One thing about flower farming is that you are always having to think ahead about what you need to do now in order to grow fabulous flowers for the future. Of course, I’d like to say ‘plan’ rather than ‘think’, and yes, I do plan to a certain extent……but if there’s one thing that 2018 has taught me is the absolute truth of Burns’ phrase, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men…..”.
Continue reading 2018 – An Extreme Season for Flower Farming at Bloom Carousel
I love visiting open gardens to get new ideas about what I can be ‘sewing and growing’. I recently had the pleasure of going to Forde Abbey near Chard in Dorset. It is a beautiful place, combining diverse and vibrant planting with moody and intriguing statues and design.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted Tulipmania 1, where I described all the tulips I’d planted last year. With tulip season now pretty much over, I thought it worth writing its gripping sequel, Tulipmania 2, and providing a few pics of them all in their glory…
It’s that dahlia that time of year again…… All those midnight excursions into the garden with my torch and chopsticks to remove slugs finally seem worth it as my cafe au laits bloom into their giant fluffy and dishevelled loveliness.
But my garden dahlias are nothing compared to the dahlia show I went to last weekend at Chenies Manor, Buckinghamshire. It was a glorious Bank Holiday Monday with the sun beating down on hundreds of dahlias of all shapes, colours and sizes. Chenies Manor itself is a beautiful building, parts of it dating back to Tudor times. It’s the sort of place I would love to gambol around the gardens in a floaty lace dress accompanied by a chap playing Greensleeves on a lute to me. Nice slice of Victoria sandwich too!
I’m actually going to not go on too much about it because, as they say, a picture speaks a thousand words, so I’ll just show you a lot of stunning dahlia photos instead. Enjoy!!
I have been a little tardy in writing this blog for bluebell season has been and gone near me in Buckinghamshire. However, whilst they were in full bloom, I did get the chance to raid my garden and bring some of these beauties indoors. We have blue, white and pink ones although I chose not to use the pink ones in this arrangement. Continue reading One hundred years on…and you still make me smile
You’ll remember from my first post last week that I told you about my Bloom Carousel 2016 Challenge where I will be creating flower arrangements using unusual vases, rose bowls and other vintage bits and bobs. You can find out more about the challenge and the ‘rules of the game’ in my earlier post Here
So at last….ta da…. the Challenge is underway. Bet you’re gripped to your seats, huh? This week, I am using a pale pink Depression glass fan style vase which has its own removable flower frog – no need for floral foam here! This blushing beauty has survived intact since the 30s – you can see that it is very characteristic of the time.
Continue reading Bloom Carousel Challenge: Cheerful flowers using a Depression Glass Vase
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