17 July 2012 18:13:52
Its a Silver-Gilt!
And the Champagne is flowing over there!!
16 July 2012 16:43:01
Click to zoom
Click to zoom
Well, I'm not sure where to start as I haven't been here for a while, but believe it or not, I'm just back from helping to plant a Showgarden at the Tatton Flower show near Manchester. How did I get here? Well a stroke of luck really.
A couple of months ago a little plant shop opened up nearby here in Skerries. It is owned by garden designer Stephen Dennis (anyone remember the garden with the huge glass cube at Bloom a couple of years ago?) and his wife Camille and of course I became a regular visitor and got to know them. They were going to the Chelsea flower show and needed someone to help out at the shop so I gladly got involved. So then seeing as I am mad about plants I was asked if I would like to help with the garden at Tatton. At first it didn' look like it was going to work out but at the last minute I decided to go and I'm so glad I did. What a great experience.
The theme of the garden is a derelict barn or stable that has been given a new lease of life as a garden. The first photo shows how the garden looked when I arrived just before the planting began on Saturday morning. All the hard landscaping had been done and the pool with a fabulous living wall (made up of Ajuga, Sedum and Santolina) behind it had been finished. The patio is a beautiful stone called travertine. Over the seating area is a large pergola-type structure and then there is lots of space for planting inspired by meadow plants but with a contemporary interpretation. The list of plants is long but a few of them in the second picture are Lychnis 'Jenny', Foxgloves, four different types of Penstemons in beautiful colours - 'Strawberries and Cream', 'Amelia Jane', 'Czar' and 'Plum Jerkin', Campanula 'Pritchard's variety', a few different Salvias, Achilleas, Agastache, Scabiosa, dark purple Heuchera and Sambucus, Veronica 'Red Fox', a very unusual Lily called 'White Crane', Astilbes, and of course Ponytail grass in keeping with the horsey/stable theme.
In all, about 2000 plants have gone into the garden and the effect is brilliant, I think. I can't wait to put up a photo of the finished garden to see what you all think. They are probably working flat-out today to get it all finished off and then it will be judged tomorrow. We won't know until Wednesday how it did, but I hope it does well. Fingers crossed everybody please!