there's any such thing and I just can't help loving weddings..... We've just done our last full one of the season as last year the weather got so bad in November we were very stuck and I just couldn't bear the potential stress so decided not to take on any (apart from some mail order bridal flowers) between November and March.

So a few pictures from Lotte and Ben's last month. They had an almost private ceremony at the registry office on the Friday, then had a church blessing on the Saturday which was the big event, but it meant Lotte got a pink posy and a pale mixed bouquets, and Ben wasn't meant to be wearing a buttonhole with his uniform but somehow it seemed to get brought along from the registry do.... I love their delicious little bridesmaids too.

Thank you

2011-10-16T07:33:00.000+01:00

Thank you to all of you who have emailed me to send good wishes, I really appreciate it, thank you.

An era passes

2011-10-13T10:18:00.001+01:00

Summer is definitely past.
Last week my darling mother died. At home, with family, in her room with its two large windows overlooking the beautiful gardens she has worked in daily for 35 years. It was a wonderful death and I must hang on to that. She was a wonderful inspirational strong positive woman. I spoke to her at least once every day for the past months and it is hard to resist the impulse to pick up the phone and call her number. Already I miss her so much.

So the last major flowers I will do myself this year will be for my mother's funeral. She was so happy that I had taken up her gardening baton. Last year she loved the Open Day here (pictured above), she was on the gate much of the time, fiercely making sure that every one paid. She spent time every day in her gardens, singing away happily as she worked. She is going to be much missed by many. Especially by her family who she loved so much.

Thank heavens for my wonderful team here led by Dianne, and amazing helpful friends which means that much is going on pretty much as usual in the gardens. Last week Annette and Imogen stepped in and finished off the flowers for a large event in North Wales, took them up and arranged them and did a wonderful job for me by all accounts. This weekend Meg and I will make up the flowers for Rick and Emily's wedding tomorrow then Meg will go up and finish off while I go down to Dorset. I am stopping our automatic on line mail order early but We'll still do special orders if people email first - we still have a mass of colour in the field, though this morning's downpour means things are looking a trifle soggy.

Late Sept wedding

2011-09-29T10:29:00.000+01:00

The first photo from C and E's wedding on Saturday. A good sprinkling of cornflowers in predominantly green and white was the brief, fairly traditional but on the wilder side, and I had sown loads of late cornflowers that I had hoped would be out for that weekend, but they are just budding nicely this week so one week too late. Happily we still have hundreds of others, they just take a bit of picking through at this time of year.

When I thought about it earlier in the year I would never have expected to have roses or clematis flowering away now, it definitely has been a fantastic year for flowers, we still have a field full, it's terribly exciting to see how different everything is year on year. But then I'm already wondering if next year might be disastrous as this year has been so floriferous, the joys of working for yourself never wane!

This weekend we are on multicoloured seasonal flowers for an intimate wedding near here, and greens and pinks and whites plus loads of berries and grasses for one rather farther away......

stuff

2011-09-26T21:24:00.000+01:00

So much going on, so little time to get to write anything here.

Bill Tingey is an interesting and excellent photographer and I feel v lucky to have him working with me, we're getting images together for a joint project, this weekend he came round and took some lovely autumn arrangement shots but I'm afraid I haven't got them yet, but he also took some of some v simple church decs a couple of weeks ago (sills were small hanging decorations to be removed and put in the marquee) and in the field. My favourite was the random one in the flower house above of a message I'd left for Di as I had to be at my mum's!

I'm still totally in love with ammi because I love using things just as they are, the church urn was actually huge but hard to show as the bride just wanted simple structural arrangements with no fuss, but this weekend was very different, a flock of candelabras (no doubt pics later) and a trailing bouquet which is the one type of bouquet that takes a lot of thought. As I only use our flowers in the gardens I have to find things that have the right shape and form as well as colour so it can be less easy than hand ties where I have just so much choice. This weekend the bride wanted creams and greens with touches of cornflower blue, so the trails were arching stems of the lovely clematis viticella alba complete with many hanging green and white flowers, and some jasmine, coming out of a collection of creamy roses, cleomes, white larkspur and greenery and some wired cornflowers in the trail. I know that florists conventionally often use ivies for these types of bouquets but I'm not a great fan of ivy, somehow it just seems too ordinary when there are so many other possibilities.

I have been totally useless at marketing this year, in fact I have done none and do feel a bit stupid about it but there has been so much going on on the personal front that it has been impossible to find time for extras, but I do have lots of plans for next year! I was slightly amused, slightly less than amused to open the computer to find a regular weekly marketing email from a company near here that sells all manner of country stuff and does very well, they are sizeable and successful and they have a large online store. They also sell mail order flowers, and have fantastic marketing and advertising campaigns selling english bouquets. All fine, and very different from those that we produce here. Ours are home grown, I guess they are in many ways bouquets for gardeners and garden aficionados as well as for anyone who loves flowers, the other company sells english flowers mainly bought in from wholesalers for their florists to work with. They are proudly stating how their bouquets are now in the Jigsaw clothing stores who are now using english flowers. Two years ago (or maybe three) we were the first flower growers in this country to work with Jigsaw and provided all their stores with our flowers for some while, and have for three years provided them with all their christmas arrangements (though presumably no longer) but I just couldn't find a way to make our organically grown home grown seasonal flowers stand up to the lights and heat in the stores so we decided not to continue with the contract. I'm sure their new providers will make it work but it was interesting for me to see marketing at work when I don't think I ever publicised the fact we were working with Jigsaw! I obviously miss many tricks..... Next year I may tell you who we're working with as we are currently exploring an exciting new possibility, but I guess for me the most important thing is making sure something works, properly. The Jigsaw contract was exciting for me, but actually it was a bit too early for the business and a bit too much trial and error at that stage. I believe that growth needs to be organic in every sense and I am now excited to say that I think I know what we're doing now, and how to provide the best service.

It is often said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but actually sometimes it's a bit annoying! This same company copied my way of packaging flowers with moss, then started selling the exact same jugs that I was selling at Hampton Court and shows... for heavens sake, they are big and successful, they do not need to look over their shoulder at my little enterprise. But they gave a list of the flowers they are sending out this week which made me smile and also made me think of providing a list:
Today I sent out bouquets including snapdragons, stocks, phlox, asters, verbena, larkspur, molucella, asparagus, viburnum, scabious, nigella, cleome, statice, ammi, dahlias, roses, zinnias.......The field has really come up trumps this year.

We are moving towards the end of wedding season as I decided not to do any from November through February because last year's snow made me realise the impossibility of transport when you live far from main roads (or snowploughs). We still have a mass of blooms, and lots of berries and foliage to come, but the thought of being unable to deliver is just too stressful.

And the most wonderful news is that my gorgeous daughter Rowan is marrying her wonderful partner Dan next April. The florist has been booked!

brightful delightful

2011-09-13T20:00:00.000+01:00

weddings, wind and worry

2011-09-12T10:35:00.001+01:00

I arrived at Llanstephan church about 9.30 on Saturday to put in a large urn on a pedestal for Hannah and Adrian's wedding and hang a garland plus some bits and pieces. Flower choice was wildish, pastel and silvery foliage. A group of black suited people turned up, and didn't seem entirely friendly which was odd as people round there are usually only too happy to chat and chat and chat. I thought maybe they were a choir coming to practice... then the organist appeared while I was busy making a bit of a mess with the urn up by the altar. She started playing. I said how lovely it always is to be in the church when the organist comes to practice. She said nothing. So, slightly surprised at the choice of music she was practising (Abide with me didn't seem terrifically jolly for a wedding though I could see the sentiment would work) I said "What other hymns are they having?". Oh only the one, she said. And said no more. Bemused, I look up to see the priest hurrying up the aisle. "I think it would be respectful for you to get out now please?".....No-one had told me there was a memorial service at 10.00!

Meanwhile Ben and Lotte were getting married in my local church (but they booked after Hannah so we did their flowers the day before), with wild and seedy things in the church and structural mustards and blues and lime greens in the marquee. Alice was having an incredibly laid back and extremely bright diy affair up the road (an excuse for whole bouquets of zinnias for the bridesmaids) , and Kate was having a very subtly coloured bluey green, dull pinks and purples post wedding party in Stroud. I think all went off well.

Last night the wind blew so hard (again) that I lay awake worrying whether the tunnel would still be there this morning. I sneaked out at first light, braving the rain and gales to find the tunnel was fine BUT an unexpected menace was appearing. A tree had blown down in the hedge and the sheep in the next field had obviously just woken up, found the gap and decided breakfast looked pretty damn tasty in the flower field. Thank heavens I rose early.... two mad hours then followed trying to haul wire and poles from the other end of the field against the gale (typically, everything was in totally the wrong place and it took me twenty minutes each time to push a barrow from one end of the field to the other as I was pushing straight into the wind) and make good for the time being.

And now some happy snaps of flowers from the wedding three weeks ago, the one for which we planted wildflowers outside the tent. The bouquet shown here was one of the bridesmaids', I'm asking for some of the bride and the whole bridal party as it was all very cheery.......

Rabbits and vegetables

2011-09-03T22:04:00.000+01:00

Home this evening after another busy wedding day, when there's a rap on the door. It's my wonderful legal poachers, lads from the Valleys who come up from time to time to help control the rabbits, sometimes they bring guns, sometimes ferrets, sometimes lamps, sometimes dogs, probably sometimes the whole shebang. The older man has a fruit and veg business and tonight he also brings me a sack of new spuds, a huge bag of plums, onions, carrots, turnips, spring onions, two cabbages, damsons, pears, bananas....... Looks like rabbit stew and a massive fruit pud will be on the menu any day now!

Though I'm not sure about the plums, especially as my preserving pan has been on every evening this week making all manner of plum preserves to try to use up my own plum glut. I already have pots and pots of damson cheese, plum cheese, spiced plum and herb jelly, pickled plums (i.e. nothing where the fruit need stoning!) and my massive old pear tree is also dripping with fruit though I'm not doing so well with apples.

Oh and I've already pigged out today on scrumptious yellow autumn raspberries. Gluts are wonderful for gluttons like me!

Field snapshots

2011-09-02T22:57:00.000+01:00

A few snaps of what's growing in some parts of the field today - and yes, it would have been better if I'd got the camera out on one of the many days when the sky has been cobalt blue and there's been not a whisper of wind, but I'm afraid I didn't. But you can probably get an idea both of the profusion and the confusion. I haven't shown the dahlia bed, the scruffy shrubs, the far too large patch of supremely beautiful but undersold solidago, the michaelmas daisies or the areas in waiting - half an acre roughly cultivated waiting for compost next month and then to be put down to yet more tulips and dozens of new roses, another large patch currently resting under landscape fabric waiting for hydrangeas, and lots of patches just, well, waiting.

So many ideas at the moment but not time to put any of them into action yet. I've got a serious case of my typical gardener's disease at the moment, a huge dose of enthusiasm about what I can do next and better rather than sorting out lots of what I probably should be doing now! I can hardly wait to see what the field will be looking like this time next year.......

divine dahlias

2011-08-30T19:51:00.000+01:00

OK there was a time when we all hated dahlias. How wrong we were! I do like the pinks, but the yellow and gold are also wonderful, and the yellows and oranges...

Bright or pale?

2011-08-27T14:14:00.000+01:00

Bit of a dilemma at this time of year, shall we go bright, shall we go pale? Happily I seem to have customers wanting both, but my mind definitely changes from day to day. When my seed sown dahlias first came up I wondered what on earth I had sown as they looked a bit dodgy, but now I'm rather in love with them, especially the oranges with quill like petals.... but on the other hand I love the beautiful pink dahlias too, or the almost black ones with black stems, or the white ones with black foliage, or the luminous reds, and the purple and white cactus types, and the sulphur yellows, even the little tomato lookalikes have a certain appeal. But now I'm not sure about the zinnias. They just could be a bit in the face for me - they're fab for buttonholes but I don't think I really need hundreds of plants just for a few buttonholes.

