Summer at Exotic Garden…
Posted on | July 9, 2011 | 8 Comments
Solenostemon (Coleus) with Colocasia (Edo) from Morrison’s supermarket!
It’s been a very busy week here at the Exotic Garden with lots of coach parties arriving come rain or shine. The most exciting group though were three coach loads of children from Avenue Junior School here in Norwich, who were all on a jungle plant hunting expedition. They all had to find fifteen things in the garden then draw them and anything else that took their fancy – what enthusiasm; I think a couple of them are going to be budding gardeners!
Two of the things they had to find in the garden were sculptures created by a member of the Norwich 20 Group, Oliver Creed. I was really pleased when Oliver offered to place two of his works of art in the garden for the summer months. Oliver Creed studied Sculpture at the Norwich School of art in the late 80’s. For the last decade he has worked exclusively with stoneware clay, having previously used cement and plaster. He told me that he is a modeller by temperament and enjoys working with clay and within the structure of its limitations. It is a delight to have his sculptures nestling amongst the plants in the desert garden, where they look very much at home.
'Pagoda' by Oliver Creed in the Xerophtic garden
Tree piece sculpture by Oliver Creed
One of the sculptures called ‘Pagoda’ has another very architectural shape close to it, Agave celsii (century plant) a species which is native to the cloud forests of north central Mexico which grows to about 45-60cm (18-24in). It’s a fabulous Agave which forms large colonies in the wild. Like many Agaves it can tolerate sub zero temperatures under the right conditions. My specimen has been sending a rather imposing single vertical spike up for the last three months and at 1.5m (5ft) tall it is is now coming into bloom. It looks absolutely amazing with its very dark purple flowers with bright yellow anthers all tightly packed together. This gem should be flowering for many weeks to come and will hopefully produce some viable seeds. Unfortunately being monocarpic it will die after flowering, though pups will form around the base.
Agave celsii coming into bloom in the Xerophytic garden – originally bought from Amulree Exotics here in Norfolk.
Agave celsii up close
Agave celsii even closer!
Now for something completely different! In the spring Thompson and Morgan sent me a dozen summer flowering Daffodils, something I had never heard of before! I planted up two pot-full’s of Narcissus ‘Erlicheer’ in April when most Daffodils are coming to the end of their season. Now they are in full ostentatious bloom. An oddity I know, but beautiful never-the-less, highly scented and enjoying the July weather. They look somewhat like a variety that can be forced into flower for Christmas called ‘Cheerfulness’. If nothing else, they will be a talking point in the garden over the next couple of weeks! In past years I have planted the winter flowering ‘Paperwhite’ Narcissus in August and had it in bloom by mid September – all we need now is one that flowers in August! Another out of season bulb I have grown is the normally winter flowering Amaryllis hippeastrum, also associated with the darkest days of winter. A couple of years ago I placed a large bulb at the back of my fridge to keep it really chilled and then potted it up into a terracotta pot in June where it quickly grew a flower stem that subsequently came into full bloom in July with its large intense red flowers.
Narcissus 'Erlicheer' floweing in July!
Narcissus 'Erlicheer'
As for the rest of the garden – it is now really powering up, with some plants like the ‘Elephants Ears’ Colocasia esculenta ‘Mammoth’ forming enormous plants already, and I’m hopeful that a new form I purchased last year called ‘Jacks Giant’ should get even bigger than ‘Mammoth’. Maybe its wishful thinking on my part, but I hope it gets absolutely enormous this summer!
Colocasia esculenta 'Jacks Giant'
Colocasia esculenta ‘Mammoth’ after a rain shower…
Last week I lost my car keys and spent a very frustrating two hours or so looking for them everywhere including my fridge, airing cupboard, and all my pockets many times! I ran out of places to look, so in total frustration I took the drastic action of digging up about 15 plants I had planted in the garden early that day looking for them in the planting holes! Eventually I gave up looking a decided to get on with the daily watering – then low and behold I found them on top of my propagator in one of the Polly tunnels with Dweezal guarding them!
Dweezal guarding my lost keys
Genghis gardening the garden!
My Tokenise cat called ‘Dog’ decided to move in with my neighbours a couple of years ago and is now called ‘Biscuit’. While my neighbours are having a week’s holiday, he is back in the Exotic Garden and temporarily called ‘Dog Biscuit’!
July already!
