Here is my very first cacti purchased from the Southfield stand in full flower last year (2012)
The original size was that of a golf ball, now it's almost football size
The key to cacti flowering: Between October and March let them rest and provide plenty of light
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| Echinopsis Pseudolobivia hybrid |
I also spent inordinate amounts of time near the Fir Trees Pelargonium Nursery stand and would always buy the little angel pelargoniums or the nutmeg scented leaved varieties, trying to keep them going in my greenhouse from one year to the next. One I fail to keep and seem to buy every year is Black Prince seen below.
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| Pelargonium Black Prince |
In
2003 I had the privilege of exhibiting a garden at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, designed in collaboration with
my friend Janet Johnston.
The
story of our journey begins here.....with my original artwork and ideas.
In
June 2002, whilst waiting to collect my daughter from Felsted Primary school, I was approached
by another mother in the playground with a view to designing a garden for RHS Chelsea
Flower Show 2003. Janet Johnston had seen a rough sketch that I had done for
the school's garden behind a proposed new hall.
Janet had studied for a diploma in garden
design at Writtle College, Essex and designed a garden, which was built by
herself and other students from the College at the Chelsea Flower Show in 1998.
The design called 'Scotch On The Rocks' was a Scottish wildflower garden
featuring colours from the ancient Johnston clan tartan. The garden won a
prestigious Silver-gilt award. Janet
is married to Keir Johnston who was the main building contractor for ‘Heaven
on Earth’.
After agreeing fleetingly to jointly design a garden, I
did not have an earthly clue as to what I was letting myself in for. Over
the few weeks that followed, Janet and I brainstormed for ideas on the odd days that we
were not assisting husbands with their businesses, transporting children from A
to B or trying to be domestic goddesses. I think by July 2003 we had
cracked the dom. goddess bit but almost both ended up divorced in the process.
Thankfully the men have been towed into line now.
The inspiration for this garden first came from images
of a walled garden at Helmingham Hall, Suffolk and a scree garden with random
planting seen in a garden magazine. We wanted something that was both
pleasing to view and easy to maintain. The category we chose was 'small
courtyard garden'.
The starting point for our drawing became the gates, simply because they looked
so stunning in the catalogue we had found through a mutual friend. I set to work
drawing the gates freehand at first, then decided it was wiser to trace the
general outline from the catalogue and complete the intricate detail later - I
am lucky enough to have a full sized drawing board. Janet meanwhile
was preparing a plan of the garden. The idea of looking through
gates into a courtyard setting appealed to us, the theme name of 'Heaven on
Earth' came from the perceived entrance that most people have of Heaven - a set
of magnificent gates leading into a beautiful garden. Water we felt had to
feature in a gentle manner. It was interesting to see that although we
started to look at fonts and the like to begin with, casting them aside and
concentrating on two-tiered fountains, we eventually ended back with a font
design for many reasons, particularly when it came to size. We didn't want
anything behind the gates to completely outshine them.
In the middle of drawing, paperwork came through from
the RHS offices that included rules and regulations. All work stopped on
the drawing when we noted that the front of the garden had restrictions on
height. A quick call was made to the RHS to discuss our height of 1.7m at
the gate apex and the fact that you could see through the gates quite
clearly. We both breathed a sigh of relief when they determined it was
ok. This was to be the first of many panics. It was also a sticking
point in the judge's comments later on.
With the completed drawing, plan and RHS forms all
bundled in a presentation pack and tube we were ready to rumble. The
postmaster in Felsted was probably fed up with us calling him continually by the
end of the final application day and we made the post just in time after
nit-picking at the application a dozen times.
We assumed then that the RHS had received everything as
the whole pack had been sent by recorded mail. We were wrong. During the course of
the next few weeks we discovered that, yes they had received everything into the
RHS offices, but somehow the tube had been separated from the presentation pack
and one part was lost. We only discovered this by chasing the RHS
ourselves to make sure they had received the application! More panic
ensued, we were extremely concerned about the drawing going missing in their offices and
someone then nabbing the design. Although another copy of the drawing was
sent to them, this was not a pleasant few days for us.
