Vegetable disorder

Chelsea has been and gone, but not forgotten. A brief respite of about day at home ensued when I arrived back home from the show at the end of May before work was finished off for the forthcoming Girlguiding UK Centenary Garden at Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, opens in July. Work has already started on this garden, we are in the second week of construction and the garden is coming along nicely (see the RHS blog link for regular updates on things).

My own garden at home is also coming along nicely and I feel rather sad to be leaving it for two weeks. Flowers are blooming, tight buds of roses are now beginning to open (everything seems to be about 10 days behind last year) and the vegetable garden is growing lots of sumptuous goodies for later in the summer and beyond. I picked my first broad beans yesterday, very good, and I hope those left behind in my absence will enjoy the fattening pods that remain. Maybe it is because of the cold winter, the late frosts, the slow start to the year but my onions are producing lots of flower heads. These look very pretty but the swelling bulbs will not be as good as those that are growing 'normally'.

I have a Salvia var. turkestanica growing in one of the veg beds, it arrived from nowhere last year and I haven't had the heart to remove it to the flower border yet, particularly as it does look rather stunning at the moment. Goes well with the flowering onions.

Maybe my vegetable beds are going to become my new flower borders?

Cowslip carnival

It's a week today until we are on site at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show to start building the Victorian Aviary Garden. All the finer details are frantically being attended to and, thank goodness, the last of the RHS forms winged it's way in the post to them this week! However, paperwork for the Girlguiding UK Centenary Garden is already filling the vacuum left by last of Chelsea's forms. We had the final approval for this garden just before Easter, so it is somewhat manic and frantic at the office in an effort to get the aforementioned last minute details done and dusted for Chelsea, and ensuring all is well underway for the mass of elements for Hampton Court Palace Flower Show.

There is a separate website for The Victorian Aviary Garden whilst the Girlguiding UK Centenary website has more information about their garden. I'm also doing another blog on the RHS website, under Hampton Court Show, and it covers both gardens. See the links on the right for these websites.

There is a fantastic display of blossom on trees now and cowslips everywhere are looking particularly blooming. I have a patch in the garden that gets bigger each year and looked particularly lovely the other evening in the long sunlit shadows at the end of the day. I've also been at Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire this week, walking round with Ed Tucker the gardener there, and found a lovely display of tulips nestling against some ornamental grasses at Auberge Du lac restaurant . The colour of the Bergenia flowers, also looking stunning, compliment the tulips perfectly.

Light levels

I have been like a woman possessed in my garden recently. Having beeen locked away behind closed doors for most of the winter (you try working in a garden on heavy clay when its frozen or sticky), the lovely warm weather and longer days have meant I have been unleashed from my tethers and let loose with a fork in one hand, ad spade in the other and packets of seeds between my teeth. Doing two show gardens this year equals not much time in my own garden, at a critical time, too. We're on site at Chelsea in six weeks, so that's May taken care of, then I have a two weak 'break' in June before Hampton Court Show build starts in Mid-June. So, in the next six weeks I have to get the veg beds prepped and planted (runner beans will have to go out early, must remember to write husband a note re: frost protection), finish preparing borders and splitting perennials, weed my cut flower borders and sow seed for plants (will I be here to pick and enjoy the flowers?) and lay a new wooden terrace area. Yes, I know... but it's nice to dream!

Plans are going well with Chelsea. The blog for this now has it's own website: http://www.victorianaviarygarden.co.uk/

The Girlguiding UK garden is getting finalised: the RHS wanted a few more tweaks which have been done and re-done so we are awaiting the white smoke to flow from Vincent Square for the final 'yes'. However, plants are already growing for the garden as some had to be started last month from seed. The collation of all the various elements of the garden is coming together and need to be finalised in the next few weeks before I disappear off to do the Chelsea garden. No pressure then!

Getting slated

Last week saw a flying visit to Cumbria, despite a last minute hitch with the car. Jonathan and I visited Kirkstone who are sponsoring all the slate for the Chelsea show garden and we discussed with Manager Nick Fecitt significant details such as how the egdes of the steps will be finished, what pattern do we want to lay the slate paving sections and thickness of slate. Then it was onto Newby Bridge Hotel on the shores of Lake Windermere to look at an existing wall here that will be dismantled for the terrace wall on the garden. Don't worry, it's going back to Cumbria after the show! The whole show garden will be re-sited at Newby Bridge Hotel and will look stunning there.