Posted on | July 4, 2011 | 5 Comments
Agave celsii coming into bloom with a Verbascum behind...
I always like to read articles and blogs I have written at this time in past seasons and I’m usually amazed to see how different the garden is year on year. Sometimes it’s well in advance and at other times well behind, though this year up until a few weeks ago drought was one of the biggest topics of conversation for Norfolk gardeners. Last year I wrote about the spring being the driest for over 80 years and as you probably know this year has easily beaten that, being the driest for over 100 years, so I wonder what we gardeners are in store for next year as the east coast is famed for being the driest part of the country in any year!
The xerophytic garden is looking blooming wonderful!
One family of plants that seem to be fine whether the summers are hot or cool (I am loathed to say cold) are the Hosta’s. Most of mine are grown in large containers that were frozen solid during the winter months. Much to my amazement though, most of them have been producing the biggest leaves they have ever had this year – maybe the cold winter was good for them after all! I know roses have been performing particularly well this summer thanks to the big chill.
Frozen Hosta pots...
My largest leaved Hosta ‘Sum and Substance’, is certainly much larger this year than in past years, despite having had the same feeding regimen every year, a generous helping of blood fish and bone when the shoots are a few inches tall to really get them going. All my Hosta’s are grown in large pots and containers because they are soon eaten with great relish right to the main veins by slugs and snails – in fact you can hear them chewing if you listen carefully! I have nothing against them, they have just as much right to be here as I do, but not on my Hosta’s or anywhere in my garden come to that! For this reason, mine are all grown in large terracotta pots which are raised up on bricks. Around the base of each pot is smeared a generous helping of Vaseline covering about 2ins in depth – just enough for them to slide off when they get the scent of my prized plants.
I especially like Hosta ‘Sum and Substance’, it’s a real cracker normally growing to about 75cm tall by 1.2m wide, though this year mine have exceeded this! The leaves are up to 50-cm long, starting off mid-green then fading to bright yellowy-green with age, especially in bright sun. This year from mid June, countless racemes of pale lilac bell-shaped flowers have been produced on 1m long stems which are quite stunning; although I know some Hosta growers remove the flowers because they think the flowers detract from the foliage – personally I think the flowers are essential. The really warm April weather pushed their growth along very quickly, though they are now enjoying the cooler wetter weather. I have several pots of this rather fabulous Hosta around a large and old standard bay tree.
Hosta 'Sum and Substance'
Flower bud ready to burst open...
Nestling under the edge of their foliage is a far more diminutive Hosta named ‘Fire and Ice’. It’s a pretty little thing with slightly twisted leaves that have bottle-green margins and splashes of pure white at the centre giving it a very dramatic appearance even though it only grows to about 1ft tall with a similar width.
Hosta 'Francis Williams' with Fire and Ice below...
Hosta 'Fire and Ice'
Close to them is another large container bursting at the seams with Hosta ‘Frances Williams’, a medium sized Hosta growing to about 50cm high by 1m wide. This deservedly popular Hosta has large, hart-shaped, puckered, glaucous bluish-green leaves with irregular yellowy-green margins that occasionally cover half or more of a leaf giving this Hosta a very distinctive appearance. Like all Hosta’s, this one looks rather seductive after rain as the drops cling to the leaf surfaces like beads of mercury. At the moment it is also bristling with racemes of bell-shaped, off-white flowers which are held well above the foliage, a sight to behold at this time of year, provided you have kept the slugs and snails at bay! Being a compact variety it is excellent for lighting up a shady spot among ferns and other foliage plants or taller Hosta’s.
Hosta 'Francis Williams'
One of the first Hosta’s I fell in love with many years ago (I think I was about 10 at the time) was Hosta sieboldiana, a plant I had never seen before that I saw growing to perfection in the grounds of an old vicarage just outside Norwich where a summer fete was being held. I remember being far more interested in the garden than the Fete! I was fascinated by its leathery rather enormous bluish grey-green leaves, far more interesting than small leaved plants; in fact anything with big leaves was a hit with me! Of course, I grow this venerable Hosta in my garden today in two large pots either side of an old garden bench in a shady corner of the garden. All my Hosta’s’ are getting rather pot bound so in late winter next year they will all be split in two. I think they will soon be taking over my garden!