So if any one needs extra zinnias, mine is the place to get them! (actually that goes for dahlias at the moment too, and I've probably got a bit of a surplus of amazing solidago, and deep pink asters, and larkspur and yellow/green centred rudbeckia and bronze rudbeckia and annual shaggy headed mixed asters and gypsophila.......)

At my mother's house again today, looking at her Saturday paper's magazine cover and wondering how Barbara Streisand now looks like Jennifer Aniston who must be a good twenty-five years younger than her? Curious. (But when I look in the mirror I just wonder how I got to look like my mother who is thirty years older than me!)

Autumnal feeling

2011-08-22T10:30:00.000+01:00

Distinct feeling of autumn in the air this morning, soon it will be time for those rolling mists that swirl above the rive Wye below the field so the world is divided in two, hills above the clouds and field below. Lots of autumnal mustard colours in the field, lots of cobwebs in the hedges.

But the bees are still working hard, and yesterday they found me just that bit too irritating. There are so many in the field, buzzing about every flowerhead, that I sometimes feel guilty as I pick their current larder and force them elsewhere. Yesterday I was deadheading some poppies and deadheaded a bee as well. My hand was temporarily deservedly sore.

Top of my wish list for next year is to build a much much larger more efficient flower studio!

Surely some mistake

2011-08-16T09:56:00.000+01:00

Among the slew of unwanted approaches came this one from a PR firm. Would you want these people to publicise your business?

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Goodbye to my dear companion

2011-08-15T15:49:00.000+01:00

Sunday August 14th. Not a good day. Today my dear dear delightful kind and slightly eccentric beautiful old dog Maya went to her final resting place below the mint and hydrangeas. She has been with me almost every day for the past almost 13 years and she has been so very much loved. I shall miss her. Her daughter Mouse already misses her as they have never ben apart for more than a few hours. The house and gardens will feel very empty. Thank you Maya, you have been wonderful.

Timing!

2011-08-13T18:51:00.000+01:00

Once in a while the timing works out just about right. We sowed the seed for this wedding on an organic farm nearby on April 23rd, which I thought would work out about right for a wedding today. And thank heavens, it did. OK some more sunflowers still to come but I think that's because one of the helpers sowed them so close on one side they haven't had much of a chance, but really that's a tiny little quibble. But I don't know if I would do it for people I didn't know, just in case it didn't work so well!

The hanging globe looks disappointingly tiny but is actually a good 2.5metres across, it's quite a big dome tent! Otherwise I went for a good mixture of everything as Clare wanted bright not pastel and a total mix. It was rather a joy to do. I'm looking forward to proper pix and of the church which we did out good and proper....

The groom really wanted sweet peas, so they just went on the top table. Otherwise there were lots of dahlias of all sorts and colours, plus many zinnias and other little hot treasures in the very wide mix and we must have used about 500 stems of dill and ammi in the church and elsewhere and about the same of achillea in the archway as I wanted to use dark pinkish reds as the base to contrast with the yellows of the wildflowers.

daisy daisy

2011-08-10T09:36:00.002+01:00

Well if you're called Daisy and you get married in a church in the middle of the mountains, then daisies do seem a bit appropriate.

vintage

2011-08-08T20:15:00.000+01:00

I think the lovely Lottie and Jake's wedding could be fairly described as "vintage" - marquee in a glorious garden by Hampstead heath where Lottie's grandmother has lived for 52 years, it felt like heaven, the glorious feeling of a well-loved and well-lived in home where several generations have been married. I majored on jugs, and was thrilled to be able to include my all time favourite summer flowers, white corncockles which are just so delicate and rather ephemeral, five creamy white petals with the centres flecked with gold. That's one of the lovely things about growing my own, I grow things that I love, and if I don't get the chance to use them because of the weather or whatever then that's sort of fine because I love them, but if I get the chance to spread them around, so much the better!

Back in the gardens I'm also rather in love with nicotianas, pick them and the house if full ever evening with a wonderful vanilla scent. And dahlias are coming into their own, I have some that are frankly hideous, but I won't show you those as they will probably be destined for the compost heap and I'll never grow them again, but some are just lovely.

Rock n Roll!

2011-07-28T12:39:00.000+01:00

I'm not sure how it all works but our flowers seem to be making it onto quite a few blogs at the moment. Laurence and Gi's wedding is on http://www.rocknrollbride.com/ I love the fact that old-fashioned country flowers are now rock and roll!

Peer pressure

2011-07-26T15:38:00.000+01:00

Particular thanks to one emailer among many who got in touch in response to my rant about people just turning up out of the blue and expecting to be shown round for a good peer and given all the gen.... I specially like her description as Peer Pressure.......

stopping and thinking

2011-07-25T20:55:00.000+01:00

Days pass, weeks pass..... more fun in the field and some trauma elsewhere but life continues and flowers are definitely the best therapy, it's amazing how I can be feeling a bit worried about things then I go out and start picking, weeding, making up bunches and I'm happy. Maybe I'm just a truly shallow human being but I do think it's more that flowers have the ability to transcend normal cares and genuinely make anyone feel good. They are beautiful....

I had a lovely day at Barnsley House with their flower team on Tuesday, making suggestions about the styles of arrangements for the house using flowers and foliage from their own gardens. It made me smile slightly to think how the late Rosemary Verey had been very polite but a tad condescending on the occasions when I interviewed her (in what now seems a previous life!) and now here I am with a pair of snips and willing helpers plundering her gardens. The head gardener there, Richard, is doing a great job under sometimes less than easy circumstances, and I was particularly taken with his sidekick Ed's interpretation of what should now go in the potager. I plundered some rat's tail radish pods for seed!

More weddings, last weekend was a lovely affair at a church in Malvern and then at the glorious Hellens House, one of the most stunning houses in Britain in my opinion. I have the biggest lilies imaginable in the garden, truly monstrous things over 6 foot tall with stems like trunks, so I find them a little hard to place but Meg said we just had to use them so she managed to get them to look wild enough with a huge complement of ammi and phlox and veronicastrum and suchlike. meanwhile I had to restrain myself from serious nausea in the van as I'm afraid I don't usually use lilies not just because of their trad associations but because the scent makes me heave.....

Now I really really do not want to be rude to people and I felt terribly mean when a delightful interesting and interested lady who had booked on my course, that I had to cancel because of running up and down to visit my mother, came to look around (pre-arranged and very welcome) and I really was too busy and also too exhausted to give her the time that she should have had, though Dianne did a great job showing her and her friend round. She and her friend were charming and very understanding but I wish I had been more sociable. But sometimes people surprise me, not in a good way.

Ok the rant: This morning I received a message on my landline answerphone from a woman who knows someone whom I vaguely know and asked if she could come and look at the gardens and see what I was growing and would I please get back to her. So I put her number on the pile of "to do later" things, not thinking it was in the slightest bit urgent and got on with a busy day here. Well blow me down some time just after lunch when I was in the office organising labels for mail outs the woman appears. And asks to look around. I told her she had put me in an impossible situation because despite the fact she was here I was going to say No and if she had waited for me to call her back I would have told her No because we are too busy to show people round just because they feel like coming to see what's happening here, that there are reasons why I'm not having an Open Day this year (not just personal stuff but parking issues and because we have just been so busy I don't want to devote extra necessary time to clearing up and that really does need to happen before an Open Day) but I hope to have a fab one next year..... Anyway, to cut a long story short I didn't show her round as I was anyway in the middle of doing the mail outs but more from the principle. But when I told her that, and that this is a business and not an open garden, she was not daunted and informed me that she knew it was a business and she was coming for business reasons because she wanted to get ideas for what she could grow to sell. Honestly, some people are a little extraordinary....I wondered how she would feel if I turned up at her house because I'd heard from someone who vaguely knew her that she was doing something I fancied having a go at and wanted to go and check it out. And now I probably have a big black mark against me by a sector of the Herefordshire society to whom she belongs and I'm sorry about that but I can't spread myself any thinner than I do already some days, and we do show lots of people around - all our wedding customers of course and many many other purchasers and friends of friends, but I just can't drop everything just because someone wants to come and have a peer. I'm sorry if it seems rude, but it just is the way it is.

The gorgeous Natural Wedding Charlie!

2011-07-11T10:31:00.000+01:00

Charlie Burton, now Rigg, who runs the amazingly useful and helpful www.thenaturalweddingcompany.co.uk was married last month. She takes such trouble with all the detail and is one of the most delightful people you could hope to come across. Her photos are up on the Love my Dress wedding blog
http://www.lovemydress.net/blog/2011/07/rustic-outdoor-eco-chic-country-garden-wedding.html

Full on again for last weekend, a cheery bright wedding in Dorset - an excuse to use lots of purples and oranges which rarely feature in my wedding flowers, photos will I'm sure appear ere long - and a huge party coincidentally in the same area, this required about 65 feet of garlands and the biggest hanging globe I have ever made, loads of branches of spray roses, herbaceous clematis etc trailing down from a mix of foliages, phlox and roses. (No photos from this one as I never feel I should have pictures from seriously private society events). I've finally become entranced by clematis and am now on the case for a mass planting, but the problem with my site is still the wind and it will take another three years minimum to grow the right shelter. But we are still planning on a bit of a mass rose planting this autumn.

After the do's I had the chance to spend a few more days with my mother before heading back home tomorrow. Happily my events were both in the same part of the county as her house. But I'm hoping she may recover enough to come up to mine before too many weeks, still all rather fingers crossed.

A heavenly little wedding

2011-07-06T08:39:00.000+01:00

I loved this wedding, tiny, informal but oh so beautiful in Somerset last weekend. It is fab to be asked to do something a bit out of the ordinary and Gi and Laurence are really lovely people - check out the brilliant photos from Rosie Parsons

http://www.rosieparsons.com/blog/2011/07/an-informal-bohemian-summer-wedding-laurence-and-gi/

COURSE CANCELLATION

2011-06-28T17:43:00.000+01:00

Many apologies, I have had to cancel next Monday's course on Planning a Cutting Garden as my mother is not well and I'm cancelling or postponing anything that is possible for me to drop at the moment. Thank heavens for brilliant helpers to keep everything else ticking along and helping me with wedding and event flowers......thanks to you all.

a well blogged wedding

2011-06-24T14:16:00.000+01:00

I keep being sent links to the Surrey wedding two weeks ago. V,vintage. This is the one where I thought the wrist corsages didn't work but have to admit they look Ok in the pix, what I can see of them, and the bride loved them. Check it out

http://www.kylehepp.com/2011/06/surrey-farm-wedding-sarah-y-gus/

the bigger picture?

2011-06-23T18:44:00.000+01:00

I was rather tired at the beginning of this week, then realised we have been quite busy, this is how the last ten days went:
Friday, Somerset wedding (Chloe and Tim, pix already on blog). Meg prepared much for one of the next day's weddings and when I got back I set to on buttonholes, bouquets and wrist corsages. Decided I just don't do wrist corsages as my flowers didn't seem to love them so I sent spare bouquets as well just in case. (In fact the bride loved the w.cs but I didn't think they were good enough.)
Saturday, Dianne took wedding flowers to Surrey and I did a lovely wildflower style local wedding (several better pics below from the wonderful Bill Tingey, and check out the jackdaw who was living in the church when we arrived!). The bride had been to the field on Monday and chosen delicate frilly edged shirley poppies to go in her bouquet. I warned here they were a bit delicate and I couldn't pick them if it rained much. It rained on Friday, but I still picked what I could and included them, warning her that they might turn to confetti as she walked down the (very short) aisle. I'm looking forward to a bridal picture because she loved them so much she took her bouquet with her to the airport the next day, and sent me an email telling me how it was three days later sitting on their table in Cyprus in a pint pot and four more of the poppies had opened. Not so fragile after all!