We also had a site visit last Friday to the Chelsea Show to see where our garden will be situated. It was an early start from Cambridgeshire and I felt like a sardine on the tube, but I had fun listenting to various people's MP3 players (why do they play their music so loud?) in the packed tube carriage, trying to work out what music was playing. I enjoyed the reggae album the best. Standing looking at our plot in a very empty would-be Chelsea Flower Show ground was interesting: the vast expanse of grass in front of us that would normally be dominated by the Floral Pavilion made the chillingly cold day seem even colder. The ground where our site is rises around 300mm, a slight issue but not a major one and I'm sure Mark will resolve any problems with this.

There are 14 main show gardens at Chelsea this year and I'm the only female designer out of these. Why are men dominating Main Avenue? I think back to when I was growing up and women were still in charge of the garden, the kitchen and fashion but now it seems men are muscling in on our comfort zone areas. Come on girls, where are you?

Bedding down

On Sunday, the last day of January, I popped into my local garden centre to buy yet another pair of secateurs. Top of the 'I'm always losing these' list, I usually manage to mislay at least two pairs of secateurs each year; they mysteriously manage to get thrown away with plant debris onto compost heaps or get left in gardens. Now I don't tend to buy expensive ones as it seems a foregone conclusion that they will end up being lost, but I do like a decent pair that are good to hold and work well.

I searched high and low in the garden centre and only found a mere three pairs of secateurs, all the same brand, to choose from. Staff at the centre were busy clearing away the remains of Christmas decorations and lights and I asked if there were any more in a different location in the shop (you know how it is, things are always being moved around). Apparently not. How silly of me to think there would be after all this is a garden centre, not Argos.

What I did see plenty of on display which made me stop in tracks was masses of tiny bedding plants no bigger than the size of a thumb. Let's just back pace here - it's the last day of January and summer bedding plants are on sale. It's almost as bad as seeing Christmas decorations in the shops in August. We'll be growing sunflowers in November next.

Watch the birdie

A somewhat cold and freezing morning on Wednesday saw Jonathan Denby, co-designer of The Victorian Aviary Garden, Mark Richardson, landscaper of the same, and me coming face to face with the awesome sight of Waddesdon Aviary in Buckinghamshire. Amazing just doesn't even begin to describe this vision of Baroque-themed splendour! The aviary was built at Waddesdon in the late Victorian times but only renovated six years ago. It's filled with exotic birds, all having stunning colours and interesting calling sounds. If it hadn't had been so cold (there was still the remains of heaps of snow at the side of the drive) I could have stayed there all day to take in the sumptuous aviary and it's surroundings.

But we were there to work. In our Chelsea garden, the centrepiece of the design is a smaller simpler version of the Waddesdon aviary. We inspected and photographed the construction and it's finer details, pondering questions about how to re-create the trelliage work and whether the intricate decorative mouldings might be available from an ironmongers somewhere in the country. Warming up with a steak sandwich in the nearby Five Arrows hotel (very posh, great steak), discussions as to where the Chelsea garden aviary will be built ensued: Cumbria, where Jonathan lives or Suffolk, where Mark is. The jury is still out.

Sleepless nights have kicked in. Worry is not essentially the cause at this stage (it soon will be), it's more just planning things in my head which, coupled with long days, equals too much brain thinking activity! Must stock up on YSL's Touche Eclat as dark circles under the eyes looking darker by the day...

Fleeing the nest

My foster charges have flown the nest. I have been looking after a nice selection of plants for a client's garden that I was due to plant up before Christmas after the landscaping was done but ice, snow and heavy frost meant they were going nowhere. The recent thaw has meant trowels can once more be plunged into frost-free, if rather soggy, soil so my charges were dutifully tucked up in their nice new garden on Thursday. I think I've managed to convince the client that I haven't planted a load of dead sticks and plant labels! There was indeed plenty of signs of life emerging from the pots of soil: thick leafy buds waiting to reach up to the light and then unfurl into splendid greenery. A wonderful moment fleetingly made me pause during the planting - my face felt the warm rays of the sun, what delight! I've always associated that cheek-warming event with February and not the cold dark days of January. Maybe spring will come earlier this year?

Preps for the Chelsea garden are gathering a pace. More discussion on stone walls (I feel like I'm becoming quite knowledgeable on the subject) and slate is now likely to be championed rather than a mix of limestone and slate. We need to visit the quarry in Cumbria, look at various walls (I will definitely be an expert by the end of that visit) and sort out one or two other things. That's a couple of weeks away but next week we are meeting at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire to see the magnificent aviary there. This is the centre-piece of our Chelsea garden and the point of inspiration for the whole design. Think opulent, lavish and a bit of kitsch thrown in for good measure. All we have to do now is create our own version of the aviary!

Plans for the Girlguiding UK Centenary garden for Hampton Court are also going well. Details of what we're up to are still top secret, though...