Seasidey wreaths?

These photos make the large willow based wreaths that Sally and I have been making today somehow look as though they belong on some shingley beach - they are the largest dried wreaths that I have made - the base is a heavy willow ring about 5 inches deep and about 28 inches wide. I have added in gauzy cream ribbons, berries, dried hydrangea and lots of cones.
The size, the high quality of the base and the amount of cones etc mean that they are also the most expensive wreath I have made - they will come in at about £48.00 - which I admit does seem to me a lot for a Christmas decoration. Sally pointed out that they will last for years and can in fact be displayed all year round as they aren't exclusively Christmassy. I do know of one customer who has had one of my "Christmas" wreaths hanging in her kitchen for 4 years now.
Later I was reading through Homes and gardens and House and Garden magazines - their Christmas editions are now out - they feature beautiful large door wreaths by Paul Hawkins and Kenneth Turner - they are made in oasis rings and the blurb gives them a life of between 1 and 3 weeks if kept cool. The price - FROM £150.
I felt a lot better

Pottin up begins

I have started to pot up the hyacinths and paperwhite narcissi that will be on sale for Christmas - the idea is to have seemless waves of flowers, though that involves a lot of moving the pots between the tunnel and the house to bring them on or hold them back.
I have chosen 2 main themes - blue and white with aged aluminium/zinc and to be really Christmassey bold red and green. The two bowls that I have planted up with paperwhites are in their everyday life jolly mixing bowls. I like things to have a use after the bulbs are finished.
The lue and white planters have an easy on the eye antique look and are the planters that I hae chosen for my spring bulb range which I will hopefully be selling at Partick Farmers Market in January, February and March. Imagine them filled withwhite scented snowbunting crocus or nodding snakeshead fritillaries. Watch this space.
Hank pointed out to me that I had restricted comments on this site to other blogger users - sorry, it was not deliberate and I have now changed the settings - please comment away!

Autumn harvest

We have been inspired by El at http://www.fastgrowtheweeds.blogspot.com. Over the past week she has been talking about collecting collecting up and shredding leaves, so today Zoe and I set to work on the bracken at the top of the copse.
We have two aims. Firstly we want to clear the bracken away from the bottom of the field but more importantly we want to make compost.
Compost is a difficult area for us. We grow without pesticides and herbicides and according to organic principles. I would love to use organic potting compost but 2 years ago we trialled 12 different organic composts for seed sowing and potting on and it was a disaster . Most of the seeds failed to germinate in the coarse twiggy compost and where I potted on germinated seedings into organic compost they actually shrank. I didn't have many back ups. I cried.

While organic composts are improving, they also come at a very high price premium and I think that the only long term solution is to begin making our own compost. We have begun a turf stack and will add to this when we strip out the front lawn in the Spring. I intend to mix the resulting loam with light moist composted bracken.

Zoe and I cut the fronds and are taking them up to an area of decking at the top of the field - if the weather is good we can leave them there to dry, otherwise they will have to go into the tunnel for a bit. I need them to be dry so that we can put them through the shredder to speed up the composting.

It was a lovely job - I am still wheezy with the cold - but my helper was fantastic and the sun had real heat in it. We managed to harvest an area about 10 feet by 20 feet, though I have my suspicions that it will rot down into a single bucket of leaf mould

Friday flowers

Yesterday was a VERY EXCITING DAY. Over the past year the artist Christine McArthur has been visiting the van to buy flowers - a mixed bunch of flowers that I get to chose. She has then been taking them into her studio and painting them. The results are on show at Roger Billcliffe's Gallery in Glasgow City Centre and last night was the Private View.

It was fantastic to see the results of the whole project. There is a mix of styles - many of the bunches are painted in monochrome watercolour outline (red, blue or yellow depending on the hue of the bunch) in a very free and masterly way - they are deceptively simple as I can identify every single flower - the scabious "compliment" and white tiger lilies in Blue June, the Crocosmia "Lucifer" in a yellow painting of Golden August .