A long awaited holiday back to Florida and The Keys was just what I needed after that episode.
About a month after my return from holiday,
we received a call back from the RHS. It was "YES the design is up to
standard and we like it but NO, we cannot fit you in at Chelsea, due to the high
number of quality designs this year. HOWEVER, you can choose from Tatton
Park, Hampton Court or the NEC shows." After the initial disappointment of
not nabbing a Chelsea spot, we became quite excited at the thought of Hampton
Court, as I have been a visitor to the show for a good many years.
Having then plumped for Hampton Court, Janet then set about compiling a new list
of plants that would be 'doing their thing' in July instead of May. The
'possible' list became endless............
During March/April 2003 we went to all our
favourite nurseries, wholesalers and a few we never knew about. We saw, we
bought, we nurtured and we stamped our feet a few times when we couldn't find a
particular specimen.
The Final plant list below used in the
garden was much more concise!
If you had seen the ENDLESS list before this then, you'll
wonder if we were bonkers. But, you need to have reserves in this game and
in fact it paid off tremendously to have more than we needed in the end.
Plants were purchased from March 2003 onwards
continually. Half the plants were housed around my greenhouse in our
Secret Garden and half were at Janet's. The weather played havoc with
us. One minute
gallons of rain, the next buckets of sun. Plants shot up, flowered and
then left us dithering over which ones had gone over, which ones could
safely
be cut back with the hope of renewed growth and flowers and also which
ones
were just not sprouting a jot. Gravel trays came out and were discarded
so
many times with all the effort of continually moving stuff out of the
scorching
sun or protecting it from wind and rain. One afternoon saw me erecting
an
octagonal Gazebo over a large number of plants after hearing of an
impending
gusty night. Well putting it up was just side splitting. Worse still,
it survived the gusty night, but come that afternoon the gazebo decided
that it was better
suited 100 yards away by the fruit trees and promptly took itself for a
walk. Poles, anchors and fabric were strewn over a wide area. We were
just lucky it
didn't end up in the pond which it had bypassed on its way to pick
fruit.
Janet also had her fair share of plant problems with
shrubs dropping leaves, outbreaks of greenfly, slug attack, leggy seedlings
etc. Try as we might some plants eluded us. The one tree we gave up
finding a decent specimen of was Cornus Controversa Variagata. We just could not
find one that a) looked good and b) was the right height and c) wasn't a king's
ransom. It was towards the end of our first visit to Coblams Wholesale
nursery in Surrey that we spotted several Aralia elata aureovariegata
one of which was a good 2 metres tall.
By the time we had gone up and down the aisles and both our brains had
gelled to the idea of this as our tree for the garden they were closing off that
section for the night. We left consoling ourselves that there were quite a
few at the nursery and we could always come back and pick one up another
time. NEVER would I do this again. By virtue I usually see it and
buy it there and then. Several weeks later we both wish we had, Aralia elata 'Variagata' and Aralia elata 'Golden Variagata' then became
hot property. Coblams couldn't seem to find us one of the size we
required, searches went out to other nurseries and then I got in touch with The Place for Plants at East Bergholt. They kindly reserved one for us to look
at and off we went. When we arrived, we ummed and aahed for ages over two
or three and eventually walked away with a two leader plant about 1.8m
tall. Initial joy soon passed. Over the next month or so the Aralia
plaintively refused to burst any of the lower section buds to form the tiered
effect we longed for and kept producing top growth and dropping lower
branches. It also did not like the hot air we experienced later in the
season and reacted by browning its leaves despite much watering and
sheltering. Another plant consigned to the 'not in use' section.
Searches for other plants on our first list were also
hilarious at times: Our hunt for Dianthus 'Charles Musgrave' (which eventually we could not use) took us to
three different Dianthus specialists, one of which charged us twice as much as
the other. Sadly, this beautiful dianthus flowered non-stop in the weeks
before the show and then didn't put out a single bud for the crucial
moment! Our eventual small tree Acer platanoides 'Drummondii' was sourced from the newly
refurbished Baytree Garden Centre on the A120 Colchester road.