Sunday, wedding in Gloucestershire at the beautiful Barnsley House. I arrived quite late, about 10am but should have been earlier as it took every minute until the ceremony! Large arrangements plus groups of different "vintage" glassware on tables, peony bouquet, lots of different touches. The rain was torrential but the bride was very chilled and they held everything indoors despite months of planning. Photos will appear. The lovely wedding organiser at BH said they thought they were the most beautiful flowers they had ever had in the restaurant so I was pleased.
Monday, photoshoot in Glos.
Tuesday, home, organising gardens and admin and lots of picking in the rain, including 10 huge buckets of ferns.
Wednesday, picking and preparing for next wedding. Finding all the necessary hurricane vases for outdoor candles, 35 white assorted sized vases, jugs, sugar bowls, teapots, then sorting the flowers..... The bouquet had been worrying me a bit as I must have had many dozens of bouquet shots for reference. Help! Lara wanted something loose and delicate, all references were of spring bouquets including things like fritillaries and snowdrops, then white clematis but even that is over. So in the evening I set to on stage one and after several attempts with different possibilities including honeysuckles and trailing clematis stems I finally plumped for different orange blossoms, deleafed, to give the delicate arching shape, some ferns and roses and asparagus fern and bupleurum. It took me ages but I think it worked well.
Thursday. Wedding again at Barnsley House. Up at 5 to check and finish the bouquet. Arrived at 8.30am and somehow had a very busy day, arriving back home at 8.30pm. Meg had spent much of the day preparing church flowers for tomorrow.
Friday. Took church flowers to Shropshire and hung garland - thanks to the son of the family for a better ladder and better balance!
Saturday. Another wedding. This time as a guest. I only took bouquet, buttonholes and jugs for tables....

This week was meant to be rather quiet and peaceful with only a tiny wedding this weekend but still seems to have been quite busy. Sadly my mum has had a stroke and it has been hard not being able to dash straight down to Dorset to look after her but I have no wedding helpers around this week so just must do Saturday morning then I will be away for a few days. It's wonderful having Dianne and super part time helpers here so things keep going, though mail order will be an unknown quantity next week.

more snaps from last weekend

2011-06-14T23:20:00.000+01:00

A bit of a contrast to the medievally pre-raphaelitey one last weekend, these were two days earlier. A small bouquet shot from a lovely Indian bride who wanted purples and creams. I always worry slightly about mail order wedding bouquets although probably unnecessarily as we do tend to get lovely comments back....And some shots from the rather lovely Chloe and Tim's wedding the same day. We are getting quite adaptable I think! Plus

one end may wedding

2011-06-14T23:11:00.000+01:00

Pix just in from a happy bride who wanted a country wedding in town.

Monday june 13th

2011-06-13T21:02:00.000+01:00

Busy few days. Thursday preparing for a wedding in North Yorks which a friend took up and delivered and preparing or a wedding in Somerset, Friday arranging in Somerset, Meg preparing for a Surrey wedding which Dianne took up on Saturday while I did a local wedding at the most beautiful tiny church on the Black Mountains, complete with roosting jackdaws, Sunday a wedding at Barnsley House in the absolutely pouring rain so all inside and somehow it just takes so much longer when it's pouring and I was preparing in a separate building, but I'm looking forward to the pics as it was all rather lovely. Monday photoshoot.

A few pics of a wonderful joyous wedding where the bride and groom were accompanied by their 7 children and 5 grandchildren, madly pre Raphaelite and hedgerow flowers (mainly because it had been pouring with rain the preceding days so I picked wild flowers that morning)

and a few other snaps from other weddings this weekend but as usual I took scarcely any and none of some as was just too busy....

full days

2011-06-06T11:41:00.000+01:00

Since last hitting the blog button it's been fairly busy. Huberta and Ursula saved my life when they stayed for two weeks as volunteers, we had a great time too and by complete lucky chance fulfilled Ursula's greatest dream to go to Chelsea.... I enjoyed putting some flowers together for the GI Chelsea lecture at the RGS, decided at the last minute to go for form rather than flower as the lecture space meant the flowers would scarcely be seen but the shadows would be prominent. For the lecture theatre I borrowed amazing huge cobalt blue jars which were the stars of the show and filled them with single types of widish flowers - sweet rocket, ox-eyes, aquilegias, iris, and Oriental poppies. Elsewhere it was urns on RGS fantastic pedestals. Sadly it took me almost seven hours to get into London as an accident on the M4 meant it was closed for hours. So it was a longish day, leaving at 6am and getting back home at 2.30am! Two days later it was up to town again for weddings in Fulham and Holland Park. No pictures yet, apart from a single globe, but they will appear.
We dressed a reception at Fulham Palace and have to say it was not a well organised venue, we arrived at the allotted time (11am) to find there was no-one to speak to us, the woman who'd arranged it all was away and her deputy wasn't in, no-one knew what was going on or even where we should go! But all worked out fine. Meg of course was wonderful as always and thanks so much to Ali Harvie who took a day off from her real work to help, along with my wonderful daughter Rowan. And on the Saturday we even released Rowan's wonderful partner Dan's hidden flower arranging skills!

And this week was boxes of loose flowers flying over the country for diy weddings, bunches and bouquets for a wedding in Pembrokeshire which the bride very helpfully collected, a church and marquee wedding locally, and peony and wild bouquets and jam jars for two more weddings. Rather full on. Photos from the church and marquee wedding will hopefully appear as the flowers were beautiful and the bouquets very pretty but there was a bit of a glitsch at this one. Threequarters of the way through arranging everything the bride's father and sister appeared to tell Meg and I that we were using the wrong flowers. Hmm. Largely to do with an interpretation of what colour alchemilla is. Note to remember that some people apparently believe that alchemilla is bright yellow. And then queries about the bouquets and all else, assuming that I was perhaps colour blind I fear. So it was a bit of a process. Very luckily Meg is not only the best church flower arranger around, she is also an excellent peacemaker. I'm afraid the church heard some rather anglo saxon language from me once the said father and sister had left the building. I apologised to the vicar, she said god would be amused not perturbed. Anyway, the upshot was that when Meg went to drop off the rest of the flowers at the bride's venue, sister, father and all assembled had by then decided the flowers were just perfect and it was exactly what they wanted. Well thank heavens for that! (I decided to keep rather a low profile as I realised I was rather tired and not in the mood for controversy).

And Saturday ended with me as a guest at a truly lovely wedding at the amazing Kinnersley Castle nearby. Many musicians, wonderful food, fabulous company and many jam jars.

joy and disappointment

2011-05-22T10:48:00.000+01:00

Joy abundant in having Ursula and Huberta here from Austria for nearly two weeks, they have been FANTASTIC (as ever, photos will appear at some completely irrelevant time probably!) and Ursula may be starting a cut flower patch in Graz in Austria, the first in the country. I can't wait to visit...

Disappointment when I stopped for a much needed cup of coffee and sugar intake between delivering wedding flowers to the Cotswolds and North Shropshire on Friday. Ludlow Food market has a brilliant reputation and I'd never managed to get there before. In their cafe I had the most disappointingly horrible and extortionately priced carrot cake it has ever been my misfortune to buy. I am rather keen on cake, but I couldn't eat it, dry, gritty, and maybe worst of all, full of unwished for coconut....

Slight panic about flowers for the Chelsea gig today. Very very stormy. Very very flat blooms! Yet another rethink necessary!

Back to the studio

2011-05-17T18:25:00.000+01:00

Bill Tingey also took some wonderful shots in the studio last weekend as I got ready to go to a Plant Fair.

Photos from the second April wedding

2011-05-17T18:20:00.000+01:00

I'm extremely spoilt to have Bill Tingey also taking amazing pictures of my flowers, he just sent me these from the second April wedding, (very low res on screen) where he came to the studio the night before to see me making things up with extremely dirty hands (I hadn't realised how disgraceful my hands are until I saw them through his lens!!) and it's amazing to see my flowers through someone else's eyes.We're hoping to do a lot more work together, watch this space..... Thanks SO much Bill.

Photos from the first April wedding

2011-05-17T12:31:00.001+01:00

A few lovely pictures from Lucy and Will's April 2nd wedding. Her bouquet was hellebores, tulips, ranunculus and lily of the valley, anemones and rosemary and ranunculus adorned the tent poles, one marquee entrance had tulips and variegated foliages across the awning entrance, the big dining tipi tents had dozens (literally) of candelabra, buttonholes were Mt tacoma tulips with lily of the valley, some had hellebores too. Lucy had lily of the valley and hyacinth pips on a barre in her hair, and the bridesmaid's headdresses were immaculate at the start of the proceedings, but got more and more wayward as the day drew on!

in the top gardens

2011-05-17T08:18:00.000+01:00

No time to write, so just some snaps of what's going on in the top gardens around the cottage. too windy to photograph anything on the field this week but everything is really stepping into gear now. But I also love the gardens round the cottage - it's going to be all change later this year as it seems a move is scheduled, (lovely cottage with amazing garden to be for sale if anyone's interested, with flower growing neighbour in the field next door!) so many plants from the top gardens will also be on the move down to the field and to a new garden. All a bit daunting, but also very exciting, the chance to create another garden!

Proper snaps from Alex Ramsay

2011-05-06T21:15:00.000+01:00

Amazing when a real photographer comes to call - Alex Ramsay popped over last Sunday when I was fiddling in the flower house.

Royal wedding flowers and cut flower garden capers

2011-05-01T09:45:00.001+01:00

A very quick post as I have been too hectic to hit the keyboard lately.

Thanks William and Kate for such a beautifully decorated Abbey. Hoorah for seasonal English blooms and foliage. But I was a bit worried about her bouquet as I haven't made one like that yet!

I hope to post some photos from my own royal wedding soon, I think the lovely bride will send some this week. (She married one of William's cousins. It was a small church, not an Abbey!)

Tulips now over (last year I was still picking a few the last week of May and had a huge double tulip wedding on May 8th, you just never can tell), the ground is still parched here so I've finally succumbed to the hose to stop some of the perennials getting overstressed. My first delphinium is blooming, on 30th April, it's nuts. And alchemilla's getting into swing. But I'm mainly picking different foliages and mints with persicarias, ranunculus, astrantia, scillas, alliums, solomon's seal.....

The tunnel has become Dianne's territory, I venture in to sow the odd row of seedlings as I tend to use it as an emergency seed bed at this time of year, then I exit swiftly ! It really is looking very ordered.

I hope two wonderful german women are appearing this coming week to volunteer for 10 days or so, all weeders and sowers welcome now. I'm panicking about the next gap as seedlings are doing Ok when transferred from trays, but direct sown seeds are taking for ever.

No wedding this weekend, and a small one next, then it's full steam ahead. I had hoped to use cow parsley for several events the last week of May, including decorating the Royal Geographical Society Halls for a chelsea lecture, but a rethink is necessary as it will all be long gone.

St George's Day - mushrooms

2011-04-25T09:36:00.000+01:00

I spent St George's Day at the wedding of friends who have waited well over 20 years to get married so the aisle was full of their children and grandchildren and the bride looked like a pre Raphaelite painting, stunning old-fashioned long gown and flaming red hair, bridesmaids had similarly glorious long medievalish style dresses - plus wild circlets of flowers in their hair of course, my wedding gift (and oh yes I forgot my camera but will blag pictures, picture blagging from recent weddings is top of my must do pile as soon as the sun stops shining).