There are also smaller close up watercolours of the van, buckets and oil lamp. My favourite though was a large acryllic of pink tulips - it was the first bunch of flowers that Christine bought this year and I remember it vividly - a mix of several varieties of tulips with very long stems - there was Mariette, Rosy wings, and Marilyn - many of the tulips were twisty and the whole bunch looked shimmery and shiny like silk. This has all been captured with such apparent casual ease. My photo doesn't do it justice - snapped as it was over people's heads - if you can, go and see the show which is on until 21st November - some of the paintings are also on the website www.billcliffegallery.com

prototype wreath

I am feeling very mumpy today as I have a sore throat and have lost my voice - I have just been out in the garden to pick some sage, rosemary and lemon verbena to make a tea which will hopefully help.
I have also begun to make prototype wreaths - this one is to decorate the front door of Shepherd's Lodge in Killearn where I am doing a Christmas Fair tomorrow evening. It is enormous - the largest size I do, about 3 feet across - and is studded with pomegranates, apples, chillis and gold cones. The finished wreath is very heavy but stunning - it can also be used laid flat on the floor or a low table to surround a collection chunky candles.
I don't begin making wreaths proper until the 2nd week in December, though Sally and I spent yesterday wiring lots of dried cones and nuts in preparation. Last year I ran out of wreaths by the 20th so it is best to pre-order - I should have worked out prices by the end of the week.
If anyone is making their own wreath this year I am quite happy to provide the frame, moss, wire etc. I am also doing a demonstration at Baldernock Garden Club on Tuesday December 5th.

Is this the way to go?

I orginally decided to write a weblog after hearing Heather of Eieflud botanical perfumes talking about her blog on Radio 4. Suddenly I could see how a weblog would allow me to show customers (and anyone else who stumbled on it) what the garden looks like, and also allow me to talk about issues like organics, cut flower production, citroen vans and so on, all the things that get missed in the 30 second purchase.

Now Heather has upped the game considerably by producing a podcast - an audio broadcast available by itunes. You can access it via http://www.eieflud.co.uk. The podcast is of Heather and the Saturday Boy discussing what she want to achieve in soapmaking, the origin of her business and how to tincture a pomegranate. The tone of the podcast is lovely and intimate. It has the feel of one of those Radio 4 programes where people cook crabs or describe their flower border and you feel "yes I'd like to be friends with them". It does not sound - as many podcasts sadly do - like a patronising "zany" programme for kids.

Now she has me thinking should I follow suit - actually Euan will probably leave if I add anything else into our schedule . . .but possibly after Christmas????

Getting ready for the slug patrol.

This beautiful mild weather has led to a speedy increase in the number of slugs in the garden - there are so many that they have even stopped hiding - or perhaps all the hiding places are already full - and seedlings are being munched off at the ground in daylight.
When I had a smaller garden I used to go around with a torch and then stamp on the bodies but here it just isn't practical - here we need to get ducks. We had ducks a year or so ago but they were eaten by a fox and are a great miss. They tootled around as a little group and ate up all the slugs without doing as much damage as the chickens.
Today Euan began to make a new duckhouse out of part of Drymen Panto group's old stage, some old sweetpea frames and some corrugated iron donated by Jane and Craig. It is going really well and, fingers crossed, we may well have ducks by the weekend.

Charity begins . . .

Last night was the first of the Christmas Fairs, a fundraiser for the Women of Dalreoch Church, Dumbarton. It was a lovely evening with super things to buy from a variety of stall holders - and raised more than its target amount.
At this time of year I get lots of requests for charitable donations - some for money, some for raffle prizes, some for floral decorations for events. There is no way that I can say yes to them all - it would eat up all the turnover - so last year, fed up with being reactive in our charity donations we drew up some rules.
The first was that we decided to have a proper relationship with one charity - the Tullochan Trust - so that any money that people over pay, or proceeds from excess bulbs or plants goes to them as does 10% of anything bought at out Christmas At Home day in December.
The second rule is that we have no truck with people who are not customers - this may seem mean but we are a small local business and if people only get in touch with me when they want something I get annoyed - to truly annoy me don't even bother to find out my name.
The third rule is that we want to be asked for something specific, to be asked succinctly and to know how the money will be spent, what the targets are, what the timescale is. if people ask in a muddled way I do not trust them to spend the money effectively. The fourth rule is I expect a proper signature.
This topic is in my mind at the moment as I received a letter from some pupils at Balfron High School wanting something (not specified) to help fund a trip to Malawi. In theory I should be well disposed - it is a local school, my own children will be there in 3 years time, I even know a couple of the children involved. However, everything about the letter got my back up. It started "To whom it may concern", it was 2 pages long, it didn't make a proper argument for why this was more than a charity field trip for priviledged children, it didn't ask for something specific, and the whole thing was a round robin done on a photocopier. Once I have calmed down, I shall write them a letter explaining why their letter didn't push my charity giving buttons. Am I being a mean old businesswoman?

