Well it made me laugh this morning!

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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.