It has been the driest spring ever. Even here we are completely parched. Yet, YET, every year a patch of St George's Day mushrooms appear on St George's Day. I missed Saturday as I wasn't here but went out this morning and lo and behold. Magic! I can hardly wait for lunch!

Church - and tulips

2011-04-20T20:53:00.000+01:00

I went to visit one of my favourite ever little churches last week to see about decorating it for a wedding in June. It is tiny, 12th century, in the Black Moutains, in the middle of a field. I was early so I could take the dogs for a walk first, but instead spent most of the time trying to rescue a lamb who had fallen down inside a cattle grid. Country life!

Tulips are still flowering their socks off far too efficiently here, thousands in bloom, it looks like Holland - Alex Ramsay brilliant photographer came on Monday to marvel at the regiments and will no doubt have some fab pictures, I just have more snaps. The tulips do make me smile although I know that's not quite the point as they should all be SOLD. Great friends, who I have been encouraging to start growing cut flowers for years, have finally got going this year in Gloucestershire, and I confess to a certain touch of brief jealousy when I discover they have sold every tulip they produced as they are on a fairly busy road so just put tables out front - I briefly even considered taking a vanful over there but then got sane and realise I'm actually quite happy working the way we do. And occasionally the seasons bugger things up. It has been ever thus..... The cottage decorations look quite elegant at tulip time!

I have had another half acre ploughed up this week. Hurrah! And tomorrow a mountain of muck is being moved, then a mountain of soil is being shifted, it's all terribly exciting. (For me, probably not for you). I'm going in for some major roses and shrubs grown through plastic on the new bit, but I'm not planting until next autumn or even next spring so it's all slowly slowly.

A lovely thing happened today. A friend has a rather autistic brother who has never lived independently in his life but their mother died recently and their father moved so he has now moved to this area to live locally in his own house. He has only been there three weeks but is doing brilliantly and today he came up here to spend half a day doing the first "job" he has ever done in his life. He loved it, we loved having him, and he is coming back.

wedding today

2011-04-16T20:14:00.000+01:00

Beautiful day for a wedding, this week a less complicated affair, no candelabras to be seen though Naomi did ask for circular low arrangements with candles as the beautiful dining hall at Penrhos is dark and atmospheric. Last night Bill Tingey came and took pix of bouquets etc as I was getting ready and came to Penrhos this morning so there will be some proper photos from him soon, but this time I did remember to take a camera for snaps as well as a photographer. So here's a few of my dashed off murky snaps for now - and the hanging decs in the church did have their ugly strings changed, and after the service they were to double up as windowsill decorations back at the house.

Oh it is so lovely when there is so much to pick in field and hedgerow once again, good old nature's bounty. And lovely to get to use some mad tulips sometimes, as well as my favourite elegant tall white lily shaped ones.....

tulip fiesta

2011-04-13T09:51:00.000+01:00

Well all this sunshine and the pictures below are already out of date but I haven't been out with the camera for a couple of days, in one week I am picking tulips that I was picking at this time last year along with tulips that I was picking on May 8th for a wedding last year. It looks like blooming Holland out there and how I wish I was by a sensible roadside where I could pop them on a table for sale! Usually I do extremely well with tulips at events at the end of April and beginning of May, this year I won't have any by then. Win some, lose some, and they do look so beautiful I am half happy just to be able to look at them, I'll take more pix today!

So if you know anyone you'd like to send flowers to they will get extremely generous bunches of tulips for the next two weeks!

P.S. Thanks

2011-04-07T22:07:00.000+01:00

Goodness, customers have just been so kind about the MD mix up, not my finest hour but thanks so much to everyone who has been so understanding, and particular thanks to the lovely regular customer who herself runs a specialist nursery and thanked me for the apology and told me not to beat myself up about it. However, I think I might be rather good at beating myself up about things as I really do want things to work at all times.......
And there will not only be my camera at next weekend's wedding (as long as I remember) but a proper photographer is coming along and will be taking pictures throughout the year here for a calendar and book, so that's very exciting. After the mix up I think I might need a photographer on hand at all times to keep me on track!

poor pictures but the basic idea

2011-04-07T18:50:00.000+01:00

Well I was relying on son Joe who is usually rather a good photographer but he says his are unimpressive so here are just a few snaps from last weekend to give some idea. I am assured good ones will appear, and I'm sure they will as I rather bludgeoned the official wedding photographer to take lots of flowery ones before the event proper kicked off. So please be patient!

Much prettier than it looks here, a mass of hellebores - had to be low as it was rows of packed chairs then standing room only behind the font.

Imogen looking uncharacteristically grumpy as we try to prepare the arch on a doorway with no fixings at all!

tall sconces - we kept them quite small and tidy as we knew the church would be rammed and decided that fascinators and hats tangled with flowers would possibly not be a bonus!

hard to tell but there were about 30 candelabras interspersed with candlesticks - a good thing as it turned out as the generator broke down half way through the evening so the candles were more necessary than just decorative!

Cheerier!

2011-04-05T17:30:00.000+01:00

So many tulips now blooming. The double yellow vanilla scented and/or pointy dull pinks should have gone out in the Saturday bunches... I love the scented ones more than any, they get stronger and stronger as they age and are really strongly scented when they turn almost pure white and fade. Heaven. They are all at least two weeks earlier than last year which is a surprise, and may all come at once if the weather turns very warm again.

Younger dog is in season and has to be watched like a hawk.

Diane has got the tunnel looking wonderfully organised and we're finally sowing outside tomorrow.

awful bloomer

2011-04-05T10:26:00.000+01:00

The worst thing happened, this is the letter I had to send out to all MD customers as I had no idea who got the good and who got the bad bunches. I realised the disaster when I went out to the packing shed on Monday morning and spent all yesterday and so far today trying to sort it all out. I feel pretty damn bad......
Dear Customers,

This is to apologise that some very poor quality flowers were mistakenly sent to some customers for Mothering Sunday. It should never have happened but I left the flower elements to helpers as I was organising a big wedding in Suffolk and I obviously did not leave clear instructions. So some of your mothers will have received the right selection of flowers but I'm afraid some will have received ones that were not meant for sending but were rejected from the wedding flowers (where they were meant to be fully open for one day only on some of the garlands) - I realised the mix up when i returned late on Sunday night to find many of the good longlasting tulips that should have been sent were still in buckets when I returned, and the others were nowhere to be seen....

It should never have happened, I can only apologise wholeheartedly to those of you who got a bad service. It was not the fault of my helpers who I am sure tried their best but had not been put on the spot before without me or longterm helper`Meg somewhere at hand (she was scheduled in to supervise but had to go to a family funeral) so of course the blame is all mine. I know it cannot make amends but if any of you would like me to send more flowers to your mothers please let me know and I shall do so, or please let me send another order for you at any time at no charge - just email me with the order details when you would like me to do this for you.

With very many apologies, and assurances that this is very definitely not my usual service.

Charlie

lovely weather for Suffolk wedding - and Mothering Sunday

2011-04-03T20:12:00.000+01:00

Well it was a huge wedding to start my full-on wedding season and I forgot my camera. Luckily the press didn't forget theirs so I found this one immediately on Google from a French royal-following site (and I promise many pix will come from friends and family soon!) Gorgeous Lucy married delightful Will on Saturday and it was fabulous to do their flowers. We did masses of large candelabras for the series of tipi tents which looked sensational, flowers for the other marquee and very simple spring church flowers for a beautiful church that was packed to the gills.

I had been in a state of usually quiet but sometimes frantic panic the week before as I didn't know quite what would be flowering but bless my flowers they came up trumps. I used masses of white and green hellebores and lovely pink ones, plus my favourite double white tulips that were kind enough to open in the tunnel with spot-on timing along with lily of the valley, hyacinths, hellebores, white ranunculus, anemones, rosemary, tons of blossoms, pittosporum, euonymus....... on Thursday we headed for Suffolk, me with my van plus Imogen with a huge hired van both packed so tight nothing more could fit in, and I think everything looked lovely when it was finished despite the distance. Lucy's simple but I think stunningly suitable bouquet was white double mount tacoma tulips with white hellebores and lily of the valley plus a sprig or two of myrtle and euonymus, she had lily of the valley and white hyacinth pips in her hair, little bridesmaids and adorable Theo the pageboy all had simple circlets of white hyacinth pips in their hair with head bridesmaid 5 year old Molly also carrying a posy of lily of the valley tied with red ribbon to match their red and white liberty outfits and red baseball boots. I made buttonholes from the lovely double tulips or white hellebores mixed with lily of the valley and a sprig of foliage. I'm not sure what my favourite bit was, I loved the font which was just a mass of hellebores with trailing ivy and the windowsills which were the simplest tied sheaves of blossoms and catkins and rosemary that we then took back to the tents as the vicar didn't want things left in the church because it is mid Lent.

Candelabras were a mix of foliages and anemones and ranunculus with pink hellebores and ivy looking down on the guests. I always forget how long full candelabras take to do but every single second is worth it for the ultimate effect. And the tent pole garlands were fun, just rosemary and anemones but they did the trick.

Thanks to all my helpers who made sure that it all happened. There were seven of us here on the Thursday getting it all together including my lovely daughter Rowan who happily was having a few days off from her usual work in London as an environmental lawyer and oldest friend Annette from Gloucestershire who thought she was having a fun day out.......! Her daughter Imogen (now a gardener and flower grower herself) was a total star and calmly plodded through everything with me when we got to the wedding destination after a five hour drive, and we both really enjoyed it. On the way home this afternoon I realised that we had spent about 120 woman hours on the wedding flowers including 20 hours of driving but excluding picking, but actually, it was worth every single moment as I think we did a good job. Phew!

Meanwhile, Rowan and Annette sorted out finishing and sending out all the Mothering Sunday flowers and did a brilliant job. I had spent a day earlier in the week bunching up beautiful birch and eucalyptus bundles and they added all the tulips and the anemone posies on Friday. They were a bit surprised at how long it all took and I think Rowan is glad she is a lawyer and Annette is wondering why she has just started growing cut flowers at my suggestion!

But it has been a brilliant week, and the reason why I haven't written anything on the blog for ages as it has been a tad busy here.

Oh and the wonderful news is that I have an AMAZING gardener now supervising all the growing. Diane is astonishingly wonderful and my tunnel now looks as it should, very professional and productive as she has years of brilliant experience and seems to enjoy being here and will be sorting out the field very soon. Please keep your fingers crossed she will continue to enjoy it here for a very very long time as we just have so many plans........

And the slightly more marginal news is that the husband, who is not a huge fan of the flower growing (I was rather more financially fluid and relaxed when I was working as a writer!) has decided his future lies more on the marine environment than in the dirt and is planning on disappearing on his boat for a long time, maybe for ever. Heigh ho, just as well I love what I do and I find it so brilliant and exciting!

tally ho

2011-03-21T18:59:00.000Z

Mouse tally in the tunnel so far 11. Seedlings looking decidedly happier!

What wonderful weather this week. The weekend was spent in my favourite activity, the annual rotovate of the annual beds. My trusty rotovator is still off being mended, I'm not quite sure where it is, the chap who delivers my mushroom compost took it away for his son to renovate some weeks or possibly months ago and I did say no rush but now can't seem to raise him. Ah well, I'm sure all will be well. So I hired the monster hydraulic machine which is huge fun as it is such a big beast, the one you can hang off the handlebars with both feet off the ground, but I have to say that cornering is a bit troublesome, it takes a lot of reversing and straightening out, about a ten point turn just to get back into line. But very satisfactory!