Pottering about - last chance

A week or so of rain is forcast from tomorrow so I did a bit of a potter around the garden this evening harvesting another barrow of sage to dry for wreaths and collecting up all the interesting bits and bobs which can be added into the pot pourri.
The herbs and flowers have been collected and dried gradually over the year and have been mellowing with some ground orris root for the past few weeks but they always need a bit of "crunch" mixed in with them at the last minute - something to stand out among all the small petals.
It was a lovely job - very akin to the image people have of me drifting around with secateurs and a trug . The sun was beginning to set, the geese barked their way home overhead and the pheasants in the field honked and blustered every time I went near the fence.

London's finest Part 2 - Petersham Nurseries

I am not really a city girl so by Friday the bright lights and noisy nights were beginning to pall and we took ourselves off to Petersham Nurseries in Richmond.

You get the train to Richmond and then walk along the banks of the Thames, through fields of cows to Petersham road to the nursery. The whole effect is of stumbling across a wonderful ramshackle plant haven within a walled garden - there are pots of plants arranged on zinc-topped tables, more shabby chic benches and planters, a cafe, a shop and a restaurant. Flowers are picked from the cutting patch and arranged around the place, vintage pots are planted up with sedums and pansies, everywhere great thought and a clever eye has gone into arranging beautiful vignettes.
There is a lot of thought and a lot of work behind the casual beauty - when we were there someone was carefully picking mildewed leaves one by one off a weeping willow.
I found the prices to be OK - pretty much on a level with Dobies for plants. Not everyone feels the same though - I overheard a woman asking the price of an 8" Edwardian flower pot - she was told £7.50 and replied "Oh I wouldn't pay more than a pound for that - its second hand!"

Highlights of London

We had a fantastic time in London - great food, lovely weather and I managed to fit in a couple of flowery trips in between the museums and historic buildings.
This is a photo of Appley Hoare Exterieur, a flower and garden bits shop attached to the antique shop Appley Hoare in Pimlico Road, Chelsea. http://www.appleyhoare.com/appleyhoareexterieur.asp. The shop is a beautiful extension to the antique shop - both are filled with the kind of shabby metal and wooden furniture which has built up a patina of rough paint and lichen. The type of thing that looks like it has been found in a French Chateau sale.
However, while there is no way that I can afford to buy the beautiful garden benches or tables, the flower shop has bits and bobs which are perfectly affordable - zinc pots, baskets, bulbs and trugs. The day I was there it had the first of the tender narcissi - a beautiful pale lemon - for £2 a bunch.

Weddings

I love doing flowers to decorate wedding venues - it is a chance to work out of the box, to move away from medium sized flowers and work with massive branches or tiny jewel like blooms. To get to know the bride and groom a bit, to bring scent and sentiment to the day, and hopefully to exceed their expectations.
I know that when wedding budgets are being squeezed flowers are often the thing to be jetisoned - replaced by something easier to fix up days in advance, easier to budget for.
Yesterday I was at a local hotel advising a friend about what she could do to soften the function rooms for a charity ball she is organising. The rooms were set up for a wedding, blue and white bunting along the top table, little Au Naturale type wooden boats on the tables, helium foil heart balloons in white and blue. Someone had obviously thought hard about the theme and had deliberately decided not to have flowers. Perhaps the quotes came in too high, perhaps someone in the wedding party is allergic to flowers, whatever the reason, it was a pity because the only thing that can soften and humanise the very corporate function rooms of most hotels is a bit of nature. The room, with all its careful theming looked dead.
It was a contrast to the last time I had been in the room. That was in May and I was there to put the finishing touches to flowers for a late Spring wedding. The bride and groom - a lovely happy unpretentious couple - wanted their flowers to look as though they had been picked from a wood or meadow. The arrangements were very simple - bluebells, sorrell, pignut in glass vases on the tables - with a more elaborate arrangement of blossom and dutch still life type tulips in the bar area. The look was natural - the budget probably about the same as the wooden boats but it brought the room to life, gently scented the whole space and delighted the couple, their friends and family.
For them, bluebells will always bring memories of their wedding day - and that is why flowers are so apt at weddings.
I am off to London for a week tomorrow so blogs may slow down!

What flavour of chicken is this.

Minou on top of the chicken run.

I promised to post some up to date photographs of the baby chick. It is now 2 and a bit months old and that must be the awkward adolescent stage as it is fairly ugly - but what variety is it? Or is it just going to be a vigorous mongrel? Well you can tell what an experienced hen keeper I am. I had been worried about Minou pestering it as he is a terrible mouser but Peblo is such a great mother - pecking away at anything that comes within 5 feet of her baby - that he doesn't stand a chance.