Hosta sieboldiana
Hosta sieboldiana
For those of you who like a few facts, I will not disappoint you. There are approximately seventy species of Hosta indigenous to China, Korea, Eastern Russia to Japan, though there has been much hybridisation among species and cultivars with over 3000 registered and named varieties and many more that have not yet been registered. I am always fascinated to know where plant names came from as they are often named after people – so you will be pleased to know that Hosta’s were named after Dr. Nicholaus Host (1761-1834) a physician to the emperor of Austria.
Dr. Nicholaus Host (1761-1834) a physician to the emperor of Austria.
I couldn’t finish with out a picture of Dweezal!
Dweezal alos known as Man!
The top of the year to you!
Posted on | June 24, 2011 | 7 Comments
Dahlia 'Art Nouveau'
At last we are in the summer season, though weather-wise you might not think so! April this year was more like August and June, well; I think it has been more like April! Our weather has certainly been fickle in recent months-years! Like most people, or should I say gardeners, I wish for a warm and not too hot summer with plenty of rain – hopefully at night! At least the last week or so has seen a good amount of rain here at the Exotic Garden, though I imagine there is still not enough for all our Norfolk farmers and growers.
I remember a few years ago on ‘Gardeners World’ Alan Titchmarsh said that ‘one inch of rain goes down about nine inches into the soil’, though I suppose that would depend to some extent as to whether you live on sand, clay, or chalky soils. The soil here is what I would call a light sandy loam with quite a lot of stones in it, though I am always removing them when I dig the garden over in the winter. Of course steady drizzle for hours or days is far better for the garden than a short heavy downpour which doesn’t really do the job of moistening the soil properly as it either runs straight through or overflows onto paths. I am guessing, by looking at water in my wheelbarrow that the garden has had about two inches of rain in recent days; hence the larger trees and shrubs will still be bone dry deep down. Here in the east we probably need several weeks of slow steady drizzle to satisfy the largest of trees! Any amount of hand or sprinkler watering doesn’t make up for the real thing and I have certainly noticed that the garden must have been sighing with relief after all that wonderful fresh water. The Dahlias I wrote about last week have really appreciated the drizzly rain with some looking as though their foliage has almost doubled in the last week; unfortunately it has also brought out the snails as well!
Nice healthy Dahlia growing well after all the recent rains!
This Dahlia has lost all of its clothes – thanks snails and slugs!
Dahlia ‘David Howard’ has just started blooming. This was one of Christopher Lloyd’s favourite Dahlias at Dixter.
A fabulous short Dahlia only growing to about 2ft tall named ‘Roxy’ with dark foliage.
Towards the end of May I planted out several different types of Amaranthus (grown from seed) which have rocketed away, especially over the last ten days or so. One I particularly like which I haven’t grown for about ten years is a rather spectacular one called Amaranthus paniculatus ‘Hot Biscuit’. It is now about 2ft tall, though it can get up to about 6ft tall by high summer, hence it needs to be positioned carefully. This can be rather difficult to consider when they are planted out at only 5-6ins tall, because they need to be planted towards the back of the border so they don’t overshadow smaller plants – I am telling you this because I made the mistake of planting mine at the front – trust me not to read the info on the back of the packet!
Amaranthus paniculatus ‘Hot Biscuit’ in front of a standard orange tree – this one will get really tall!
Amaranthus paniculatus ‘Hot Biscuit’ just starting to come into flower – in the next month or so the flower heads will become enormous!
This delightful plant is an upright spreading annual or short lived perennial (in mild winters) with large dense heads of catkin-like branched inflorescences of rich ginger biscuit flowers – absolutely fabulous. I will not mention any of the other Amaranthus until later in the season when they are in full flower as I need to take some photographs to do them justice.
Unfortunately one of the raised borders in front of my house was rather battered by the winter cold, especially a large and old Astelia chathamica. For those who don’t have the pleasure of knowing this venerable plant, it looks somewhat like a Phormium, but with silvery-grey and very distinguished foliage. Unfortunately a few weeks ago, as it still looked terribly bedraggled, I decided to remove it completely and the rest of the plants in the border as well. It is now in my nursery recuperating!
I had nothing at hand with which to replant the border and with day-light dwindling; I decided to put part of my rather large container collection on the raised border. Many of the gravel pathways in the garden become rather narrow with overflowing pots in high summer which is fine by me, although visitors to the garden often and quite unintentionally bump into the plants breaking off limbs, though this does have the advantage of creating lots of new cuttings!
