It is so good to be alive day!

There is no doubt that working out on the ground keeps me sane. Today was positively mild at about 10 degrees, and whilst admittedly wet or rather damp there are signs of life everywhere. I have seen my first snowdrops; the bluebells are starting to push their way through the ground as are the crocus'. Why I wonder have crocus' become so unfashionable. They are some of the unsung heroes or heroines of the plant world. They come in stunning colours in either spring or autumn, and what to my mind is one of their best features, is that their leaves are fine and not that noticeable so there is hardly any mess to clear up. And they proliferate like mad. The secret is to plant them quite deep so that the birds don't eat them. Mind you, I have had my Jack Russell help herself to a few......... Don't be fooled by the black ear and nose - she has a degree in low canine cunning!

Happy New Year

I feel that I should start the New Year off with an apology and not a new resolution. I have been out of communication for several months - all of which convinces me that time is passing faster and faster - for a number of reasons. Primarily, I have been in the throes of passing part of the business over to Carolyn Powell at Shrublands all of which has now happened, and we are both looking forward to a fruitful new partnership. And secondly, I have been working on several new projects, trying to start my correspondence design course (I live in hope), and organising my life. And in all of this of course we had the huge snow fall, which was simply wonderful, amazing and spectacular. If it is going to snow it might as well do it properly. And to be truthful, I am very fortunate having lived part of my life in Scotland, so am not unused to snow and ice. And if we think about it we used to have a fair amount of it (well if you are my age you will remember it!). But we have become so used to balmy winters that we have forgotten the days when we all used to wear 5 layers; lose 30% of our garden plants; have to put water out several times a day for the birds; and regularly take the ice off the windscreens. The upshot of it all is of course that when spring comes it is all the better for it. I have attached a few photos of some of the area around us, which looked absolutely stunning in the snow.

Frustrated....

Is how I feel right now. The weather is all over the place; one day fine the next day, well, revolting, might cover it. The economy is on the up or in free fall dependant on which radio station/newspaper/person you talk to. Yet, life goes on albeit like a merry go round! Trying to stay positive and upbeat when petty red tape and people's limiting views constrict one, can just be downright, hard. When that happens I try to stop, take a few breaths and look at the world around me. It goes on regardless. The autumnal colours at the moment are wonderful. The frost yesterday morning was stunning. I wish I had had my camera with me. At a client's garden the sedums were in full bloom with the most exquisite frosting around each individual flower so that their heads looked like they had been sprinkled with the lightest dusting of icing sugar. It is still a wonderful world!

New partnership

As autumn rapidly approaches (I think) we have teamed up with a super small gardening company based in Gillingham called Shrublands Gardening. Carolyn Powell who heads the team has an ethos similar to mine combined with a great sense of humour (absolutely essential). I am looking forward to working with her, and expanding our reach to include the Blackmore Vale and Gillingham area.

Our most requested plant from the Combat Stress Therapeutic Garden

Well, I could hardly leave our most requested plant identification off the website. It was Francoa sonchifolia 'Rogersons Form'. A lovely frost-hardy perennial that has stunning spires of pink flowers about a metre high that last from summer to early autumn. We planted it around the base of the multi-stemmed sorbus and the pink flowers set off the pinky bronze trunks quite beautifully.

A new home

The hardest part of The Show was dismantling the Combat Stress garden. I suddenly realised that like Topsy the number of plants had grown - hugely. I think that I worked out that there were over 1500! And of course, unlike most other show gardens these plants had all been bought and paid for by our incredibly generous donors and needed to be moved, carefully, to their new home at Tyrwhitt House, Leatherhead. So several days, man (and woman) hours later we ensconced them all in their wonderful new home. The plants will stay in their holding beds until the work at Tyrwhitt has finished and we can finish designing the courtyard garden - hopefully in March 2011.



They are all being carefully protected with high metal panel fencing around the outside to keep out deer, and then an inner tape of electric fence, low to the ground, to keep out whatever enterprising rabbits may be thinking about an extra bit of lunch.


And none of this move would have been possible without the help of 'Bones', Hazel, Mike, Vince, Roger, Chris and Carl, who have been amazingly hard working, supportive and constantly upbeat even when they must have wondered how many more plants were going to come off the lorry! Thank you.

Update!

To say that the last few months have been hectic is an understatement. The Show (have to use capital letters here) was exhilarating, heartbreaking, exhausting, hot, fun and fulfilling. The press coverage we received was extraordinary and the garden was, if I am correct, one of the most requested destinations at Hampton Court. We had over 18,000 people through the garden. And it stood up to it. The resin-bound pathways (courtesy of Cirencester Civil Engineering) were an unmitigated success; we walked on them in high heels, flat shoes, clogs, sandals and bare feet and at the end of each day they looked fine.

We carried out a declared war against pigeons who did nothing but gorge themselves on the amelenchier berries (up to 6 on one tree) but at least we were not attacked by paraqueets! The weather was so hot we watered continuously, but by the end of the week the plants were looking even better than when they went in - in particular the echinacea which looked stunning.

However, without doubt the most fantastic part of the whole show was the feedback we received. It was outstanding. We had serving soldiers, ex-service personnel, wives, sisters, fathers, brothers, husbands and wives of those who had been out or still were in Afghanistan, in Iraq; those who had seen and felt the horrors of the Falklands and Northern Ireland, to name but a few places. Some having walked through the garden were in tears, others just silent, and some simply smiled and said 'thank you for doing this'. But what really overwhelmed me were that so many of the public had absolutely no idea of what PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is or does. And that includes those whom I would politely term 'the older generation', although describing PTSD as 'shell shock' garnered some understanding. Perhaps I am just naive having lived with the understanding of what PTSD does to so many ordinary people who suffer from it as a result of either an accident or work. PTSD is horrific and it is not just the person who suffers, but the whole family. I think though, and this may be contentious that in some instances PTSD is used inappropriately and can be used to cover a raft of different types of shock. I also feel that using the same words to describe what happens to service personnel and civilians does not do the sufferers (in either instance) justice. Service personnel are taught to cope with extreme situations in a way that civilians are not. They are highly trained, highly motivated, and work as a team; they expect to see and be in distressing situations as part of their work. They have different priorities and different ways of dealing with events that would leave most of us civilians completely immobile. PTSD suffered as a result of war time operations, should I think be given another name.