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A sharp shower has sent me scurrying for cover and coffee and a welcome chance to blog. Chelsea is as classy as ever - I'm surrounded by well-dressed women and listening to a constant sound track of flettened vowels - but there's a welcome sense of
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We moved the hen into the new coop along with her six chicks and all are doing great. She's proving to be a superb surrogate mum. Three are light brown, three are dark grey, reflecting their Silkie/Marran parentage. So, here they are. I know, I know, other
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OK, here it is. The full list: 1.Trillium grandiflorum 'Snowbunting'. I missed out on this double form last year but bought Chris Cooke's penultimate specimen. He got a well deserved Gold medal too, but no mention on tonight's TV coverage. Shame. 2.Podyphyllum
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Our chicks are hatching, two days earlier than expected. And this despite the dire warnings from the poultry man at Malvern show that without additional humidity to soften the shells the chicks wouldn't be able to break out. I lifted the hen off to check and we have
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Back from a superb day out at Malvern Show with a clutch of new plants, a 1950's garden fork and spade and a sculpture which looks suspiciously like an oversized corkscrew. Malvern is just such a good day out. No queueing, plenty of places to sit down, food
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It's only 10.30 and I've all but blown my plant buying budget at Malvern Show. We made a beeline for the floral marquee aiming to add to our Arisaema, Trillium and Podyphyllum collection. Our additions include Trillim grandiflorum 'Snowbunting' - a double White
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I thought I'd post an update on the veg plot. Firstly, a failure - we sowed two rows of parsnips in March and gave up on them today. Sifting out the weeds we found precisely one parsnip seedling. We've decided to give up on them this
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The bluebells are out and so are our visitors, flocking to see us in astonishing numbers. It was our NGS day at the weekend and we raised £1,000 - not bad for a little place. Today's propagation workshop was booked up weeks ago and everyone seemed to
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To the couple who bought a Dahlia 'Bishop of Auckland' a couple of weeks back. We somehow managed to get the tuber batch labels mixed up and now that they are sending up shoots I'm certain it is Dahlia 'Honka'. If you read this,
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Armed with my new iPhone, I thought I'd have a go at remote blogging. I'm at Martin Mere Wildfowl T Reserve in Lancashire at a plant fair along with six other specialist nurseries. The weather is perfect,swallows are zipping overhead and the company is great.
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Monday night's welcome downpour has brought the garden to life with an almost instant greening effect. I spent Wednesday lifting a final batch of plants for division and it was easy work - the soil felt soft and giving, roots falling away from soil effortlessly. The greenhouse is
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The season is properly under way now - we opened the gardens on Friday and the first proper visitors arrived on the dot of opening time. The sunshine has helped, no doubt, and it's wonderful to see the nursery so full of people. The garden starts quietly in