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Ok Dad, the long awaited tea room picture. There's still a bit of finishing off to do around the edges, but it's clean, bigger and operational. Outside has had one rough coat of paint - all we need now is a consistently dry, frost-free spell(!) and
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The slight improvement in the weather brought a welcome stream of visitors and family today - hello especially to the London and Manchester Flears who braved the cold and warmed up the tea room wonderfully with laughter and family tales. And another warm 'hello' to several people who
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With customers as scarce as a warm breeze this Easter, I've had a mammoth seed sowing spree. The greenhouses are bursting with trays and plugs full of promise of plants yet to be. This is the best bit in some ways, all neat and tidy, labelled and orderly,
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I mentioned on an earlier post that I was working on a complete garden redesign for a client in Knutsford, based loosely on the garden I did for Tatton Show. It's nearly finished now, so I thought I'd share some more pictures with you. I still
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Frost is forecast again for the next three nights. Now that plants have started growing strongly, this is not great news, especially for all the new young plants which have been potted up and are now in the polytunnel with no doors on (they blew down in the gales). So,
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Hazel came home for the day and commandered the camera. So a rare couple of pictures of me working follows. Friday's project was to get the new big borders ready for planting - the somewhat optimistic aim is to at least get the remains of the tulips in
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With the departure of Debbie for pastures new, we've had a bit of a swap about of roles. Janet and I are now 'job-sharing' the running of the nursery (she runs it on Wednesdays and Thursdays with help from Tracey, I run it on Friday, Saturday
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With storms and high winds predicted for tonight, today was oddly calm and sunny, with just the occasional threatening cloud and a few icy spots of rain. In the sunshine it was T-shirt weather and Dave and I had a clear up around the nursery entrance, getting rid of old
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A sharp breeze took the edge off the sunshine today, but for the spring flowering plants in a little shelter it was the perfect day to open up and shine. I'd be interested in an ident for the double, two-tone narcissus and also for the purple flowering perennial
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The nursery re-opens in 11 days time, though at first sight it doesn't look like we are anywhere like ready. My father-in-law Ged has been extending the tea room and creating a staff area in one of the other sheds and the place still looks a bit like
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...the nursery was at -7C this morning. We're still at -4C now and it's 9am. The world is bright and hard, magical and deathly. Virtually all progress on plants has been at a standstill for a week now with pots remaining frozen all day. Even the
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As if in deliberate synchronicity, the thermometer dropped to zero at the exact moment a cold, peach-coloured sun sank behind the black skeletons of the trees. I've been outside a couple of times since - no need for a torch as the moonlight is bright enough to see