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The Chelsea Flower show and Floriography

May 27, 2010 By 1 Comment
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Well, have you been enjoying the wonderful Chelsea flower show? I have! I look forward to this time every year, when we see the best in garden design and displays that can tempt and enthuse us to get into our gardens.

Unfortunately I am unable to go to the show this year, so I have been enjoying the coverage on the television. The BBC coverage is very useful, and  because the crowds are so large at this highly popular flower show, you can often miss the detail, so watching the BBC shows on BBC1 and BBC2 and their red button programmes, can help enormously. I love learning from the amazing Carol Klein whose plant knowledge is just amazing!

The colour schemes at this years show are so fresh and calming. With the weather that we have been having over the last week, the cool planting schemes of the M&G garden designed by Roger Platts and The Children’s Society Garden designed by Mark Gregory provides a restful scene.

I love the detail of The Victorian Aviary Garden designed by Phillipa Pearson and Jonathan Denby, with the wonderful Peacock mosaic path! (I want one of those LOL)

My favourite areas have always been the floral pavillion and the small courtyard gardens, and I always make a beeline for them when I go. I do admit that I spend most of my time admiring the stunning floral displays in the pavilion. So if you are going, please make sure you don’t miss these areas as you won’t be disappointed!

The key planting schemes that I have noticed this year, are the pretty aquilegia, the varied foxgloves, scented lavenders, the delicate grasses and of course beautiful roses.

Gardens with a message

In the Show Gardens category - The Stephen Hawking Garden for Motor Neurone Disease is a very thoughtful garden. I love the fact that not only can you design a wonderful garden for sight, smell and touch, but also by including a meaning into the design – it can be the best kind of advert there can be! I do hope that the visitors will take on the message behind this garden, understanding the wonderful work that the MND Association do.

In the Small Urban Gardens category there is the garden called Dyslexia – A Barrier to Education? Designed by Tim Fowler, which also seeks to provide a message in the design of the garden, looking at how the brain analyses various information.

In the Small Courtyard Gardens -  Green & Blacks Rainforest Garden designed by Jane Owen and Ann-Marie Powell, is thoughtlfully detailed to make us think about the Cameroon Rainforest and the people who live there.

Admiration

I have enormous admiration for the designers and growers who have had such a hard time this year getting their plants ready for the show, as the weather has really tested them. I am also amazed at how plants that have been brought over from various countries have survived the long journeys that they have travelled to be included in the designs, and with the ash cloud situation, it has been even more difficult for them this year.

I think that all the people who have been / are involved in the show should be awarded a medal, for their talent, patience, hard work etc… in bringing us an extraordinary, wonderful flower show for us to admire.

Language of flowers

Today the lunchtime show looked briefly at the interesting subject of Floriography – The Language of Flowers. The BBC website has further information on the significance of flowers, but if you would like to know more, please visit my website, where I look at the history of floriography and give examples of popular flowers. I have also used this as a basis to look at particular businesses by choosing flowers that best describe their business.

Going to Chelsea?

If you are going to the Chelsea Flower show this year, I hope you have a wonderful time. If you write a blog post about your visit, please share the link to your post in the comments section for others to read and enjoy!

Don’t Miss

The Real Flower Company who specialise in the most wonderful English rose bouquets, have just been awarded an RHS Certificate of Merit for outstanding presentation. We send our congratulations to them! You can find them at stand MW5. They are also running a very special competition to win 6 months of English scented roses more details can be found on their website.

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The global language of gardening

May 18, 2010 By 2 Comments
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Angela  Boothroyd from Online English Lessons, has kindly written a guest post for me, looking at the global language of gardening. I hope you enjoy reading it. Please click through to her website for fantastic, helpful information, about the English Language.

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The English language is full of words and phrases acquired from other languages over centuries of use. The language we use daily has vocabulary derived from many languages, including: French, German, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic and Hebrew. Much of this vocabulary has become so familiar to native English speakers that we rarely stop to consider the origins of the words we use.

As gardeners we are surrounded by Latin plant names, of course, but have you ever wondered where some of the other words we might use while gardening have come from?

