Category: garden visits
Visits to inform and inspire
August 31, 2012
Gaining inspiration
All week, I’ve been editing a travel magazine, which you might think has nothing to do with gardening. But it has – for so many readers love to visit gardens, for ideas and inspiration for their own plots at home. Once urgent tasks in the allotment, veg beds and flower borders are done, you can perhaps feel justified in taking time off gardening chores and decide where to go. Where better at this time of year than gardens of the National Trust? There are so many aspects to discover, with volunteers often on hand to answer queries.
April progress
April 12, 2012
Planting srawberries in the eco-garden
After a very wet Easter here in the Cotswolds, it’s all systems go to sow and plant before we start on our travels around the country visiting plant shows and inspirational gardens. The nettle patch within the ‘eco-garden’ that I was seen digging in the April e-News is now cleared and planted with strawberries; sharing space with shallots ‘Mikor’ which I did not have room to plant in the courtyard potager, and some supermarket garlic that had started to sprout!
March Miscellany
March 23, 2012
The perfect spot for soaking up the sun and writing garden notes
I’ve been out and about in the last seven days, as well as venturing into the garden. The square-metre plot moving forwards. This time last year, it was not even created, and now flourishes. Sitting on my favourite faux-French sea-blue chairs, under a canopy of sweet-scented golden mahonia, alive with honey-bees, I soak up the sun and make notes. The buzz if bees is everywhere. On the flowering box-balls, and the red-deadnettle weed, deliberately left to provide early pollen.
Herbs and Herb Gardens
February 10, 2011
- High summer at ‘The Kennels’, in the herb garden not long after it was first established.
In my days off since last blogging, and writing the Dobies February e-newsletter, I have been travelling – indulging in one of my passions: herbs. Down to the Goodwood Estate near Chichester, discovering a fascinating little herb garden, and a little of its history. Even in Winter, the magic is there; bare earth, mulched and cosseted, plants sleeping in geometric beds: just a hint of the culinary pleasures to come, once Summer arrives. And then imagine the plucking and snipping, the chefs taking only a few short steps from ‘The Kennels’, across the road and into a sun-kissed walled garden, returning with handfuls of fresh leaves to chop and garnish, releasing their saviour and fragrance in delectable dishes.
Hello and Welcome
December 30, 2010
This new blog comes to you under the auspices of ‘Dobies of Devon’ by whom I am already engaged to write a monthly e-newsletter, and now weekly postings on this blog. Everyone on the team decided that a single monthly communication could not convey as much useful information as we would like to do, and so this ‘gardening companion’ has come into being. It will incorporate a number of garden-related topics – not just activities within the garden, but out and about, introducing you to places to visit.