Narcissi are opening everywhere, and the great excitement for me is the opening of the first of the bulk tulips. And the chance to use my favourite antique tulip jug for flowers in the house. Unfortunately the first ones are not my favourites, short rather strangely-coloured pinkish yellowish affairs but with the most amazing black centres when they open like huge stars in the sun. The next ones, lovely cream scented doubles, are all covered in fleece as I am hoping (possibly against hope) they will do their thing by next weekend for a huge wedding. But it is very much fingers and toes crossed. I planted beautiful double whites in the tunnel specially for the day, for the bouquets, but they are opening now and will be past their best by the required day if it stays so sunny. I realise it can be hard getting everything to do its thing at the right time at the beginning of the season. And I have actually begun to get a little stressed about it but what will be will be........ I'm not yet quite sure what Plans B, C and D are, but I'm sure they will reveal themselves!

Seeds sown too early are already leggy in the tunnel so I have had to fill every available space in the beds by planting them out as they are far too early to go outside. Damn. It is just too tempting to get things going too early.

severed shoots

2011-03-14T13:22:00.001Z

As my extremely polite and well spoken maternal grandmother used to say when she was really annoyed by something she had done Oh damn and blast and blithering hell.... I went in to water the tunnel this morning to discover nearly every sweet pea seedling nibbled off at the base and the little shoots just lying on the pots. Not slugs, no trails. And all happened overnight. Is this mouse damage? It is just so cheeky to nibble the stalks through and just leave the severed shoots All pots are off the ground level palettes and back onto benches now. I was not happy......

Even if it isn't mouse damage there will soon be less mice as I'm just off to get traps - there's a new one on the market that you don't have to bait, it just has some scent that's apparently completely irresistible. I was sceptical but put one in the kitchen where a cheeky little rodent had been nipping out and stealing the dogs' biscuits (they just watched) and caught it within half an hour. Then reset the trap and caught its accomplice.
I think I'm on a mission for a substantial tunnel tally now.

Oh and I just organised for the next acre to be ploughed and harrowed. I have been trying to resist. But seem to have failed. I think I have a plan......

divided opinion

2011-03-09T18:15:00.000Z

I was misguided! The worst thing about perennials is also that you have to divide them.... half of yesterday was spent slicing through great clumps and feeling awfully guilty that I hadn't done it last year. And when I got to the kniphofias I just didn't have the strength. If anyone lives nearby I have some of these spectacular fat orange hot pokers for grabs but I'm afraid I never knew their name, they came from rather a grand garden that new owners had taken over from someone who worked as a conservation gardener for the National Trust where there were some rather good plants. When they wanted rid of some of these I volunteered to home them as I certainly had the space but I'm afraid I never got to love them and now they're out.

But it was a spectacular day. As a relief from slicing I became obsessed by willows.

divide and rule

2011-03-07T18:43:00.000Z

This is why I love perennials - every few years they increase exponentially. I spent the afternoon moving eryngiums and Achillea ptarmica, finally I might even have enough for a while. In fact I probably now have far too much Achillea pastel colours, I moved small clumps last year rather too late and never gave them any water or attention and they sulked, but a year in their current site, and a good winter mulch of masses of muck and I'm overrun.... I tried to get rid of a load of Oriental poppies last summer, but it's never easy to get rid of them as every bit of root colonises if it likes its home. That would be fine but we popped echinacea plugs in the same piece of ground that I thought we had cleared reasonably, so I fear they may all have got swamped, there's no sign yet. I also seem to have an unreasonably large swarm of heleniums which obviously like their site, I now wish I'd labelled them all as I remember that I didn't like using some of them and now of course I haven't a clue which ones..... catanache also seems to be making a bid for bed domination in one area, now I know it's a beggar to pick, and slightly temperamental to pick, but I am rather fond of it. I am not fond of the bright yellow rudbeckia though, and am planning to take them all out. Some people love them, but I just didn't want to use them last year. The trouble is, if I do give them all away, I'll probably suddenly find I want them. But I'm keen to use their space as I decided not to plough up another patch (yet) but to use every space within the existing fenced area instead. I am about to make more beds in the orchard area as that would be so much more useful than mowing grass, then when I really can't squeeze more in I'll move out to the next acre or two. I have an idea it may be sooner rather than later!

Sadly my pale yellow lemon scented nepetas seem to have frozen to death. And I had to uproot corpses of every pittosporum even though they should have been the perfect stage for good pickings this year. I guess I'll just have to keep being inventive with the foliage side of things. (But I never liked pittosporum anyway, that's probably the real reason it died, not just the extreme cold!). Eucalyptus have also been sawn down or taken out, some probably will survive, they are not my favourites but they are such incredibly useful shrubs and their foliage can be very beautiful and such a lovely colour so I hope some will re-grow after their winter blasting. Large bay trees have also gone which is more of an issue.

Now I know that some things are not as hardy as others so I really can't complain if things turn up their toes, it's my fault for planting them really, but we have become rather conditioned to thinking that most things will survive. I am quietly pleased that many dahlia tubers seem to have come through the winter in the ground, we ladled about a foot of well rotted horse muck over them and I think it seems to have done the trick, I dug a couple up to check and they were fine - but of course they might have been the only two healthy ones!

But this year I will concentrate on finding more seriously hardy cutting options, I am yearning for some rather tender scented foliage plants but will resist, though I am considering a new foliage tunnel at some point.......

Spring Fairs

2011-03-07T09:55:00.000Z

Publicity material just in for the Red Cross Fair on May 5th. If you've never been, it is probably the one fair you should try to get to, brimful of many of the best small independent nurseries from all over the Midlands and South West. It's at Hampton Court Castle again, but we are all assured there won't be a repeat of the occasion when so many people headed for the event that all roads round about were jammed solid and some people sat in traffic jams and eventually turned round and went home. This year different systems are in place and it is going to be superbly organised with proper traffic organisation so please do put it in your diaries if you can make it.

I'll be majoring on tulips that week. I'm hoping for a good selection still standing then, all should be fine as we do have at least 15,000 in the ground here. I do so love tulips!

Marching on

2011-03-06T12:01:00.004Z

Photos from a Barnsley House wedding are out in a wedding mag and up on site. I hope the delightful bride and groom do not one day regret the very vintage style of the photos.

I can't believe we're striding through March already. It seems too quick... After a few lovely days the frosts here have been really severe for the past few nights, the ground in the field still frozen well in to the day. I spent a glorious afternoon dividing perennials on Friday when it was such a perfect afternoon that I just couldn't bring myself to come in until I just couldn't move any more. I was rather creaky yesterday.

I am obsessing with working out quite how to make a very stable freestanding arch for a church entrance where there are no fixings, the entrance is narrow and the arch is high. It's also several hundred miles away so I can't just slip round there and check I'm getting it right. I don't suppose anyone has had an arch fall on their head yet but I really don't want to be the first!

Rabbit fencing is still not up despite endless promises from the guy who's doing it. Serves me right for being too lazy to sort out doing it myself I guess. Flopsy Mopsy and Cottontail are having too many parties with their friends and families and my splendid legal poachers from the valleys haven't been up lately. Bunnies' favourite perennials are so far solidago and campanula, and they just love digging up shrubs. Tulips appear neither tasty not interesting to dig.

job filled

2011-03-04T17:33:00.000Z

Well there are lots of amazing gardeners out there looking for work. Thanks to everyone who called and mailed. I hope I responded to everyone..... Some people who applied would find me far too chaotic, and others I really couldn't consider employing because they should be running fabulous design or development or restoration projects rather than considering working in the cut flower gardens.

Diane will be starting soon. I've a feeling we'll get on well and that she's just what the gardens need at this point. RHS qualified, many years of jobbing garden and nursery experience and fabulously long pink nails. We need a bit of gardening glamour!

starting simple

2011-03-03T08:41:00.000Z

Sometimes the simplest can be the loveliest, this morning I was particularly taken with the last of the snowdrops and a few hellebores for the kitchen table.

Apparently we're in Homes and Gardens magazine now, they are very early with their April issue, local shops are still stocking March so I haven't seen the copy as I haven't been sent one yet but I do remember a lovely French photographer coming last spring and taking lots of close ups. We're also in Wedding Flowers mag this month but I haven't seen that yet either....

I'm trying to get to grips with some of the weeds. Slowly. And lots of dividing and moving. The later flowering cream camassias seem to have been breeding wildly and I kept myself awake last night trying to decide where to transplant all the babies - ridiculous, probably not the number one priority!

We will be starting the mail out season with Mothering Sunday flowers. This year I'm planning on big bunches of tulips or narciss with a few ranunculus, greenery and willows, plus a posy of anemones. (note to get it posted on the website soon). I still can't tell exactly what will be out. But we also have a huge wedding the same weekend so there's a bit of organising to do and I'm going to ask customers to place orders before 29th March as I know there will be absolutely no office time after that.

One dog still under the weather and the other went under the knife yesterday to have a lump removed so the house is very oddly quiet.

Well it made me laugh this morning!

2011-02-28T10:39:00.001Z

"Hello, I'm an artist putting on an event in London at the end of March and I'm looking for long stemmed British organic edible flowers. Can you help?"
"Well I'd love to but I fear it just may not be possible then."
"I thought roses would be lovely."
"Yes. I think you might be hard put to find organic roses anywhere in the world in March and definitely not in UK."
"Ah. Well I have a list here of all the edible flowers I might like. Shall I send it to you?"
"It's very thoughtful of you, but I think I only have poisonous long stemmed flowers then."

Anyone wanting to munch on tulips, hellebores, euphorbia.........? I suppose ranunculus might just not be inedible but I don't think I'd want to try. Two years ago I had to do 12 identical edible long stemmed bouquets for a film prop. That was hard enough in June.

Job

2011-02-28T09:35:00.001Z

I'm looking for a gardener/garden supervisor 3 days a week or so (never on Mondays) from end March to October to look after day to day running of the gardens with part timers and volunteers. I'll be gardening alongside you some days but need to devote more time to the floristry side and running the business so I ideally want someone independent, hard working, energetic, enthusiastic, organised, brilliant, but above all flexible....... No mowing or strimming as the wonderful Steve does all that, no spraying, but all other garden duties.

I think it would be a great opportunity for someone who really wants to learn about small scale mixed flower growing. I wish I could offer accommodation but sadly I can't. Hay is a delightful area, still very rural but with a thriving community of free thinkers and self employed folk as we are far from any urban centre.

Back to the gardens

2011-02-24T14:07:00.000Z

Well, I had quite a break from the gardens - first snow, then more snow, then still more snow, then a short holiday, then helping my elderly mother after an op, then rain and more rain. I wasn't totally off the case as there has been masses of wedding planning and even a bit of office organising, but now spring is just round the corner and outside it's all muddy and messy and in my mind - but probably only mine - potentially magnificent, glorious and optimistic!

I've spent the past couple of weeks (in between downpours) making new steps, planting more willow, planting more peonies, dividing clumps of this and that and even a bit of that incredibly necessary weeding. Things have got a bit out of hand in that department but I'm sure all will be well because, well, because it has to be!

I did think about putting something up on the blog earlier because I have had complaints about complete silence on this front, but I only had mud to photograph, or extremely muddy dogs, or an extremely muddy me, and I would like to think of myself as a bit less grubby than all that.