I have quite a mixture of containerised plants, though a good percentage are my expanding collection of cane begonias (those that have fairly upright bamboo like canes) which love being outside for the summer months. Cane begonias are magnificent often very colourful plants with their statuesque form. They make excellent container plants for a position that is sheltered from the harsh mid-day sun at this time of year when the sun is at its zenith. In the middle of the arrangement I have a large pot of Canna Australia with its rich, dark purplish-black and very glossy foliage which will be topped later in the season with red flowers held well above the foliage. This is the only canna that has to be overwintered in full foliage as it hates being dormant – I have often had this delightful canna in flower for Christmas, a welcome sight in the depths of winter! Next to this, is a specimen Brugmansia ‘Snow Bank’, a fairly recent introduction from the US with green leaves that have heavily blotched creamy white edges. Later in the season it will be covered with lots of drooping Salmon pink nodding trumpets – quite divine.
Raised pot border, amazingly without cats!
A visitor to the garden this morning was surprised to see a very large ‘Money Plant’ – Crassula argentea happily growing in a very large pot. She said ‘I didn’t think you could grow house plants outside’. Of course, most house plants love it, getting fresh rain and wind around them producing much sturdier plants in general and not thin and drawn ones as they often look if permanently grown inside where they usually lean in one direction towards a window desperately trying to find light! Unfortunately not being hardy it has to come into frost free conditions for the winter, having had a good summer holiday in the garden.
Crassula argentea happily growing in a very large pot!
Although we are approaching high summer, there is a long way to go yet, especially with exotic plants which power up to a crescendo well after the more traditional style herbaceous plants are long gone.
I can’t finish without showing you one of my cats. This is ‘Tink’ a Chocolate Havana, being still for once, in my bamboo garden…
The summer solstice is almost upon us…
Posted on | June 17, 2011 | 4 Comments
Dweezal making sure I have potted everything properly. He’s always covered in dirt as he likes to do some potting himself!
Spring is almost over as we approach the longest day of the year (Summer Solstice) on Tuesday June 21st at exactly 5:16pm which also heralds the first day of summer. Let’s hope we have plenty of warm weather in the months to come with lots of rain at night. Well, one can be ever hopeful!
At this time last year I wrote about my Geranium palmatum flowering to perfection with myriads of pale purplish-pink blooms covered in bees. Unfortunately this year, only one small and rather feeble plant has survived – it’s a pathetic little thing with about five blooms on it – Likewise my Euphorbia mellifera was a blaze of flowers with their intense honey scent at around seven feet tall. Sadly in April I had to cut down its leafless withered stems to just above ground level where it has since vigorously grown back up to about one foot tall, so hopeful, barring another intense winter, it should be back in flower again next year. Of course that is providing we don’t have another killer winter!
Although all our lawns have become pale brown and straw coloured over the past month or so, the recent rains will soon turn them back to green. Grass is a tenacious plant that seems to have the ability to come back from the dead! Of course in the US especially in Southern California, you can have your tiered dried out lawn sprayed green for the summer months with the added bonus of saving water, so very green indeed!
When I first moved here in 1982 there were dozens of very old rose bushes which were well past their sell by date and besides I didn’t think roses fitted in with the exotic style I had envisaged, so they were summarily removed! Surprisingly though, and as a homage to all those roses that had graced the garden over the previous decades, I did plant one rose against the side of the house, a climbing rose named ‘New Dawn’. I don’t know if it was the cold winter or the dry spring, but this year it has produced the most abundant blooms of highly scented pale pink double flowers I have seen on it in years. There are nothing like roses for over the top scent and of course very British.
Climbing Rose 'New Dawn'
Climbing Rose 'New Dawn'
This year, in part because of so many plants dying here over the winter and trying to fill large areas on a budget, I have gone overboard with Dahlias. Not the species that originated in the mountainous regions of Mexico and Central America and Colombia, but the blowsy hybrids that can be ludicrously loud to relatively sedate. For several decades they were out of fashion, but with so many forms now available and their ability to flower right through to first frost, they are now very much back in fashion – well at least in my garden! In October last year I went with my friend and gardener Ian Roofe down to an autumn plant fair at Great Dixter East in Sussex where we could also see Christopher Lloyds well known tropical garden. I remember that late in the season the garden towered over our heads with flamboyant foliage and day glow colours on a rather drizzly grey autumnal afternoon.
