My Garden

With so much rain during the build up and with rain forecast for the first few show days, the sun and heat has taken us all by surprise. The brollies have been unused and we've been reaching for suncream and water bottles instead of waterproofs.

So we are feeling a bit hot and sunburnt but it's all proving worthwhile.  We've had wonderful feedback from visitors and have given out over a thousand leaflets for the garden and nursery. Friends and relatives have also been dropping in which is lovely. And yes, of course I'm busy mulling on ideas for next year

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We arrived on site early this morning to find a silver medal tucked neatly into our fig tree planter.  Of course it would have been wonderful to do better, but we had done our own assessment and felt that a silver would be a good result, so we were pleased and just a touch relieved to find it waiting for us. After all the trials of taking on the nursery, finding and growing plants, designing and building the garden ourselves and dealing with the weather, it really was a very good outcome. I asked for feedback and it was reassuring to find that our own assessment almost exactly tallied with the judges thoughts.

But public opinion is just as important - if not more so - and we have had a wonderful first day with visitors from the very first moments telling us how much they like the garden.  Summing up the comments, it seems that much of  modern show gardening is about telling a story, or the execution of a concept, or the delivery of a corporate or organisation's message.  People seem to enjoy ours because it is recognisably an ordinary garden, on a human scale and with ideas and planting that can be translated almost anywhere.  So I'm happy, proud of what we have done and now need to find the energy to talk to every show visitor for the next four days...

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The rain more or less held off while we finished in the morning.  With all the rain we still had a lot of cleaning to do, but at least we didn't face the kind of additional problems that Sue Tatman had to deal with. We finished with 20 minutes to spare and had 10 minutes of sunshine for photographs before the rain started. We have some soft furnishings on the garden so these had to be hurriedly covered up before we went for a well earned lunch.

Miraculously, the rain stopped for about half an hour and we got the covers off before the judges came round, only to sprint back to put them on again when another downpour started. This one was much more serious - a proper thunderstorm and to make matters much, much worse I managed to drop my van key somewhere in the exhibitor car park.  Somehow Hazel spotted it - a real needle in a haystack. Wet through and feeling a bit flat with the build all over, we went home

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After yesterday's continual rain, it was a joy to see the garden basking in sunshine this morning.  All the plants look so much better in sunshine - the grasses were upright and glittery, the colours looked brighter and the whole garden had taken on a cheery, welcoming look.

We got stuck into our final day of planting, finished the wall planter and the fig tree seat, mulched all the borders and trained the Vitis purpurea up the fence.  Hazel did a bit of emergency sourcing of a few missing grasses and Heucheras and brought the curved bench, which arrived just in time for the film crew

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Today was a real trial.  We arrived early and got about 4 hours work in before the promised rain arrived at midday. But stopping wasn't an option so Hazel, Isabelle and I ploughed on, literally.  At times it felt less like planting and more like embedding plants in mud.  The biggest enemy wasn't the rain, it was the risk of team despondency so we were kind to ourselves and sat in the van every now and then to nurse a hot drink, dry out and laugh at our predicament.  I'm now properly tired out - a combination of the cumulative effort, the pressure of the weather, reduced sleep, the looming deadline, the endless thinking, list making, and decisions, decisions, decisions.

The rain adds to the workload because everything you touch or brush against gets muddy - plant leaves, paving and painted surfaces.  Once we finish the backlog of planting, everything will need cleaning.  But at least the area around our garden is still grass - other plots are much muddier.  On the bright side, the forecast for tomorrow is dry and all our muddy clothes are in the wash so we'll have clean, dry clothes for tomorrow. 

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As Sue said below the weather was kind to us today.  By mid-morning we had all the key structural plants in place and the garden started to take shape.  I had to leave then to meet a group visit back at our gardens, but this meant I could come back with more plants.  By the end of the day about half the plants were in position and the wall had been painted twice.

We still have a huge amount to do - we need get good enough weather for most of the next two days.  We got back home at 7.30, had a quick tea, unpacked the van, sorted out plants for tomorrow and painted our boundary posts, finally getting indoors at 10pm. Hopefully our last late night - I need some sleep before 5 days on the stand!  Also, my name has appeared against a presentation slot in the RHS marquee for a session on garden design so I'd better start thinking about what I'm going to say...

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The forecast this morning was for light rain, which proved more than a little optimistic.  With the rain getting steadily heavier, we decided to leave the garden alone for the day. The less we stomp on it in the wet the better. The forecast is much better for tomorrow so we should get a full day in. 

But we did make some progress - Jeremy from Bollin Rigging arrived to put the sail up and I think it looks great.  We'll take it down again for now though, just a precaution against high winds.

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For the past two days I have largely stood back and let Tim and Jez from Sound Garden Designs get on with the hard landscaping.  The back to back gardens are only 6m x 4m so there really isn't space for more than two people to work at a time.