The first day I ventured along to look at the new place I spotted this tree for a very
good price and roughly judged that it would fit in my Audi A4. The chap
who helped me to fit this in the car did give me a less than hopeful look at
first, however the tree was only just beginning to unfurl leaves and this made
the fit a lot easier than if it had been a mophead of leaves. The pot end sat
in the passenger footwell and the tree tip just touched the back window. The
way some people cross your path in life is just too much of a coincidence at
times as you will see, the man who helped me turns up later in this story.
Another helpful lady in our search for plants was Louise
Nixon of Cottage Garden Plants, Gt Sampford, (now moved away to Cornwall) who watched us come and go laden with specimens
on several occasions, one of which was the final desperate search for Eryngium giganteum 'Miss Wilmott's Ghost'. Janet and I had both
gone it seemed to the ends of Essex and further in search of this
one. This is a biennial plant, there were lots available but not a
single one with a 'ready to burst' flower stem (usually 2nd year plants). The
only one in fact was in my own garden! It wasn't until a week before
build-up at the show that I happened to be passing Louise's garden and wandering
round realised I was surrounded by numerous 'Ghosts' popping out of flowerbeds
everywhere. Explaining our
predicament with these plants, Louise very kindly dug up several for us.
This was a delicate operation, not least because of the spiny nature of the
plants, but if the long tap root breaks when lifting, the plants wilt and don't recover. We have some fabulous pictures of this
plant in the show garden, our dogged search paid off well. Everyone at the show went
hoopla over it including the local wildlife; we had to explain to people
that due to its nature we could only let them have some fresh seed at sell-off
as the plants were unlikely to flower again. I've never seen such a frenzy
at the sell-off just for seed heads at 25p each!
We also had a great evening at Peter and Corine Ageron's
nursery in Earls Colne with Peter personally showing us around and detailing his
collection. This man is very passionate about plants in a way that is
extremely catching and he and his wife obviously work extremely hard to produce
some very unusual varieties. I'm not sure but I believe they have moved back to France.
All our clematis bar one were pre-ordered from
Thorncroft Clematis Nursery in Norfolk and hand tended by their staff until
collection. These had to be collected last minute during the two weeks we
were given for build up and I had volunteered to collect them direct from the
nursery. Before I departed, Jon Gooch at Thorncroft had given me
directions for the best route which was extremely helpful and very easy to
follow. When I arrived it was raining steadily, Jon apologised that one or
two plants we had ordered were not doing their best, however we know what that's
like by now... there were plenty of other choices available within our colour
range and this was not going to be the end of any last minute changes by
far. Thorncroft Nursery is mainly a family run business and despite the
illness of a close relative at the time, Jon and his team managed to supply us,
the general public and many other show people with quality plants last year, not
to mention putting on his own display stand at HCPFS in 2003.
The one thing that struck us most during our searches
was the lack of specimen shrubs of any decent size and condition. It
seemed that regular shopping trips were a must. This desire invariably
played merry hell as husbands were left with children and the parting words
"We'll only be half hour" when we were actually gone about 2
hours. As time wore on we both had what I call crux points in our marital
relationships. Both centred on the fact that our other halves (Keir and
Steve) wanted time
for their normal day to day business running as well as the things we had to do
with more and more time being taken away from them as build up drew near.
Both had pledged their business skills in the show garden and both of them at
separate times threatened to withdraw labour at the last minute. On the
plus side, they both donned wet gear when it poured down one night and we had to
frantically move every plant to shelter. During eventual build-up they
both worked like dogs to get the job done to schedule with some very creative
building techniques.