Exotic borders in the tropical garden at Great Dixter with unknown Dahlia
More jungle at Great Dixter with Dahlia 'David Howard'
A chance encounter with a bee on a Dahlia…
One plant that stood out for me in a courtyard garden near the house, a Dahlia that was a good six feet tall and almost as wide with the most ridiculously large deep rose-pink blooms I had ever seen. I had to do a double take as they were at least 12ins across and can apparently reach a staggering 14ins across if the side flowers are pinched out! I asked Fergus Garret the head gardener (who also wrote the preface to my Encyclopaedia of Exotic Plants) what was this goliath of a Dahlia? He gleefully told me that this dinner plate sized flowering Dahlia was called ‘Emory Paul’. I have to admit for most of my life I have thought of these giant sized Dahlias as rather vulgar and only fit for show benches along with outsized leeks, but this particular dahlia really did stop me in my tracks, even the buds were enormous! Maybe it was the drizzle affecting my brain, but I knew I had to have this in the Exotic Garden.
A rather large bud on Dahlia 'Emory Paul'
Dahlia 'Emory Paul' courtesy of ‘Rose Cottage Plants’
After a search on the internet I found a supplier of this venerable dahlia in Essex named ‘Rose Cottage Plants’ at Bay Tree Farm. Of course after seeing all the glowing pictures on their website I ended up buying far too many – why do gardeners always do this! These were all duly potted on arrival in early March then planted out in mid May and well staked as Dahlias have a habit of snapping or falling over, ruining the display. The first one to come into flower is a smashing Dahlia growing to about 3ft tall named ‘The Phantom’, an anemone-flowered dahlia that was apparently one of the most admired dahlia in the displays at RHS Wisley in Surrey – the slightly off-beat colour combination really works well, held high above the foliage on a 3ft high plant.
Dahlia 'The Phantom'
Dahlia 'The Phantom' photographed when light was failing at 9.30pm!
The second one to come into bloom here is a delightful comparatively short Dahlia at about 1½-2ft tall named ‘Gallery Art Nouveau’. It has blooms about 3ins across with petals of two-tone lilac-purple, arranged in a ‘Catherine Wheel’ formation.
Dahlia ‘Gallery Art Nouveau’ courtesy of ‘Rose Cottage Plants’. Unfortunately the recent and very welcome rains brought out masses of slugs which ate my first bloom! They also ate one of my ‘Emory Paul’ Dahlias to the ground!
This one makes a great container plant only needing a small cane to keep it upright. None of the others I have planted have come into flower yet, though one I’m particularly looking forward to is one I saw for the first time in the show garden at Urban Jungle in Costessey, Norwich, last October named ‘Fire Pot’. Quite an odd name, though it suits it well as the abundant 4-5ins wide flowers are a typical decorative type in a hot blend of pink and orange, with a touch of yellow at the centre giving a very hot fiery look all on a plant about 18ins to 2ft tall.
Dahlia ‘Firepot’ courtesy of ‘Rose Cottage Plants’
Dahlia ‘Firepot’ taken at twilight!
Time has run out again, so I wish you a good weekend in your garden – enjoy the long evenings and a happy Summer solstice to you all…
The new season at the Exotic Garden begins…
Posted on | June 10, 2011 | 8 Comments
At last the garden is up to scratch with new gravel laid - unfortunately some off my tallest Cordyline’s have decided that they have had enough!
I thought you might like to read my first article of the season for our local Norfolk paper the EDP (Eastern Daily Press) which I will be writing weekly until the end of October. I will be posting it here but will also be writing a more personal one as well for the delectation of my regular reads…
To kick off my articles for the EDP this summer I was interested to see what I had written at this time last year and very interesting read it was. It made me laugh when I read that Dweezal, one of my Devon Rex cats was sitting on my right shoulder, as he is doing so now! I wrote about the 2009/10 winter being the coldest for 30 years with the iciest night here at the Exotic Garden registering -5C in January, the coldest night temperature I had seen here for many a year, in fact about -3C had been pretty much been the coldest here for the seven proceeding years before that. In 2007-08 we were able to work through the winter months building the xerophytic garden (arid) and recorded a low of -2.5C on one night while most of that winter was above freezing and comparatively dry enabling much wall building to be done, as wet cement and ice don’t go together well!