I'm really pleased with how it looks and we are bang on schedule.  The sail arrives today and we will take our first delivery of plants to site this morning.  The staff at the nursery have been doing a great job not just keeping the business running but also looking after the show plants while I've been on site and they look really good

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As expected, today was somewhat slower.  We decided to level out the ground a bit more before tomorrow's brickwork starts and spent some time tidying up the fence, which has received some admiring comments already. We also had quite a few friends drop by who were working on other gardens so we probably spent more time chatting than working!

I saw Sue Tatman's oak sleepers and plant collection on the way out today so I know where she is - I'll try and drop by tomorrow - it would be good to chat to a fellow blogger.  We aren't going to start planting until Friday, so it is a bit unsettling to see others making such visible progress, but I'm sure we'll be fine for time.  The hard landscaping starts tomorrow so it should all start to take shape.

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The weather was kind to us and we made a very good start today. Huge rain clouds slid to either side of us all day, mercifullly holding off until we got in the van at 5pm before passing directly overhead and releasing a downpour.  So the fence is in, the plot is marked up and the hard landscaping areas are dug out. I've uploaded a couple of pictures - click the 'Photos' link above.

Tomorrow will probably be a bit slow - the fence had to go a bit higher than planned so we need more wood and paint, but we now have half a day in hand so that's fine. (The gap under the middle two panels is deliberate - we weren't that far out!

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Tomorrow is our first build day on site.  My boundary construction team (me, my daughter Hazel, father-in-law Ged and our ace gardener/handyman Peter) meet here at 9am to load the van and make a start.  The 'things to take' list is more than a side of A4 long - and that's just for the first day!

There are just a few plants I feel we are short of so we may do some last minute searching, but we can still do a good job if not

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I'm starting to get nervous stomach flutters - stage fright, basically - when I think about Tatton. Oddly, friends and colleagues around me are much calmer now than they were a few weeks ago.  This is because the image that was clear in my mind and was hazy for them is now taking shape in front of their eyes  They can see what I was blathering on about, are reassured by its reality and are now engaged with me in the final decision making.  For my part, reality is a modified version of my original image and is full of compromises and uncertainties.

But even with others now closely involved, it's ultimately down to me to make sure that everything happens. Each day I mentally rehease each element in case I've overlooked something. Boundaries, landscaping, vehicle passes, literature, mulch, fixings, tools, timings, health and safety (must find my saftey boots!), sponsor's ticket allocations, stand cover, etc.  It's all written down of course, but what if I've never even thought of it? I think once we get on site it will feel much better. There's nothing like doing, instead of thinking, to calm the nerves.

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The infrastructure is on track so I spent most of today experimenting with plant layouts.  It's one thing to have a rough mental plan, but there's nothing quite like actually placing plants in combinations in rough positions to help crystallise decisions.  I still need to do some whittling down and there are some shortfalls that I'm now trying to track down - I wish I'd picked up some good sized Knautia macedonica when I had the chance, and wish I'd not let so many of the Francoa go for sale on the nursery two weeks ago.  Ah well, no point wishing - I need to work with what I have.

Tim and Jez from Sound Garden Design came by today for a final briefing on the paving and to cut the three slabs that needed reshaping.  So essentially now the paving just needs placing and laying on site. That's the theory anyway! 

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In five days time we start constructing the garden on site so I'm now at the list writing stage: lists of things to do, things to take to site, task lists, personnel lists etc.  Writing a list is the most important thing - invariably as projects get under way, I lose it, or change plans and rip it up, but the act of writing it makes me feel like I know what I'm doing. 

With the nursery closed on Mondays and Tuesdays I've had two clear days on the Tatton garden.  I picked up two large Vitis purpurea from a nursery in Southport, built the rest of the fig tree seat, sorted out the foam and fabric for it, ordered cushions for the bench, chose gravel, bought the fence posts and sail posts and helped my father-in-law construct the fence.  So plenty of progress, but I've still got a lot of decision making to do over plants.  That has to start in earnest tomorrow - it's time to decide what's in and what's out

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Most of my plants for Tatton Show are outside in a private part of the nursery.  I've been resisting the temptation to bring plants under cover, mainly because I don't want them to flower too quickly and also because watering is more of a headache when they are indoors.  But this perpetual wind and heavy rain is giving everything a real battering, and some are looking a bit the worse for being too wet, so today we cleared a huge area in one of the polytunnels and started laying out the plants inside.  It's funny how it looks like there are far too many plants when they are laid out in rows, but when I experiment with positioning them on the mock up garden, there still seem to be gaps to fill.

The fig tree planter is coming on - I've built the frame and wrapped the lead round it.  It wasn't easy handling 22 kilos of lead in one roll, but I worked it out and I think it looks really good. 

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