These yo-yo highs and lows were a real feature of doing
this garden and were reflected in our appearance. It didn't really bother
me until Press Day when I realised that my trouser suit looked a little big for
my frame - I had lost over half a stone in weight. Janet's main problem
was juggling her children which were both relatively young and seemed to be
giving her lots of guilt trips every time she had to leave them to their own
devices. For six months we couldn't pass in the kitchen without getting
onto the subject of gardens, plants, design and if both our families were
together the men would roll their eyes skyward muttering "they're off
again... be glad when its all over......". This screamed of
'inattention syndrome' and in one case 'green-eyed monster syndrome'. I
would still like to say, as was mentioned in our show brochure (extract below) that
without their support and assistance, the show garden would not have been
possible. In the last weeks before build up, Keir had erected our
'pretend' walls in his back garden for us to get a feel for things. The
walls were built of manmade exterior board, fixed to metal studs, to around 75mm
thickness. Restraints were placed
at corners and also interlocked at ground level with lateral restraining.
The exterior finish was fine textured paint to emulate a rendered finish.
The top of the walls eventually had brick coping to match the brick piers
- built on site. The front pillars
were to be facing bricks attached to the walls topped with stone coping.
During the show week, many visitors thought that they were real walls, the
quality of the work was so good.
Our gates were ordered well in advance from B. Rourke & Company. We had approached them as far back as June 2002 and
maintained contact with them in the ensuing year. The most marvellous
stroke of luck was that the Daffodil gates we wanted were in Rourke's showroom
and as such they were prepared to loan the gates out for the time we needed at
the Flower show. We had made the long journey to the factory and showrooms
as a full day out one Saturday morning in 2002. I would recommend this
place to anyone looking for individual wrought ironwork, as the quality and
designs just blew us away. Seeing the stuff close up just could not be
compared to our days pouring over the brochures. We also required a stand
to hold the gates in position at the front of the garden and two pieces of
custom made wrought iron railing to fit either side up to the brick piers.
Whilst browsing round the showrooms we were inspired by so many things, walking
away with our own personal purchases as souvenirs and finding that they also
made garden plaques with any interchangeable writing, gave them another order
for the show garden plaque. Michael Stott and Paul Ellis were our points
of contact and provided us with the most professional service of all our
sponsors, the preparation of the gates was superb with all the paintwork being
re-touched before we took delivery. When it came to transporting all the
wrought ironwork down to Essex, our good friend Simon Jones was on hand as he
was already making a journey that took him past the factory shortly before the
show. Rourkes were so helpful in all our dealings with them, even
down to waiting 4 weeks before we could also have Simon take the gates back to
them.
Although Janet and I used our own funding for
plants and
peripherals, we were determined to obtain sponsorship for hard
landscaping
materials, this included the gates, font, paving and bricks. We left
our
decision on paving quite late, simply because we had to be sure about
the type
we wanted. Having seen a new Marshalls paving slab called Honeydew in
the
flesh and also noted that our garden was to be opposite Marshalls stand
at
Hampton Court, we approached the company direct and were put in touch
with their
stand supervisor. Having given him the details of our mixed pack
requirements, a few days went by with no answer (the chap was away). We
had been promised a call at the end of the week and at one point
on that Friday afternoon in May we really thought that we had possibly
pushed
our luck too far with a major company. Then I received a late call from
Janet saying that Marshalls had just rung and said we could have the
slabs for
nothing as we were giving them a mention in our brochure. Why do
some things just fall into place so easily when you think they'll really
go
awry?
G-Day, Monday 23 June, 2003: I think Janet and I both went to bed on the Sunday night and
slept less than 2 hours. On that Sunday, Janet and Keir had taken their
children to Hampton Court for the day with a view to looking at our site prior to official marking out,
due to take place on the
Monday. It was a good job they did. They were shown to the actual
spot marked on the show plan and discovered........we were on a slope. Our
design had clearly shown that we needed level ground. After some
discussion, it appeared that it was not really possible to move us anywhere
else. The small looking tree on the RHS show plan in front of our section
turned out to be an 80' specimen, which we later discovered had a tendency to
dispatch large amounts of tassled flowers in all directions. On the
way back, Janet and Keir dropped by to pass on the good news. The tree
wasn't such a bad thing since it would give us some relief in the hot weather to
come and could act as a people magnet in that event. The ground was a
little more taxing. Keir promised that he had something in mind to get
around the slope. The difficulty was that we had not intended to excavate
the ground in our original plan and we had to provide some depth for
planting. If we did a show garden again, excavation would have helped us
as we later found out.