In the gardens now bulbs are looking hopeful, tulips are popping through happily, in some areas the scent from the daphnes and the honeysuckles make me happy to linger, even in the rain. Hellebores seem to have reverted, or my lovely ones have disappeared or are just late to appear, but even the plain white or deep purple are beautiful. In the tunnel ranunculus are shooting away but not much else is happening there as we had a bit of a freezing situation with a door left open at the wrong time. I have started off the first seeds but there's no point in getting too carried away as our ground is always late and it's at least twice as much work to get early things going than starting later when things catch up anyway.
This weekend is the first wedding of the year. The bride was hoping for bright and cheerful anemones in her bouquets, in fact desperately wanted bright anemones, so I resorted to buying in a load from Cornwall. Sadly they arrived this morning and about 90 per cent have browned petals which is a bit of a beggaration. So she will get a few bright and white ranuncs with narciss and bits and pieces and a few anemones for the pew ends etc where they won't be quite so obvious.

Enough. The old dog, who has not been very well for the past few days, has just been terrifically sick under the table, time to get back to the mud.....

Happy Christmas and a flourishing New Year

2010-12-19T16:05:00.000Z

The year draws to a close and it's time to imagine another colourful year rather than the, admittedly pretty, white out we seem to have had here for weeks and weeks. The good thing is that the weather prevents me (for now) seeing all the things that just did not get done. Instead I look forward.....

Thanks for everyone's support this year, it's been very full on, lots of new challenges and experiences, lots more flowers, a bit more confidence that what we are doing really does work. Special thanks to super volunteers among others Fred from Prague and Emma from the Isle of Wight who were both exceptionally helpful, and of course to Meg, Goodie and Steve who does the dullest heaviest jobs with complete stoicism and a ready smile. We've had lots of successes but one or two blips and of course it's the blips that stick with me because I find it hard to bear when anything isn't as it should, I always used to think I was very laid back about everything but lately I've discovered that I fear I'm actually more than a tad neurotic....

Next year looks exciting already but I'm not sure exactly what the plan is. I'm trying to be a bit more efficient at delegating and I'm looking for someone to be a head gardener-type 3 days a week from March onwards to take over the main growing spaces and supervise other helpers while I concentrate on the business side and the outgoing flowers. I have been dreaming of more planting schemes but some may have to wait a little bit longer to realise a major one as disappointingly a winter writing project that I was rather relying on has just been pulled. Whoops! And I'm definitely up for volunteers from end March onwards, and possibly some college students on placements.

I didn't get all our bulbs planted as the ground just froze solid and then all the pipes burst and we haven't yet mended them all, just switched off, so I haven't even filled the tunnel after things inside sadly froze early on when it was mistakenly left open. But I am quite sure spring will bring plenty and all will be well.

My next job is to turn to seeds, storing and labelling all our own and fantasising about all the others I may or may not grow next year. We start mail order again come Mothering Sunday, but have weddings lined up before then. I can hardly wait to see things growing again!

Happy Christmas to you all, and let's all hope for a productive and interesting 2011.

christmas fairs

2010-12-14T11:48:00.000Z

I believe I said I was quite looking forward to three days in comparative warmth at herefordshire's Hampton Court Christmas do. I couldn't have been more wrong! The castle is american owned pseudo medieval, fabulously kitsch, walls covered with fake and perhaps some real armoury and an awful lot of dead animals, and, my favourite, a full sized fibreglass charger with mounted knight in full armour half way up one wall.... My tables were just inside the open entrance door in the main large stone and dead animal filled hall. I bought with me some bundles of dried flowers including some sprayed foliage, very wild hedgerow hoops and some less wild very pretty wreaths with different vars of rowan and viburnum berries and unusual foliage, as well as bulbs. I had foolishly disrobed myself of thermals for the first day falsely believing it would be warmer than standing in the frozen flower house. I froze. All day the fair attracted only just over 200 punters and of those 200 about 3 actually got what I was doing and those 3 were utterly delightful. But otherwise Oh gosh it was merry. Fuelled by promises that the second day would be the busy one I returned suitably clothed in many thermals and back to the furlined boots. There were definitely more punters. Coachloads of lovely ladies from caerphilly who seemed intent on buying up the rather expensive umbrella stall and were very chatty and charming but definitely after something other than my style. Then in the evening people were supposedly lured in with the promise of mince pies and christmas carols. There was a choir singing carols, but nowhere near my end of hell, there were mince pies but I am too mean to pay £3.50 for a tiny mug of mulled orange juice and wine and a small mince pie. There were a handful again of utterly delightful people who loved what we do. And a plant event organiser who came specially to seek me out so that was very good. I felt terribly sorry for the lovely young couple with their baby who had made absolutely glorious wreaths from vegetables and nuts and suchlike and were selling none. They had decided to avoid other events and concentrate only on this one and I suspect they really needed the income. There are some absolutely lovely christmas fairs, we just chose the wrong one. It might have helped if the venue had at least done some advertising, but it might have made little difference, win some, lose some!

The good news was that I had lots of pots (both tin buckets and rather more lovely pale biscuit coloured terracotta pots of beautiful paperwhites ready for christmas flowering which the husband rushed down to another fair for me on the saturday and sold beautifully. And those I have left over will make lovely gifts or make our own cottage smell lovely - it's probably the first time ever I have been really efficient with paperwhites and got them spot on for christmas, I had intended to be selling them in London at Broadway market but the weather intervened and meant I was completely iced up here for three saturdays in a row so just couldn't get out.

Fabulous dinner with friends on Saturday where I was given loads of brilliant ideas for the future of cut flowers from a truly brilliant gardener. But what was truly impressive about the dinner was how the roast pork was traditionally roasted on a 17th century roaster hanging onto the huge fire. Very festive, very delicious. All the dried flower hoops were sent off yesterday - thanks to everyone who ordered one, it was a fantastic response - and I've had almost a day off now and am beginning to feel enthusiastic for next year already!

fur boots and frozen fingers

2010-12-07T12:47:00.000Z

Utterly beautiful hoar frosts and blue morning skies, and everything looks magical when I raise my head from christmas orders. Barrowloads of mistletoe, benches full of hollies, bay and conifer, piles of dogwood and willow.... and all in minus many degrees, no water in the flower studio for a couple of weeks, brief thaw meant that all pipes burst, no power yesterday, ice rink for a drive but 60 packages must go out, permanent delightful drip on the end of my nose, pots and pots of poor sad utterly frozen paperwhites even though I moved them out of the (frozen) tunnel into the house last week.... Oh Joy! But I'm looking forward to three days in the comparative warmth at Hampton Court Castle (Leominster) Christmas fair from Thursday to Saturday, I just haven't quite had time to make any of the decorations yet ... fingers crossed (when they unthaw!).

about face

2010-11-30T17:31:00.000Z

I'm generally rather perverse about christmas decorations - I don't usually do gold, I don't usually do conifer, I don't usually even do holly. And I think I've also said on more than one (hundred) occasions that I don't do dried flowers. But this year I am doing gold, conifer, dried, and holly. Mainly because I cut masses of lovely glossy bay last week for decorations, as well as some really silvery blue eucalyptus, but the past two nights have dropped deep into the freezing zone (it was 18 degrees below zero a few miles up the road on Sunday night). So when I checked the foliage today for sending out a multiple order I found it had nearly all suffered from frostbite and was not looking its glossy best. Time for the 24 carat gold spray - and a touch of conifer, and holly, and statice, as well as some preserved beech leaves..... amazing how things change. But that is what tends to happen here, we work with what we've got so it's hard to predict exactly what will be coming out. And that's why I also decided to do dried flower hoops this winter, for once I know what we've got to work with then.

I've also been asked if I could provide some very inexpensive but effective hanging decorations. There is no way I can produce any kind of a wreath for well under a tenner, so I'm going for very simple hangers. I'm just waiting for the snow to calm down enough for my delivery of ribbon and raffia so I have something pretty to bind them with.

early snow

2010-11-29T19:21:00.000Z

Not too thrilled with the weather. I would have preferred to get all the bulbs in - just when I thought I still had time for once. I'm wondering if that will be it for 2010. Still, at least it means I will have to get into the flower house (with a million layers on ) and get stuck into all those christmas goodies. Pics will follow when I'm a bit better organised.

On the plus side, it's fun to be inside for once editing a book on resilient plants. Wondering how many of them would actually be resilient for this level of weather.

no maintenance gardening?

2010-11-23T10:33:00.000Z

I have been checking out another field this weekend, a field which is sheltered and warmer and on the alkaline side rather than acid. Soil is however still heavy clay, but actually I am growing used to that and it certainly has advantages for a minimal water regime. I am considering planting a few blocks of shrubs there next year to see how they do, and leaving them to fend entirely for themselves. As I am not a believer in chemical controls this probably would mean planting through landscape fabric, but my mind is whirring for other methods of keeping the good going and the bad down. I would like to experiment with no maintenance growing for a while, as everything is so incredibly high maintenance here, and it might be a good site for a few volume crops of foliage, berries or flowering shrubs. My mind is far from made up. The reason for even considering it is that I get frustrated by the exposure of this site. Yes there are advantages to all that movement of fresh air, but the lie of the land means it is hard to plant convincingly for windbreaks, and I just can't bring myself to put up that industrial windbreak material. Yet. But it may come to it. Or I may try some planting elsewhere.

Oh yes the main disadvantage of the other site is that it is not close by. That is an advantage in that the climate is much much softer. But a slight disadvantage being three hours drive on a good day! So it really would have to be no maintenance for a while.

landscape fabric - hints please

2010-11-15T17:37:00.000Z

The winds last week were fairly fierce here. On the far patch which is most exposed yards and yards and yards of landscape fabric paths dislodged themselves from their stakes and pins and disappeared to other areas of the field where paths really are not needed. Does anyone have any helpful ideas how to keep the stuff down through winter gales. Last year we dug in the edges of wider strips, and weighted them down with metal gates, pallets, iron bars..... but still lost some of them in the worst weather. I suppose the solution here always has to be to plant more windbreaks but that won't help right now. All suggestions very welcome.

More funerals this week. I really like doing funeral flowers though the gardens are looking rather less than productive now! Tulips plod into the ground, as long as I do a few hundred most days we will eventually get them in, and as the last ones went in between the spells of snow and ice in January last year I'm not too worried.

a glimpse

2010-11-11T17:35:00.000Z

I think the bridegroom is getting a huge hug from his new father in law, but who knows......

finally some planting

2010-11-10T20:29:00.000Z

Fantastic couple of days with perfect planting weather, the first 3000 tulips and 1000 alliums are in the ground. Hoorah. I'm told so often that I should be more mechanised but actually it's rather pleasant work planting bulbs on a nice day......

An interesting approach from a local MIND garden organiser to see if we can join forces in some way so the MIND group can grow flowers for us or something of that kind. I hope we'll work something out as I've been contemplating how we could work with some social organisation or other.

And we've booked for Cottesbrooke Plant Finders Fair next June, if you don't know it, it's the one fair definitely worth going to if you're a keen gardener. lots of wonderful specialist small nurseries and beautiful garden goodies. I'm planning already!

behind the scenes

2010-11-08T18:09:00.001Z

If I could be granted one wish it should be for a bit less chaos and a bit more order in the way I do things..... my studio could never make a shopfront! But I guess I still must kind of love my chaos to hang on to it with such dedication! Old man's beard, spindle, hips and bryony are my current top hits.

autumn wedding first snaps

2010-11-07T18:13:00.002Z

The brief was to bring a bit of country into the city so I hope we managed to do that. Lots of autumn foliage, hydrangeas, berries, scabious, cornflowers and schizostylis, hips, clematis seedheads and old man's beard, plus the bride wanted traditional scented roses so I bought those in for her from the traditional scented English rose grower.... Personally I would happily stuck with all the home grown and hedgerow treasures but I can't deny that the scent of roses is rather divine at any time. The scale of 1 Whitehall Place and the amazing decoration in the building mean that it isn't the easiest venue to decorate so I decided to stick with a few large arrangements - a lovely autumnal urn and two large hanging arrangements plus some fairly wild pillar decorations including lots of bryony and old man's beard - and more conventional table decorations and rather neater than usual table pedestals to follow the bride's brief. Her bouquet was a mixture of flowers, berries and roses, the bridesmaids had just roses (actually the most challenging part of the brief for me as I'm so used to doing our very mixed mixtures!) and a flower girl had a pomander of hydrangeas and roses. Buttonholes were hips, hydrangeas and roses.