During that seven year period I ceased wrapping up plants such as the banana Musa basjoo as those comparatively light frosts did little damage to the tall trunks, mostly only blackening the foliage which was left on to protect them. Then the 2009/10 winter came along and raised all the trunks to the ground, the first time I had lost all the upper growth in the 25 years they had been in the ground! Thankfully my clumps of Musa basjoo lived up to one of their common names ‘the root hardy banana’ and produced countless new stems in the spring which amazingly grew 6-10ft tall by the autumn. Alas, there were no tall ones like previous years where thanks to the mild winters they had previously grown up to 18ft tall with thick trunks, hence last year the garden looked rather open compared to past years, as there is nothing like a really tall stand of Musa basjoo to make a garden look really exotic by adding essential height to the borders.
No one had an inkling as to whether that winter had been a one off and after such a string of mild winters, most people, gardeners included thought that it was only a blip on the way to much milder winters here in Norfolk let alone the rest of the UK. I really missed the height of the bananas last year, so decided to go for the full ‘belt and braces’ and wrapped most of my bananas with the help of Jamie Spooner who had been working at Urban Jungle in Norwich. He had become a full time hermit in my tree house for the past year, even through the cold winter – I think he had anti-freeze in his blood! In the last week of October all foliage was snapped at about 6-7ft to act as a skirt adding extra protection, then tall canes were pushed into the ground about 2ft away from the stems surrounding the clumps, then horticultural fleece was wrapped around and filled with loosely packed straw to the tops of the stems and about one foot above that, then finely capped off with a sheet of polythene to keep out the worst of the winter rains and snow – they looked like a group of readymade snowmen! All of the tender exotics such as my ever expanding collection of Bromeliads were brought into snug conditions for the winter along with many large trays of Cannas. Quite a few people, thinking that the past cold winter had been a one off, thought I was taking ridiculous precautions; hence I did get some ridicule for doing this!
Thankfully I was totally vindicated as last winter hit new records, being the coldest recorded in the UK for over 100 years! I first knew about the early winter when I was hosting a ‘Gardeners World’ tour of the Caribbean gardens with Matt Biggs and was amazed to see pictures of the UK coved in snow in late November with all the mayhem that ensued, in fact we even wondered if we were going to get back home as Gatwick airport had been closed for three days! Luckily by the time we returned in early December most of the snow had thawed, so I thought I would have plenty of time to bring all the stragglers left out including covering all the gingers and other more borderline plants with straw – this was not to be as the cold weather came back with a vengeance for the whole of December as we all know and is now a historical event very firmly wedged in all gardeners minds. At the Exotic Garden my lowest recorded temperature was -11C a big drop on the almost balmy -5C recorded the year before, though nothing like the arctic reports of -17C to 18C seen in some parts of Norfolk!
Jamie bending over and snapping the Musa basjoo leaves to add extra protection to the stems
A single stem wrapped with horticultural fleece then filled with straw...
Jamie working on some of the larger clumps…
Snow men at The Exotic Garden in December
Virtually every garden lost their Cordyline’s (which are now re-growing vigorously from the ground) and well established clumps of Phormiums were severely cut to the ground. My largest clump was about 25 years old and at least 15ft across which subsequently became a sorry mass of dead foliage by late winter so had to be removed. A cover was built for a large specimen Schefflera macrophylla at the front of the house which was open to the elements on one side which worked to perfection as the foliage was only lightly singed after the big December freeze and has already put on masses of new growth.
In past years I have mentioned that the common houseplant Tradescantia fluminensis more commonly known as ‘Wandering Jew’ had survived freezing, but was total amazed that such a supposedly tender tropical not only survived but has come back with a vengeance all over the garden including some of the variegated forms like Tradescantia ‘Maidens Blush’! I was also pleasantly surprised that all my gingers survived the winter too, proving that they are really tough old things, despite at least two or more inches of permafrost! I have heard many stories about tender plants surviving while quite a few of the supposedly hardy plants such as some bamboos succumbed to the freezing conditions.
(Tradescantia fluminensis) 'Maiden's Blush' is a really tough plant here…
It has been an uphill struggle getting the garden back up and running again for its first open day on Sun 12th June, but thankfully passing one of those milestone Birthdays and severe gardeners back over the last few weeks, I think I am just about ready, so I am now going to celebrate finishing this article with a cup of tea and a stroll around the garden with my cats…
Anyone fancy a cup of afternoon tea in the tree house?
Bring back the sun please!