Work started on the Monday on schedule, most of the day spent
delivering our wall sections, bricks and other building materials. The
first day also gave us an idea of the journey times. When you are sitting
in a comfy coach on your way to Hampton Court Palace Flower Show for a day trip,
the 2 hour journey seems to fly by with no hassle. When you're driving a
van load of building materials down a motorway already dubbed 'The Road to Hell'
with a deadline to meet, there's no need to ask what the difference is. We
had already decided to go back and forth each day, as with both families running
businesses aside from doing the show itself and four schoolchildren to attend
to, staying in a B&B for two weeks in Surrey wasn't an option. Two
hours there and back was the minimum. Add a couple of minor vehicle shunts, the
Kent constabulary sunning themselves on a bridge for two days, toying with the
traffic flow and a major accident shutting the M25 on the middle Sunday of the
two week build up and you are looking at anything between 2 and 4 hours each
way. Predictably, virtually every day had its road problems.
There was no need for Janet and I to actually go to site
until
Keir had put together the nuts and bolts of the design and then we could
get
down to the planting. We had at first given ourselves 3 days for
planting
and finishing touches. Our first real day was on the Wednesday, when we
both took a van to Chilstone Garden Ornaments in Kent to pickup our
font, base
and copings. On arrival we were a little disappointed to note that all
the
materials pre-ordered months in advance were a little on the green
side.
As we were also being part-sponsored by Chilstone it was difficult to
argue, however
annoyed we felt, they were providing the font on loan for nothing.
Suffice
to say that all our dealings with Chilstone have left us a little jaded
about
ever using them again. We found them a little more than
unscrupulous. We made two trips from Chilstone to Hampton Court as we
were unsure of the weight in the van. Keir had not been at the show
site that day, so Janet and I were left to move the font base ourselves
once we
arrived at site, everyone around us seemed pretty busy and we felt
stupid asking
for help moving stuff. Each part of the font base had to be moved one
block at a time with two of us holding each side and traversing across
other
half built gardens. The last block of 8 seemed to weigh a ton.
Arriving home much much later both husbands did their nut over us not
loading
all the stone in one hit and the time we had taken. Tensions were
running
a little high by now. MEN!
Thursday saw my husband Steve doing his brickie bit, with Keir on site
too. From all accounts it seemed they had a pretty good laugh that day and
worked until all the brickwork was finished. I had one call from Steve to
say that a Chilstone coping piece had cracked in half as he put it on the brick
pier. This didn't surprise me as they had been soft and 'green'.
Chilstone's pieces should have been given 7 weeks to cure. It was apparent
that 7 days was more like it. As it turned out, Steve did a reasonable job
of sealing the two halves together with jointing the same colour and once Janet
and I had strategically placed a sprawling clematis over the pier, you
couldn't see the offending crack. Both men came home late that night and
full of it, with Keir having half persuaded Steve that he should 'go back on the
tools'. For the uninitiated, this is a builders term for giving up the
desk job and going back to manual labour.
Friday became my trip to Norwich for our Clematis. This
day was a real respite for me even though I was driving a long way, I enjoyed
going through Thetford Forest, past Lakenheath and seeing 'tank crossing' signs
for the first time! I even had time to look round Peter Beales Roses
too. I had already been in contact with Simon White over using some roses
and even though I picked two that day, which were taken along to the show site
with all the other plants, we did not use them. A detour to Blooms of Bressingham on
the way home was also of help and I picked up some beautiful blue Jacob's Ladder
(Polemonium Bressingham Purple).
At the beginning of the second week, we met our
neighbours. At one point the stand next to us had stood empty so long we
thought they were not coming. I kept looking over at one of the men on
this stand because I felt sure I had seen him before. It wasn't until the
next day when he wore his shirt with logo that I realised it was....the man from
Baytree Garden Centre! The chances of this happening were
unbelievable. We found good friends with these people and couldn't have
asked for better neighbouring exhibitors.