We had a lovely day getting everything ready, all rather stress free thanks to fab help from Florence and Kathleen who nobly turned up without having any idea what they would have to be doing, and Meg did a brilliant job with the hanging arrangements and urn. I hope the bride and groom loved their flowers..... if all was well I'm sure there'll be some proper shots and bouquet pix for the blog later.

Dissembling everything took a while, not just the difficulty of detaching the hanging arrangements and derigging the urn, but a film crew were using the venue for some 1950s film so I couldn't use the usual lifts and had to carry everything miles from the kitchen service lifts which involved getting lost several times in the basement labyrinth! All rather interesting!

tulips still waiting

2010-11-04T18:57:00.000Z

We did finally get started on tulip planting on Wednesday, but only got a couple of hours in as so much else to do. Look out for an offer on our christmas hoops in Gardens Illustrated december edition, and on courses in Gardeners World mag. But meantime it's full on preparing for the Whitehall wedding, photos will follow.....

november means thinking about christmas

2010-11-01T18:10:00.000Z

Help, it's time to think about christmas fare although we haven't started planting the bulbs yet...whatever happens to time? And nothing is going to get done in the gardens this week because we've a big London wedding next Saturday so that's occupying all thought this week. I'm going to make huge arrangements with autumnal and preserved foliages, berries, fruits, old man's beard, clematis heads and loads and loads of very scented roses that I am buying in specially, and tables will have delicate arrangements with ivies, ammi, berries, fennel heads and suchlike, cornflowers, nepetas and roses. The venue is very large but I'm fairly confident the scent should still fill it and the whole should look magnificent. Fingers crossed.

And meantime it's time to think about christmas. I will be selling hoops on line but no winter flower arrangements this year, hoops will be made with bases of willows and dogwoods, covered with lots of mini posies of our dried flowers, seedheads, berries plus herbs. They will be lovely, but they can't get made yet!

things go on just fine without me!

2010-10-26T12:36:00.002+01:00

Lovely pictures of the wedding bouquets last weekend. The brief was for wild but soft, hedgerowy rather than formal, The bride was Rosie, hence roses in the bouquets, and one had basil in in honour of a bridesmaid's nickname..... It's fab to know how things can go on in my absence just the same, a stage I've been looking forward to. I've a horrid feeling I was rather bossy about it all before I left, and probably gave too many instructions that were quite unnecessary as Meg does flowers beautifully, now the only thing is to persuade her that she doesn't need to worry so much..... She also did 14 beautiful table centres but sadly I have no pix of them.

on being away

2010-10-25T10:36:00.001+01:00

Surprisingly wonderful to take a week away, knowing all would be well on my return. I was actually rather excited about Meg doing a delightful small wedding while I was away, a first, knowing she had good help from Emma. They produced beautiful flowers that the bride and family were completely delighted with, as I knew they would as Meg has a wonderful touch and Emma really enjoys doing fiddly bits. What I didn't anticipate was how very many long long hours it would take them, how there was more than a small degree of panic, and how it was not quite the pleasure for Meg that I had anticipated it being, especially as she was just off for a few days holiday too and really didn't need to be putting in double overtime here ...... Thanks Meg, you really are a star and I can't wait to see the photos of what you created plus E's buttonholes and corsages.

Frosts had ripped in with a vengeance the past nights before I got back. But I hadn't worried, knowing all was in safe hands and house dogs ducks and gardens were being happily looked after. Then went out into the gardens this morning to find the tunnel was open at both ends. Just a bit one end, and the window fully open the other, and a night of well below freezing.... Suffice to say I was not thrilled. I only have one tunnel and have been trying to experiment to see just how late in the season I can get annuals such as stocks and cleome and moluccella plus cosmos, cornflowers etc to keep on flowering, plus get lots of other annuals off to a very early spring push by getting them established now (thinking Chelsea as much as anything as I have flowers to do then). Some things may survive, others are looking brownleaved and deflated. Can't really blame anyone else except myself thinking it was ok to go off for a week.....

Any advance on "Bother"?

Four funerals and a wedding and a possible mechanical funeral

2010-10-12T15:54:00.001+01:00

Funny old week lining up, I've been asked to do flowers for four funerals this week but can only do two as I'll be away attending one of them. Then I'm away for a week and Meg is doing what sounds to be a delightful rustic wedding in my absence. I actually really like doing funeral flowers, I think they can make a difference.

Started rotavating new tulip patch this morning, thrilled to have the old Titan running again. Until it stopped. Oh bugger.

Has anyone got a sturdy old rotavator tucked away in a shed somewhere looking for a new billet?

vintage

2010-10-11T22:45:00.000+01:00

Great to be in London this w/end - I thought I'd been promised a place on the main drag at Broadway market but no I was off in the schoolyard, but it was still fun though I didn't sell quite as much as I'd hoped, and I'm sure next time will be better as everyone who passed by loved our flowery offerings. Lovely to see another spectrum, but rather worrying that the 70s and 80s are so popular again, I'm really not sure about that particular "vintage" trend as I don't think fashions looked that great first time around, though at least they're worn with a certain cliched panache these days. Whoops I'm sounding really vintage myself, and not in a good way either.....

On vintage - I just purchased a load of lovely metal mesh bottomed dutch bulb trays. The guy I bought them from imagined I'd be reselling them somewhere but they are now all in use for their original purpose, trays and trays of bulbs in waiting. I don't want to plant for another month but wanted to be sure I got the varieties I wanted so orderer earlier than usual. So it was fab to find exactly the right method of storage. Half of the remaining space in the tin barn is filled with buckets and buckets of foliage as I'm experimenting with preserving different forms. Fingers crossed that many of them will work as I've a wedding next month in a substantial venue that is crying out for huge autumnal arrangements, but all autumn leaves will have fallen by then so I'm trying to get the same effect. I always find it hard to predict exactly what I will use for any event, and do tend to take inspiration from what's around in the week leading up to the date, but I do need to plan a bit more for winter weddings as bad weather can mean little to inspire. So I'm filling up with lots of old man's beard and trailing berries too. and will see how they keep, they may look lovely against coloured twigs and preserved foliages. And I've been experimenting to see how late things can flower in the tunnel once the light dims. Stocks and cleome are looking as though they may get to do their thing, but they may just stop on the point of flowering in which case they'll have to be ripped out as they won't overwinter at that stage.

See us in the smoke

2010-10-07T13:09:00.000+01:00

It's the first time at Broadway market this Saturday. An odd time to start as it's the end of the season, but I'm taking lots of late flowers plus arrangements with berries and foliage and we'll see how it goes. The plan is to do four or five before christmas, moving from fresh flowers to lovely pots of paperwhites and suchlike and christmas decorative hoops and arrangements - but definitely no holly and ivy wreaths as I just don't do them. And no conventional dried flower arrangements although my helpers keep trying to persuade me to go down that line. I'm afraid I lived through the 70s and have deeply unpleasant memories of hideous decaying dusty dried flowers and bowls of potpourri and it is not an era I wish to revisit! However, I do have some gorgeous flowers drying at the moment for some purpose or other, just nothing 70s style...... It's rather lovely to be making up autumnal country bunches as I don't get to do that normally except for October weddings and occasional events. Do call by if you're vaguely in the area.

still blooming - and that cauliflower sheep

2010-10-03T17:52:00.000+01:00

Rain more rain and then some torrents after the first frosty nip. The good news is that some of the dahlias came back from the brink for a last flourish, and cosmos and scabious seem positively ecstatic after a nip of frost. Delivered wedding flowers on Friday through torrential rain and floods to worried bride who feared rain might have stopped play, but all was well, especially as she had no colour preferences but dahlias are her favourite flowers and we still had some wildly bright survivors.

Meanwhile the husband was in Bridgend making a 10 foot cauliflower sheep - picture of it's birth on a very wet Friday. Sadly it just reached it's full magnificence on Saturday when it could cope no longer and the combined weight of rainsodden base plus 600 cauliflowers and aubergines proved just too much and it sank to its knees and disintegrated into its component veg..... http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=106998829353904&v=photos

First frosts

2010-09-27T07:39:00.001+01:00

Clear skies, bright days but alas the first frost. Probably not too sad to mean the end of the courgettes as they have been outgrowing themselves for weeks, so much so that we have just about forgotten to use them and their bed has turned into a mass of enormous yellow zeppelins. But very sad to herald the end of the dahlias which have been blooming their heads off for weeks and weeks. And other annuals are not impressed with the change in weather so we are only doing automatic mail order for another week or two. But I'm thrilled to note that Mother's Day is late next year so we should be well up by then!

Waiting for bulbs to arrive so we can start looking at that job, which is massive. Ground not yet cleared. And there are days of weeding everywhere to start putting things to bed for winter. Some days the tasks seem a bit daunting, and the expense of having enough help to make most of them happen.

an autumnal week

2010-09-25T08:28:00.001+01:00

Another week has flown by and we are getting toward the end of the mail order season as the asters all bloom and the dahlias pull out all the stops before the threat of frost. Still a surprising amount of flowers in the gardens - scabious have done terrifically well this year, almost all types, the lovely purple podded nigella are only now finishing, there are still spots of ammi, second time around campanulas, aconitum, solidago, rudbeckias, heleniums, verbena, persicarias, catanaches, nicotianas, cornflowers.... plus many I can't think of this second. I'm experimenting to se how late we can keep things flowering in the tunnel and wondering whether the stocks will come through to flower before day length gets too short, ditto cleome and molucella. If they don't make it I'll let some stay to see if they hold out for early flowering next year, but only a few as tunnel space starts to get precious.

Next job is clearing for bulb planting. I hoped we'd get on to it this week but we got nowhere near.

I start to get desperate for a bit of pavement walking at this time of year, so have decided to do Broadway market b y London Fields from next month - an odd time to start, at the end of the season, but they said they'd love me there for a few goes on the lead up to Christmas so I'm thinking of inventive creations and we are picking masses of material to dry to put in our hoops etc.....I seem to remember I was going to have a quiet time before christmas but as ever seemed to forget to remember when it mattered.

Wonderful WWOOFer Emma has been taking pictures. The husband's sculptures look particularly fetching. And it's interesting to have a completely different eye on the gardens. My photos are usually record shots so I can try and discover what's going on year on year, I hardly ever take the top garden areas as these are not really the productive areas, but I think they look rather lovely in some of her pictures. I'm keeping my fingers crossed Emma may decide to stay around this area as she seems genuinely interested in the flower business and has some very good ideas. She's even done lots of flower arranging courses and has showed me reams of pix of very well thought out arrangements - but I would need to knock the florist out of her a bit.... She is also the best gardener we've ever had here.

A WWOOF wonder

2010-09-18T16:25:00.000+01:00

After some earlier less than thrilling WWOOF experiences, the tables have turned. Emma Gardner is here for I hope a couple of weeks and what a star. Kew trained, she's looking for the next gardening direction so trying lots of avenues. She's also a very good photographer so I'll be posting some of her pix any day soon. She did get rather thrown in the deep end, WWOOFers are supposed to work about 5 hours a day, I'm sorry to say her first day was 12 hours (a full day's work then picking and preparing for market) and her second 10 hours (a day's work then wedding prep) before a normal 8 hours..... I promise I do keep suggesting she can stop but somehow she just doesn't mind mucking in as it's rare to stop here unless physically removing oneself from site.

