Natural Wedding Company and damp flowers

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

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!

"bright and unstructured please"

The bride wore cream and burnt orange and requested an unstructured bouquet of whatever looks best to include yellow and orange and blue tones. It poured and poured and poured all through the evening and early morning so picking was a bit traumatic but luckily lots of flowers did manage to hold out. Bowls and jars were filled with oranges yellows and purples predominantly, and the bouquet featured mixed dahlias and plenty of other flowers and pods.

A weary flower grower!

I'm taking next week off from orders, which seems a bit perverse as there are enough flowers in the field to fill about a dozen marquees, as one of the visitors last Sunday observed.... I have realised that I am terribly behind with the non-growing side of the business so need to close my eyes to the flowers for a few days and catch up on the admin side. I also realise that by the end of some days recently I am becoming less than entirely reasonable, partly the fact that I have finally given in to some grim summer flu and am never good at being under the weather and partly perhaps that I am a little weary and not entirely rational - for example the husband made some mildly irritating comment a couple of days ago that would normally be water off a ducks back and I respond by saying (feeling entirely rational!) that I might as well leave and take the gardens with me! Now the idea of leaving house home and husband took even me by surprise, but to think that it would be entirely rational to consider moving about 15,000 plants, trees, shrubs, bulbs, tunnel, studio and everything else suggests that I am not quite my usual self. So a bit of a quiet week is probably rather a good wheeze......

On the bright side, I could probably fill about a dozen marquees with flowers with no problem, except that it is pouring with rain now so I would be loath to pick anything. Happily I had bouquets to send out today as well as other flowers and the rain held off long enough for me to pick in perfect condition. The bride wanted largely whites and greens with a few blue points so she and her bridesmaids had beautiful white phlox, white Nigella hispanica African Bride, blue scabious (various varieties) eryngium (her granny loved them), lots of seed pods, white stocks, green ammi, white ammi, cosmos foliage... I think the bouquets looked gorgeous and hope she loves them too. There were also several (coincidentally, curiously) golden wedding bouquets to send out and it couldn't be a better time as we have so many gorgeous yellows and golds in the gardens at the moment, from rudbeckias through to dahlias with lomas, achilleas, bupleurum and others. Lovely when things occur at the right time.

I was partly amused partly fed up to see today that the local girl who has started doing exactly the same thing after visiting me is even trying to sell flowers containing the ammi visnaga that originally came from here, very odd!

open day pix 2

open day pix 1

A family affair - my mum sorted the gate, shown with Goody the gardener having a rare sit down, daughter Rowan sorted the tea house, and children enjoyed mimicking the husband's wicker handstanding figures... more cars than I could have imagined filled the car park field and people seemed to be having a jolly time throughout!

Open Garden Day

Sun shone, lots of people came and we raised over £1100 for Macmillan, and more to come from various bits and pieces for the local Laurie Engel fund. THANK YOU EVERYONE! I'm hoping someone will send me some pictures as I didn't quite get around to taking any as I was too busy chatting (and am hoarse today!). Derry Watkins Special Seeds went down a treat, in fact so well that by the time I got round to trying to purchase many of my chosen varieties were Sold Out, I was delighted she had a good afternoon as she drove several hours to appear here... Lawton Hall Herbs also had a fab selection, and the Teas were a triumph - special thanks to daughter Rowan, her partner Dan and their two friends Suzie and Adam who not only manned the urn and cakes but cleared up the Flower House beforehand so it was totally transformed. Shelley Faye Lazaar has a secret talent, not only does she create beautiful hand painted textiles, she makes what is probably the best ginger cake in the world!

I met some great people, and was amazed how far some of you travelled to visit. Lovely to see Barbara from Devon again who came to my hay festival course in 2009 and is growing her own flowers for weddings and planning expansion, also Sue and Mike from North Wales who are about to jump in to cut flower production, and Marie from Derbyshire who trained as a florist but now plans to do the growing too. So much energy out there.

And if any of you have any photos of the day, I'd love it if you could send me a few!