Plant transportation began on Wednesday 2nd June. Two trips with
plants were made over two days in one van both prior to planting and
during. Plants went back and forth, in and out. On our first
planting day we started really well. I took one side of the garden and
Janet took the other, both starting from the gates at the front and working
backwards. It was at the start of planting we realised that the guys had put the
wrought iron railings on back to front. The difference was imperceptible
so we didn't make a big deal of it. Over the course of the last few months
we had seen what
plants worked well together and now it was a case of the ones that looked their
best working together. Many other exhibitors commented on the number of plants
we had brought along. They were on the garden, outside the garden, round
the tree, down the sides. The first day we could hardly move.
In the previous week we had had some disasters with some plants literally
keeling over with us frantically running about for more as they tended to be the
ones we really wanted to use. Janet went out late one Sunday
afternoon to both Louise Nixon and our friends Peter and Corine Ageron (Marks
Hall Estate) in the hope of finding replacements. The latter were
obviously out and although it crossed her mind, I believe Janet thought twice
about scaling the fence for a quick look round. Sometimes in a quest you
can become very anal with extraordinary tunnel-vision, it happens to all of us at one point
or another before reason sets in and you think "What am I
doing.....?".
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| Janet surrounded by plants |
Water
became a laugh too. Marshalls who had sponsored our paving were opposite
our stand.
Their team were exceptionally professional at their work.
They had their own standpipe which they allowed us to use, we also had one at
the back corner of our stand and our neighbour's appeared to have theirs buried
at the back of their stand. For the most part that was useless as the
narrow corridor behind us didn't allow for a body to get in let alone move.
World of Water opposite us were also very helpful and allowed us to use their
pipe when others were busy. By 5pm on the Thursday we decided to
have a break from planting. One bacon roll later and walking back to the plot the
heavens opened big time. Well, everyone ducked for cover and we sat under
our 80' tree for 10 minutes hoping it would pass, until we realised the Almighty
really
mean't it and wet was seeping through the branches. During the ensuing few
minutes it took to quickly tidy up and leg it to the van, Janet and I were wet
through to our underwear. We realised that we had to throw in the towel
for the day, having lost about three hours of planting time and only half way
there. I had thoughtfully put in a change of clothes but Janet had not
that day. The only consolation I could give her was a pair of semi dry
shorts which she tucked over the top of her bra to hide any blushes.
5.30pm is not a good time to leave Hampton Court, drive a van
through Esher or negotiate the M25 back to the A12. We caught all the rush
hour traffic plus a few interesting looks from other drivers as we slowly nudged
through the traffic, with little clothing. On this day we also discovered
the vagaries of the temperature control in the van. Either it was too hot
and steamed up or freezing cold, made worse by wet clothing. During our
ride home, we had to re-think the next few days. We really wanted to be
finished planting and titivating the next day, already our plans to chill out on
Friday had been scuppered, the traffic home was appalling. By the time we arrived back both
hubbies were
on ego alert when they discovered our new plans to finish planting again the
next day. All sorts of rows ensued in both houses. It transpired
later that both men had been contriving earlier in the day like a pair of old
gossips moaning at each other over us, talk about Grumpy Old Men. As this repressed frustration had
been building some time, the explosions should not have surprised me, at the
same time these men should not have been surprised at the 'revelation' that we
women want more creativity and space in our lives than smelly socks and ironing.
The nightly tantrums that week really got me down, I only felt
good when I was actually on the garden with my hands in the dirt. Gloves
had long gone west and carefully tended six week fingernails were shot to
bits. I didn't care and neither did Janet. We de-stressed knowing
that the more we persevered the better the garden looked. On the last day
of planting, Janet was having troubles on one side of the garden, with plants
were going in and out of holes over the course of an hour quicker than you could
say 'bad association'. And that was the trouble. I stopped at my
last corner and told her to stand back a while. As she did this I moved
several plants about for her in different combinations so that she could get a
better view. This worked extremely well and did the trick.
