Journal
The meadow gets better and better
A glorious month of dry warm weather has been brilliant for the meadow that we sowed in March on the slope outside the workshop.
The slope is made up of building spoil, excavated when we extended the workshop last year and it borders the path that connects the workshop to the airstream caravan.
It was planted with some left over perennials and sown with a meadow mix of seeds from Wallis Seeds for a total investment of under £30
Much of the meadow has now gone to seed, the birds are fluttering there every morning when I come into work.
My next job is to work out how to get those seeds to take for next year.
It is quite the most beautiful thing.
June in Snapdragon's Garden
This month, as I wait for a good time to weedkill the new beds in the back garden - I am keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the front garden.
This little border runs from the drive to the front door - this photo was taken from the hall.
Last year I dug out the turf and planted an apple tree, a box hedge and some perennials. This year I moved lots of the perennials from the back gardens into it.
It is the most sheltered space in the whole garden - surrounded on 3 sides by beech hedges and backing upwards from the path so that frost rolls from it.
I wanted it to be a haven for insects, away from the winds that buffet the rest of the garden, and chose a colour scheme of pinks and purples with splashes of tomato soup orange to pep it all up.
At the moment it is a wonderful cottage garden muddle, full of scabious and peonies, roses and alliums - all backed by a wall of 8 feet tall delphiniums
With this spell of warm sunny weather you can hear the noise of the bees from inside the house!
It is a good job that I have somewhere else to look while I pluck up the courage to kill off the remaining plants (and weeds) in the back garden and then to cover it all for a season or two.
Wish me luck . . . .
The new meadow - garden transformation June
When we extended the workshop last year we also re-routed the path to make it easier to pull trolleys of mail sacks up to the cars. This created a steep bank of spoil between the airstream and the workshop.
We weedkilled all the couch grass, docks and thistles and began to plant excess perennials from the old cutting garden into it, sowing the areas in between with a wild flower mix for damp soil.
For the past 2 months it has looked terrible - scratchy, scurfy little seedlings coming through the mud and I have been itching to hoe it and tidy it all up.
Then suddenly those little seedlings began to bloom.
My top tip for avoiding droopy daisies.
When I grew cut flowers for a living I found that the single most important thing for extending their vase life was cutting them at exactly the right point in their life cycle.
My very first video is about how you can tell when that is
Romantic table flowers
This is a brilliant way to jazz up a plain glass or jar to make a gorgeous romantic flower arrangement for an outdoor party. They look amazing lined up along the centre of a table or with nightlights dotted between them.
You need -
Waterproof blu-tack (or double sided sticky tape at a push)
A glass or jar
Scissors
Broad pretty leaves - I used a hosta
Cut a strip of waterproof blu tak in half lengthwise and wrap around the top and bottom of your glass.
Stick your leaves to the blu tak so that they cover the glass - squash them into it so that they are firmly anchored.
Carefully cut the stems so that they are flush with the bottom of the glass.
Fill with flowers cut short so that they balance on the lip of the leaves - the effect should be natural and not too symetrical.
I find that the hosta leaves will last a couple of days out of water - if you need the to stay perky for longer stand the arrangement on a saucer of water
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