Today's favourite.......my Burgon and Ball Secateurs

So I am going to start this post with a piece of personal information that may surprise you all.......
I am only little!!
5 feet, 1 and three quarter inches if you want an exact measurement.
Even my dear mum was 5 feet two.
And with that littleness goes a ridiculously small pair of feet, (size 2 and a half if you want a real chuckle) and small hands.

I hear you wondering if I have again lost the plot but these are important facts for what I am about to talk about and here's why. Every now and again people berate the fact that people make ladies tools, that surely no one needs them and everyone can manage to use a general sized tool collection but actually no we can't! I need smaller tools to be able to hold them comfortably and be able to use them for any length of time. And if they are attractive at the same time then hooray, although it does annoy me if they are twice the price with a designer label, but that might be more about my budget than anything else!!

 

Anyway a few months ago Burgon and Ball contacted me via Twitter having seen that my prized 20 year old secateurs had "disappeared" and offered to send me a new pair of their Professional Range secateurs and when I saw that they do a smaller size I jumped at the chance. They arrived in a few days in the post and I realised that I had been struggling to use my Felcos and almost every pair I had ever had, because these just perfectly fitted into my somewhat tiny paw. They have been my faithful servants since that moment, both in the garden at home, on the allotment and in various Incredible Edible Bristol gardens across the city, and are still working as if they were new. I have obviously given them the odd clean and oiled them a few times, but they are such a pleasure to use I can hardly believe my luck!!

When I was sent them the lovely folk said they were happy for me just to have them as a gift and that there was no need to blog about them but I feel it's really important to say that for someone with small hands like me they have been a real eye opener and here's why that is important. Many a person in horticulture has issues with thumb joints and often that is around using secateurs for hours a day. From rheumatism to arthritis and all sorts of other nasty issues, using the wrong sized tools is never ideal for the body, and so it is really good to know that there is a business out there really looking to support all gardeners.

There is a link to the secateurs here in case you fancy a look.......

And while you're there take a look at the new Brie Harrison range which I think is beautiful. And I wasn't even asked to say that!!

 

Today's favourite.....Alliums

I love alliums. The ornamentals with their white, blue, pink and purple flowers, Allium moly with its yellow blooms and all the edible alliums out there, which are both beautiful, fascinating and the mainstay of so many recipes.

I've grown millions of them over the years.....

Well perhaps millions is a bit much but we grew houses full of them for early planting schemes and often for gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show where they are often seen in multiple gardens. They're fairly easy to grow in the ground or a container, just needing regular watering if they are in pots or containers. 

 

And I'm particularly loving them today as they start to burst their buds in many of the Incredible Edible Bristol gardens across the city, including the Bearpit Garden.

I do have favourites. Globemaster has an extraordinary flower and grows up to 4ft tall so amazing planted in drifts. 

I'm also a big fan of Allium christophii with its enormous purple blooms with their individual star bursts. Growing to 2ft tall it's great for the front of a border.

But the edibles are also just as useful as ornamentals as they are as edibles. Chives flowering make a wonderful clump of purple globes, or white if you use garlic chives and although they can be a bit prolific in terms of self seeding, they're great to dig up and move around or give away.

 

I'm also a big fan of the Egyptian Walking Onion, for their fascinating way of deciding where they're going next, adding interest to any edible garden.

And of course not only are they all great garden plants, they're also vital for our pollinators, and support a really biodiverse garden.

So hooray for the alliums!!

 

#mygardenrightnow.....

There are moments when a reality check is needed and often that's quite hard to find, so when Michelle came up with the idea of a new tag, for one weekend only, that showed an honest sight of garden bloggers gardens in March, I thought it would be a great idea!!

The last year has been really difficult for my garden journey, not just because I'm constantly running around like a headless chicken, but because Mr V's back injury has meant he has been unable to help since last spring. Just cutting the lawn saw him having to lie down for the rest of the day. The last cut just never happened. 

Usually over Christmas I have a good catch up in the garden, but this year I was in full nursing mode, and there was no time for anything other than pain management.

Of course I'm not the only one who feels like they are behind in getting their garden sorted, their allotment mulched, but pop over to social media and there are pictures a plenty of gardens bursting with buds, tidy and prepared for the onset of spring. And 90% of the time that's what we all want to see. However, just occasionally it's good to see a more reality based picture isn't it?

The final straw for me was that I came home from a great RHS conference yesterday to find my little greenhouse had fallen over in the wind, leaving plants all over the place, many trashed, and compost everywhere. Mr V had tried to manage it but his back had prevented him so a chunk of yesterday was spent dealing with that whilst growling and shedding the occasional quite angry tear. 

So this is a very honest photo of me in my garden, warts and all.....

 

Confidence in the garden....

Recently I have had several conversations with people which have made me realise that for many people gardening is about confidence and if that confidence is knocked for some reason, there can be a real problem.

There are a million reasons why confidence might disappear. Often something else goes wrong-redundancy, a change of circumstances, new babies, grief, illness are some of the reasons I have seen people lose confidence which has not only knocked lives, but also inevitably knocks the ability to feel confident in the garden. When life has thrown a curveball on your confidence it affects everything, making a person constantly question their worth across everything they do, and often this stops people from moving their gardens forward, leaving a sense of not knowing what to do next. 