With the problems at home still warm, we pushed them to the back of our minds
and carried on until almost 9pm. That night I arrived home about 11.30pm to 2 lonely slices of chicken on a plate in the microwave having put a large bird on timer earlier in the morning. No-one managed to do any veg. I sank into bed without even undressing.
The following judging day was horrendous. We ended up stuck on the M25 for ages and our attempts to get to site before 8am fell flat. We arrived at 10.30am to find that the judges had already been round at 8.30am and left us with an envelope and notes. This was not supposed to happen, in fact we had been told they wouldn't arrive until at least 11.00am. Opening the envelope we discovered we had won a Bronze medal. I think both of us felt a little cheated when we read some of the notes re-produced here:
1. The gates were out of proportion and too high (helloooo, you lot put us on a dammed slope!)
2. The planting scheme was very good, properly spaced and met the design criteria, however more
could have been made of the back walls (conceded - we ran out of time).
Slightly deflated, but not being able to chat through the design further with a judge, we tended the garden and headed home.
The show week saw us receive a lot of feedback from the public, many thought we deserved much better than Bronze, lots of visitors wanted to walk around the garden and many reserved plants before the Sunday sell-off. I should point out that the gardens have to be dismantled and site left as before on the same final show day, quicker to destroy that create. In the end, the whole experience was uplifting if a little exhausting. I always said I would love to do this again except next time hire a river barge and stay over. Most exhibitors at the shows have quite a team behind them, especially the likes of Roger Platt & Co. We did this off our own back from design through to completion, I'm quite proud of that achievement in all.
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| Heaven's Gate |
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| Last minute watering |
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| Our Wrought Iron Plaque with Garden Title |
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| Me and hubby Steve at Gala Evening |
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| Back left border with Acer Drummondii |
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| Front right border |
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| Front left border |
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| Sisyrinchium E K Ball |
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| Alliums and Ghosts as the sun went in |
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| Hakonechloa macra 'Alboaurea' |
From the back of our brochure:
Many personal thanks go to:
Graham Gilbert at Chilstone for his enthusiasm and excellence
in technical drawing - one of the fastest scaled drawings we have ever seen,
thank you for the loan of the font and pump!
To Richard Twiddy, MD at B Rourke & Co Ltd for giving us
permission to loan the showroom gates, Michael Stott and Paul Ellis for their
exceptional assistance in preparing the gates, stand and railings – this place
is a must visit for the Burnley area!
Thanks to Andy Taylor at Marshalls,
who didn’t know us from Adam, but gave us an unexpectedly supportive end to a
frustrating week in May. Thanks also to
Chris Barton at EH Smith’s for assisting us with our building materials, to
Chris Barrett at Arup for advising us on water treatment for the font, to David
Petters at The Architectural Association for our rope, to Sharon O’Neill at
EMI, to Tesco’s at Dunmow, Essex, to Corine and Peter Ageron at Rust and Ageron
Plants for taking the time to show us round their nursery at the Marks Hall
Estate, Coggeshall, Essex, to Louise Nixon at Cottage Garden Plants, Gt
Sampford, Essex, William at Manor Nurseries, Saffron Walden, Essex, also The
Place for Plants, East Bergholt, Essex.
Special thanks goes to Jon Gooch at Thorncroft Clematis Nursery for the
loving care given to our chosen clematis and also to Simon White at Peter
Beales Roses. Thanks goes to all our
friends and family who helped us organize school runs and childminding, special
thanks to Simon Jones who gave up his own personal time to make a run up to
Lancashire for our gates.
And lastly: the two husbands, Keir Johnston and Steve
Clark, who without their support and building assistance this garden would not
have been possible. Thank you for giving
up your time and energy, firstly to produce first-class workmanship on the
build, for all your advice (regardless of whether we took it!) and secondly for
managing the children at short notice and maintaining the home front as we went
on endless shopping trips for plants, for all the time you allowed us to
concentrate on tending our plants including dashing about in heavy rain,
erecting gazebos to protect plants, midnight slug patrols and watering
expeditions.
Thanks to Nigel Thomas “Builder from Hell” 
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