That said, she has just removed herself from site, in her van, so perhaps she'll never be seen here again..

One of her many jobs so far was picking and helping get the market stuff ready. All very bright and late summery.

september colours

2010-09-18T16:13:00.000+01:00

No longer any point pretending there's an Indian summer in waiting, things are definitely feeling very autumnal here, and the field's exposure very apparent. But colours are still very bright and cheery - a few pix of a yellow and pink (and hops) wedding, one with autumnal shades and pinks, and bouquet from seasonal but "vintage" request, plus mixed buttonholes.

I love it when morning views of the field are of mist rising above the river with the sky clear before the mist evaporates.

Wild water Wye swimming

2010-09-11T19:05:00.000+01:00

I wish I'd looked up from tunnel vision weeding today as another local activity has appeared: Son plus 14 friends came down for their annual canoeing and camping weekend but there was just too much rushing water for even vaguely safe canoeing as the Wye is in flood, so instead they hired wetsuits and lifejackets from the Hollybush Inn www.hollybushcamping.co.uk a few miles outside Hay and swam to Hay. The river was so swift it took them all faster than they had ever swam in their lives. I was sorely jealous and wished I had looked up from weeding to do something fun! By all accounts better than canoeing, I'm off next weekend, I think a new hobby looms!

Planning a cutting garden day

2010-09-11T13:38:00.002+01:00

Thank you so much to everyone who came on a damp day to the course yesterday. I felt that it was a very successful day, with a collection of very well motivated and delightful people. I think it won't be long before some more successful cut flower businesses are hitting the market places of Britain. Look out for the Garrod family who came over from Tunbridge Wells and have already started their new gardens by clearing polytunnels and beginning to cultivate 2 acres of what sounds very suitable land, and Marie and Martin are also on the brink of starting their new gardens in Warwickshire. Julie is already starting to sell to local restaurants and businesses in her Bristol area, and Claire from the Bath area has recently got the on line shop Mabel and Rose www.mabelandrose.com up and running - check it out for vintage garden items and clever ideas, and perhaps flowers coming soon, though how she has the energy to do it all with a young family as well heaven knows. And Claire will try to send some photos from the day when she has the chance, as I have currently given up with my camera - a card reader also failed to manage to download stored photos, and I think I shall have to bite the bullet and purchase a new model.

Jane, already a well established and talented garden designer, came from Nottinghamshire to see what we are up to and share her experiences of working in another area of the industry, and to get some idea how the business side works - I hope she wasn't too disappointed to find I can shed little light on the best way to run the business as I am on the verge of getting admin help and getting better organised but am definitely not there yet. As an experienced professional designer she was also a little alarmed at the level of weeds here, and I'm not sure it was very reassuring when Meg, who was a fabulous help yesterday, told her that I simply don't see them! Samantha on the other hand works for the BBC Wildlife team, so wasn't phased by the level of wildness, and the other participant was another Charlie, who lives locally and plans to set up a new flower growing venture involving the children at a new school site, a very interesting idea.

The course reminded me how much fun it is spending time discussing possibilities with other interested growers and potential growers, I had intended to do many more courses this year but somehow time just filled up with other commitments, but I will do more next year as I am trying to get the business side more balanced and plan the diary rather better! I have been approached several times recently by London markets to ask if I might be interested in selling there, and I have tended to think it was rather a mad idea, but am considering a monthly slot next year, changing my mind to think it could actually be rather fun - plus I would get to gatecrash my children's social life one weekend a month as both are living in the city, and catch up with some London friends.

Talking of children, yesterday finished with my son plus thirteen friends appearing for their annual weekend partying and canoeing down the Wye. As it was so wet in the evening they decided that putting tents up in the dark was not ideal, so instead every mattress and sofa in the cottage was occupied... Sometimes I think we lead a very slow quiet life here but I think I possibly suffer from the social equivalent of body dysmorphia.....

3 weddings and camera problems

2010-09-05T20:07:00.001+01:00

Satisfying but exhausting few days. Camera loaded with photos but now the damn thing won't import anything, so many apologies for no current pics of weekend's business, I'm sure brides will send when possible .....

So this is how the end of last week went. If you want to grow flowers watch out, you might get into this sort of schedule too!

Wednesday: full day with only two Wednesday helpers as everyone else is (sensibly) holidaying. We weeded, mulched, mowed, and picked for Thursday market. Day started at normal 8.30, finished about 9pm after picking for the market.

Thursday: 5 am start to bunch and sort for market, and to pick for mail out wedding, 6 boxes blue and white wanted - blue larkspur, white phlox, small glads, blue asters, scabious, white asters, snapdragons, cornflowers, white cosmos, a few delphiniums. Picking for mail out orders, fortunately only 7 more boxes to go today. 8am to the market. 12pm back from market to pick and prepare for two weddings: one wants pink and yellow, one wants oranges and purples and creams, plus foliages and hops. Luckily friends staying stripped the leaves off the hops while Meg and I picked and picked and picked - cosmos, lomas, rudbeckias, achilleas, phlox, delphs, scabious, nigella, asters, artemisia, calendula, larkspur, solidago, dahlias..... Then orders to arrange and send... Finally started preparing for Friday's wedding about 5.30pm. 10 table centres plus 12 foot long top table garland of hops and pink and yellow flowers plus bridal bouquet (lots of dahlias, seedpods. solidage, stocks, artemisia, ammi, dill....) with 5 bridesmaid's bouquets and 2 flower girl wands - decided on poppy seed heads and stems with dahlias all beribonned in yellow and pink. Then 15 buttonholes, yellows and whites so used mainly lomas, dahlias, love in the mist and scabious. Thank you Meg for staying so late and being so brilliant. Finished about 10.30pm for something to eat.

Friday: Leave at 5.00 to drop dogs off at their holiday home, luckily en route, and even more luckily I know them well and they don't mind me turning up at 5.30! Get to Henley for 9.00am. Bind bouquets in the van before delivery at 9.30. Discover there has been a misunderstanding on buttonholes and 10 more needed when I get there. heigh ho, lucky I have a van load of flowers rather than a lot of properly pre-arranged decorations! Finish decorating marquee and sorting table centres in pewter pots at 2.30pm. Phew! Lunch and find somewhere to stay. 4.30pm: start sorting flowers for Saturday's wedding. Sort into 6 table centres, flowers for top table arrangement, flowers for registrar's table, flowers for bar, flowers for small pots on windowsills, flowers for bouquets and flowers for buttonholes. 8pm brief supper. 8.30 pm start making bouquets and buttonholes and corsages - go for love in the mist pods, white love in the mist flowers, more yellow lomas, scabious, cornflowers, purple dahlias, all tied with raffia for this very informal wedding. Bouquets needed to be purples and oranges with reds, yellows and foliage so I included marigolds and larkspur and cornflowers with persicaria, dill heads........ Weary so went to bed at 10pm.up by 6am to finish bouquets and corsages, then breakfast and off to the venue for 9. Slight disorganisation that end so the pewter pots I was supposed to be using all had to be found, cleaned etc before I could start arranging... had forgotten about cake and hair flowers but luckily was reminded at 10.30 in plenty of time before wedding at 12.00 but somehow everything became rather a dash to get decorations in place before the ceremony. As the wedding breakfast was taking place in the same room as the ceremony there was a wait as I like to put all the table centres out myself and titivate in position rather than running away and leaving them for the caterers to do. So I was finally done by 2.15, everyone was happy, I got home at 5.45pm having picked up the dogs en route.....

Took loads of photos and now the computer won't recognise the camera. Aargh.

best things: with apologies to those of you who do, but I'm so glad I don't live near Henley, well out of my comfort zone as I am the queen of hopeless personal grooming (5 minutes to get out of bed, washed and dressed average and there are days that I get up in such a rush that I don't even quite remember to put all the appropriate garments on or wash properly!) and could not cope with all that need to look tidy and tanned and made up and drive a clean vehicle and have manicured hands....
staying at Henley Business School was surprisingly fab - beautiful old buildings on the bank of the Thames but with no razzmatazz, just comfort, landscape, peace and the most fantastic breakfast and wonderful staff
Brides: so lovely when I get to meet you and you're happy with what I've done

worst things: I always forget how many hours it takes to prepare flowers for weddings.
The fact that there are only 24 hours in a day.
Age!
Timing - the husband has been directing a huge festival for the last week and it's all gone extremely well with dozens of brilliant events and music and it would have been lovely to have been there. But we have promised each other a holiday next month which is very exciting.

Sunday
Inclined to curl up on the sofa and do nothing, but instead went to the most brilliant open air Shakespeare I have ever seen, the Living Willow Theatre production of Twelfth Night at beautiful Llowes Court (my favourite garden in Britain in fact, very very grown up and beautifully thought out but utterly unpretentious and completely suiting the 12th century house and landscape). It was raining a bit but it didn't matter a jot. So glad I went, great production, lovely crowd, perfect setting. Then returned and sort of by mistake made chutney and went mushroom picking as there are just so many around. Must try to stop doing and practice just being sometimes!

Natural Wedding Company and damp flowers

2010-08-28T20:09:00.000+01:00

Lovely to meet Charlie Burton and Nick today who called in after a wedding in Hereford - Charlie set up and runs The Natural Wedding Company www.thenaturalweddingcompany.co.uk so do check out the site which is a really good directory of ethical/eco wedding suppliers, all about beautiful simple or sophisticated reality rather than over the top pressurised wedding planning.....

It continues to rain here, on and off, and is blowing a gale on the field again. It seems calm enough in the cottage garden but crest the brow of the hill and it feels at least 50mph. So I have been experimenting to see what still picks and holds when blasted with rain and wind as there are plenty of weddings coming up and I would like the flowers to look lovely rather than bedraggled! Some of the dahlias that are still standing do OK, some of the clumps of cosmos stay happy but others shrivel and wither almost instantly, some scabious survive happily, cornflowers don't seem too fussy, and the stocks on the field are fine because they are protected by great banks of verbena and falling down larkspur (which lasts two minutes if picked when wet). Even eryngium are not happy, seeming to brown instantly with so much weather. It's all a learning curve but I wouldn't mind less learning sometimes!

I took last week off from mail orders in order to catch up and hoping to pick masses of flowers to dry.... I chose a bad week for it, delphiniums are wet and definitely unpickable and undriable, ditto lomas, molucella, ammis, nigella..... But there are gorgeous asters just coming, and masses more heleniums and lovely rudbeckias, stocks, phlox, echinacea, more cornflowers, outrageous dahlias, delphiniums in waiting for a dry day or three, scabious, sweet annie, many pretty things.

work boots

2010-08-26T11:39:00.000+01:00

I know it's a standing joke that us women all love shoes, but good footwear is about the most important kit I need. It's wellies all winter, and as I can't afford le chameau I do stick with barbour as they are the most comfortable although they actually are not as sturdy or longlasting as I would like. But most of the time I wear Blundstone boots because they are supremely comfortable. I have just had to concede my last pair have reached the end of their life and had to buy more. Don't buy them on eBay, there are some fakes out there that cost as much as the real thing or more, and no need to buy from the "recommended" blunnie suppliers either - I highly recommend Scotlands Outdoor Centre www.scotlandsoutdoorcentre.co.uk - boots are £75.00 including postage and sent out the day or day after getting the order. Brilliant!