Going bespoke

This morning I went to LuckyCats soap makers to play about with ideas for a bespoke gardener's soap that is being made for me.
LuckyCats is a one woman operation run by Laura Capnerhurst from her home near Port of Menteith in Stirlingshire.
I met Laura a couple of years ago when she lived in Drymen and was just beginning her soap making buisness. From the beginning I was impressed with her dedication to proper soap making (not melt and pour) and her insistance on using only certified organic materials. This is reflected in the soaps, which are beautifully scented, a delight to use, and very long lasting. The business is now growing well with a range of shampoos, liquid soaps and candles now being produced.
The making of the gardener's soap started earlier this year with the harvesting of calendula flowers from my garden - these were dried and then infused in oil which will go into the soap. There will also be a very fine pumice to root out stubborn dirt and May Chang essential oil to make it smell wonderful.
I have been using a prototype bar here for the past 6 weeks and it has been fantastic for keeping my hands soil free without drying them out - and unlike many gardener's soaps that I have used in the past, the bar itself hasn't gone mushy and grey. It is that most unusual of products - something that actually works better than you expected.
Laura will also make bespoke soaps and candles for weddings, guesthouses or hotels - a remarkably cost effective way of adding something unique to your big day or bathroom. She can be contacted on 01877 389 126.

Mystery plant

About this time last year I bought a large number of plants from Sue at Floreat Plants. She was clearing out and it gave me the chance to experiment with a wide range of plants, many of which I had not come across before.

Also at about this time last year Jasmine was a very puppyesque puppy with a "thing" about plastic and she pulled the labels out of most of the pots.

Plants that I have grown in the past I was able to identify by the foliage but some completely stumped me and I planted them together in a nursery bed to see what developed.

This is one of the plants that has grown- it has small daisy like flowers- very daisy like, white with the blush pink background of the common daisy, but the plant itself is about 4-5 feet tall. Well it would be that height if it hadn't collapsed - the nursery bed has no support at all as I didn't know what I had planted there.

I still don't know what it is but it is very lovely and fresh with a decent vase life.

It is also late flowering and one of the things that I am working on at the moment is trying to extend the flower season for next year.

If anyone knows off hand what it is I'd be grateful as it will save me time looking through the plant dictionaries.

Last year's Amaryllis bulbs

Now is the time to have a look at last year's Amaryllis bulbs. They should have been watered inside or outside to allow the leaves to develop over the summer. If you have been ignoring them for the past wee while- all to the good.
If you find the bulbs are dried out in their pots - brilliant - this has simulated a dry season and will have stopped growth - now all you have to do is cut off the leaves, check that the bulb is still firm under the layers of papery bits and repot in new compost. Water, put it somewhere warm and light and let it grow.
If you find that the bulbs are still growing in their pots - brilliant - now is the time to move them under cover and stop watering to simulate a dry period. You want the pot to dry out and ideally you want the leaves to shrivel but if they refuse to after a month or so, just cut them off level with the bulb. At that point check the bulb is firm, repot in new compost. Water, put it somewhere warm and let it grow.
I really neglected my bulbs, they have been dry for at least three months, some were on their sides, some in the garage - but ALL have good strong bulbs with roots beginning to grow and the tips of the flower shoots visible. I think that it must have been the quality of the bulbs. I potted them up over the weekend -they shall have to go in the tunnel as I don't have room anywhere else - so I shall run my own "trial" (very Gardener's World!) to see how hardy they are. Last year I had an Amaryllis on my doorstep where the temperatures went down to -3 and it was fine, however it was completely destroyed by a light drizzly rain so obviously it is no good as an outdoor plant in Scotland (surprise surprise).
The photo is of some Appleblossom Amaryllis from earlier in the year.

Putting the chickens to work.

Inspired by the notion of pigs rooting out perennial weeds, we decided to try a similar ruse with the chickens - making a temporary run out of shade netting and canes around a bed that I cleared yesterday.
We put it up yesterday evening and then transferred 3 of our flock to it first thing this morning. Well I must say, they did not turn out to be willing workers. Where I had thought that they would spend a happy morning scratching up seeds and bugs, in reality they looked dolefully through the netting - one escaped after about ten minutes and headed back to the run - and the others clucked until they attracted the attention of Jasmine. She barked and lunged at the netting and the whole experiment was abandoned.
I have ordered a book on pigs.