Newsletter
For weeks Dave has trudged down to the woods each night and perched somewhere quiet to wait for badgers. He's heard the occasional grunt, snuffle and scuffle, but no sightings. Tonight Dave, Holly and I sauntered down to look at the bluebells, taking no care at all to
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I'm living the life that many gardeners dream of. My Dad tells me I look happier than I have done for years and I am. I spend all day handling, propagating, identifying, weeding, presenting, studying, selling and talking about plants. I'm learning more each day than
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In March I was getting 3 customers a day and was worried that no-one would come. Now we're so busy I'm worried about selling out of plants before we close in September. OK, so it's the right problem to have, but it'
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The pulmonarias have all but finished. The Camassias and most of the Primulas are also past their best although the Dicentras are still glowing in the shade tunnel. Now it's the turn of the Ajugas, Tiarellas and hardy Geraniums, starting with the phaeum group which have been flowering
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The BBC came back today to film me, the garden and nursery and to tell my post GOTY story. The aim is to encourage entrants to this year's Gardener of the Year competition - hopefully I helped to do that. It took me a while to remember how not
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After yesterdays fiesta, I thought today would be quiet. Well I was wrong. I went out early to water, lost track of time and the phone brought me back to my senses. It was 10 past 10 and a couple were parked outside the still locked gates waiting to be
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Our first NGS open day went off beautifully. The sun shone, the tea flowed, we sold out of ice cream and raised a total of £1,000 for the charity. All the cars fitted on the meadow, there were no snarl-ups on the lane and everyone professed themselves delighted
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Someone must be smiling on me. After a totally dry month we had soft rain all day on Monday, enough to slowly wet the garden through. Then, after a day of fill-in planting and weeding on Tuesday it rained all night. As if by magic, the garden has turned
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Every part of the garden has now had some attention: there are no more dead flower stems or collapsed shrubs to remove. It's now a case of finishing off, planting to fill some of the gaps, trimming, tidying and making good for next week. We might even have
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We have had no rain for a month. This would be unusual at any time in England, but surely unheard of in April, in the north west. Fortunately for us, although the surface soil is very dry, we must have a fairly high water table, or perhaps the winter rain
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Today marked an important step forward with the arrival of my new Head Gardener. Debbie Rees brings with her a wealth of experience and knowledge that the garden, nursery and I will all benefit from. Adding Debbie to the knowledge and expertise here already through Janet, Peter and Mary, we
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To my great delight I was invited to the Great Budworth Garden Club tonight for a talk by David Howard, head gardener of Highgrove. He is something of a character and a truly dedicated plantsman. I think I was most impressed with his strong sense of the interconnectedness between plants,