 

 

Of course for a garden this can cause chaos. Take your eye off the ball at the wrong time of year and when you look again it feels overwhelming, out of control and something to avoid, which in turn makes it worse.

Why are you telling us this Sara I hear you say?!

Well recently I have been working with a friend to whom this has, for various reasons, happened. An amazing garden has lost its joie de vivre as settling into a different life and work scenario has happened. There was panic, a lack of really knowing how to get back control and a need for a helping hand to put things back on track.

 

It's not rocket science for me to help to do that. A bit of bossiness, a look at how to make the garden slightly easier to manage, a plan and some hands on help kick start both confidence and enthusiasm and a promise of ongoing help and support keeps that enthusiasm going. 

 

Support.

Enthusiasm 

Inspiration.

And that all important plan and the knowledge that you are not alone.

That's all folk who are struggling need.

Sound like you? Get in touch-I can help!!

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

A trip to Arvensis Perennials

On Friday afternoon, on the last day in September which was warm and sunny, I finally made the trip into Wiltshire to see Arvensis Perennials who's site is just outside Bradford Upon Avon. Having had 3 very early starts and very long days, I was shattered an a bit of retail plant therapy at a lovely indie nursery was just what I needed. Having had a conversation with Arvensis via Instagram about the Eryngium yuccifolium I had seen at Hauser and Wirth, the Piet Oudolf garden which I visited recently and I will blog about soon, I really set off to buy one of these, but came home with a whole load more!!

 

The nursery is set up for wholesale really and the time will come I'm sure when it's only open to the public on specific days, but they'd told me to just rock up which I did. You have to love a nursery where you're shaken by the hand by both owners and sent off to make a list, so I did exactly what I was told!

The first thing that struck me was how clean and tidy the place was. There wasn't a weed to be seen, where the mypex on the beds was empty it was swept and clean, and the health of the plants was extraordinary. There are several large polytunnels set out into grasses, shade lovers, Mediterranean etc and then an outdoor space full of those plants that really do grow best outside with no fuss. And even outside not awed could be seen.

 

Now some of you will know that in my nursery days herbaceous perennials were where my heart truly lay, and to some extent still does. I marvel at the seasonal cycle of these plants and the way they change a garden through the year. I'd love to experiment more with them and I have a little personal project in the go that will allow this to start to happen, but more of that another time dear reader.

 

So what did you buy I hear you say.

Well I could have bought the lot!! I didn't buy any grasses because I simply couldn't make my mind up which to choose, but I did leave with a fine haul which included the Eryngium, Geranium phaeum Samobor, Helianthus, Lemon Queen, Ageratina altissima Chocolate, Kirengashoma palmata, Salvia sclarea Vatican White, Agastache Black Adder, Anthriscus sylvestris Ravenswing, a beautiful white Scabious, my favourite thistle in Cirsium Atropurpureum, a white Hesperis and a couple of ferns!!

 

So if you're looking at rejiggjng an area, look them up and take a look at their plant list because I can almost guarantee if you're looking for herbaceous perennials, Arvensis won't let you down. 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Cerinthe major Purpurescens 

Dahlia Love

I've always loved bright colours and larger than life blooms. I remember visiting garden centres as a 70's child and sneaking over to look at the dahlias and gladioli whilst the more adult members of my family were oohing and aaring over subtly toned roses and small flowered shrubs, and questioning whether they'd fit in with the pale border, or the pink bed. 

Whilst all this was happening our side of the garden fence, next door I saw the brightest blooms, grown for the house, and asked question after question of our wonderful neighbour about what his plants were called and why he grew them. Jim called them his jewels and that's just what they were, bright, cheery and colourful. Dahlias, glads, marigolds, sunflowers, anemones, chrysanthemums and more. 

"What would you like Sara?" was always asked but there were tuts and sighs when I pointed out bright dahlias, anemones and glads. Even when I asked for Rosa Ferdinand Pichard, that amazing, I think, white and Crimson striped rose, I was told it was gaudy and to look at something else. 

 

And then of course I found Great Dixter!! For a while Christopher Lloyd was on Gardeners World, in those halcyon Titchmarsh days, and I remember a change. An interest in how those borders at Great Dixter, whilst being a riot of supposedly clashing colours, just worked. Books were purchased and plant lists reviewed at my parents, but still the glads and dahlias never appeared.

But by then of course I had my own little plot and I soon learnt that not only are these plants magnificent, but they are reasonably easy once you've fought the snails at the beginning of the season, and they give a great display until the first heavy frosts, both inside and out, as they cut like a dream. What's not to love? 

 

So this year on the new allotment, half of which is being given over to flowers, the dahlias and glads have begun to be grown again, in their own beds where the mix of the different forms and colours startles the eye and excites the soul. Next year there will be more for certain, mixed I hope with bright perennials such as Heleniums, Echinacea and Rudbeckia. 

And in pride of place will be my new Rosa Ferdinand Pichard. Let the gaudy begin!

 

Wordless Wednesday

Eryngium yuccifolium