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Three beautiful days have brought the Pulsatillas into full flower, helped the germination rate in the greenhouse no end and given me a bit of a watering headache. The frogspawn is now a writhing mass of tadpoles. And we've spotted the first swallows on the phone wires on
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We took delivery of a gorgeous batch of fruit trees and decorative trees this morning. The nursery has gained some instant height and prettiness. Some of the apple trees are in blossom - too early of course, but they must have been grown on inside. Just have to hope we
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I do like a self-imposed deadline. I doubt I would get anything done without one, in truth. I chose this week as 'Veg Week' last autumn and thought I'd get a demonstration veg plot ready to plant up during the week. Well what do you know,
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If you want to keep bang up to date with what's new in herbaceous perennials this is the blog-daddy. Graham Rice is editor-in-chief of the RHS Encyclopedia of Perennials and is a prolific blogger. OK, so perennials are his job, but even so - the dizzying rate of
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Sorry I've been a bit of an absentee blogger lately. I could cite the pressure of getting the place ready for opening, the seemingly endless building project in the house, the lack of any exciting pictures to show you. But I spotted the Cardamine quinquefolia in flower and
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Here it is, the new man on his new plot, with a new producer too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVUqYLDYVy0 Is it just me or has Toby got a much bigger smile on his face now that he never has to go back to Berryfields again? I think
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GW moves to new location I never did take to Berryfields - it always looked a bit uninviting. Oddly cold and gloomy. Too big and too many problems to solve. The garden effectively dominated the agenda. With a new location the producers should be able to shape the programme exactly
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A dry, frost-free week meant we are finally making real headway on the 'to-do' list. Although there is time left before we open, walking past endless outstanding jobs leaves me in an almost continuous state of low-level stress. So, a good week takes the pressure off a bit.
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It is simply incomprehensible that we will get no proper weekly GW on the Beeb till April 10th (Good Friday). By then the GW garden at Berryfields will be full of produce growing away merrily, having been sown weeks before in ground prepared over winter when the programme was off
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My first plant delivery of the year is potted up, labelled and laid out in smart rows in the back tunnel. Outside, the big spring clear up is under way with plants being weeded, potted on and relabelled. I do like it when the nursery looks so neat and new.
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The chickens did a great job in winter picking out the bugs and slugs from the borders around the garden and very prettily they did it too. Eating the tasty new shoots on my herbaceous plants is a tolerance too far though, so our formerly very free range hens are
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I love gardening books. I've no idea how many I've got because they've never lived together - they huddle in corners of bookshelfs, under piles of college papers, under the desk or in the nursery tea room. But there's always room for