Here are a few words you might happen across in an average afternoon’s gardening: :-)

It’s a beautiful day outside so you’ve decided to do a little gardening. You put on your dungarees and gardening gloves, dig a few holes with your trowel, and plant some romaine lettuce, broccoli, pimiento and canteloupe. You follow this with a little light pruning with your secateurs.

All this hard work has tired you out so it’s time to have a rest and dine alfresco on a fresh baguette. You pour yourself a drink from a carafe of wine or water, admire the flora and fauna of your garden, and the trompe l’oiel your sister very kindly painted on your garden wall, and, finally, as a reward for all your hard work, you settle back in your chair and have a siesta!

  • dungarees – from 17C. Hindi dungri
  • trowel – from Old French truele and medieval Latin truella
  • romaine lettuce – early 20C. French, feminine of romain (Roman). The name may have been given because the cos lettuce reached Western Europe through Rome.
  • broccoli – 17C. Italian broccolo cabbage sprout
  • pimiento – 17C. Spanish, from the Latin pigmentum meaning paint or pigment.
  • cantaloupe – 18C. French, from Cantaluppi, a papal estate near Rome, where it was first grown when introduced from Armenia
  • prune – from the Old French proignier
  • secatuers – 19C. French, plural of secateur, from the Latin secare to cut
  • alfresco – 18C. Italian al fresco, in the fresh
  • baguette – 18C. French, from the Italian bacchetto, from the Latin baculum
  • carafe – 18C. French, from Italian caraffa, probably from Arabic garafa, to draw water
  • flora – 16C. Latin, from Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers and gardens
  • fauna – 18C. from Fauna an ancient Italian rural goddess
  • trompe l’oiel – 19C. French, from tromper to deceive, and l’oeil the eye
  • siesta – 17C. Spanish, from the Latin sexta (hora), sixth (hour) of the day, i.e. midday

That’s just a few examples of the origins of some of the many words from around the world we use while gardening.

Do you have any other examples or suggestions? I’d love to hear about them :-)

Guest post from Angela Boothroyd – Online English Lessons for speakers of other languages.

Reference:

Cassell’s Foreign Words & Phrases (2000)

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A visit to Apple Court Garden

May 5, 2010 By 2 Comments
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Recently we had the privilege of visiting Apple Court garden again.

When you visit, you feel as though it’s a secret garden, but I want to share this secret with you. Magnolia

I suggest you ask for the garden leaflet for information about the garden, to get the most out of your visit.

This beautiful garden is situated in lymington Hampshire, near to the coast and the majestic New Forest; it ticks all the boxes for me.

The owners and gardeners are Angela and Charles Meads. They took over the garden in 2003, and in a relatively short space of time in gardening terms, they have a garden they can be proud of!

On both occasions we were fortunate to see the garden in lovely spring weather, you feel so at home in the garden that you could quite easily sit and have a cuppa watching the world go by.

Rooster At Apple Court GardensThey also had some amazing chickens with an enormous black velvet rooster, I don’t know the name of these chickens but I had to take a photo to show you how magnificent they are. They are great for pest control, very eco-friendly and a gardeners friend.

Often gardens specialise in particular plants and flowers.

Apple Court Garden’s specialities are – hostas, day lilies, and ferns.

On our visit last year in May, we had a lovely surprise, a beautiful wisteria was found over a lovely little seat at the beginning of the rope walk that I mention on my video below. We will be returning to admire this lovely scented flower again very soon. Angela was sure that the wisteria would be in flower very soon, and you could certainly see the buds about to burst into life.    Wisteria at Apple Court Gardens

The planting scheme is planned very well as it looks natural, but you know that a lot of work has gone into the design. As I mention in the video it’s a restful garden, a garden to visit to let your stresses melt away and feel refreshed once more.

I particularly enjoyed the lovely spring, salmon and peach borders for the spring bulbs, the lovely camellias and magnolias and the hellebores.

If you like gardens with many rooms and little paths to discover new areas, then this is a garden for you.

It’s definitely a garden to see through the spring to the autumn seasons.

The garden is open under the National Garden Scheme (NGS)

Here is the video to give you a little taster of what you can expect from this lovely garden.

When is Apple Court Garden open?

It’s open from the beginning of March to the end of October.

Opening hours - 10-5 pm

Opening Days -  Friday – Sunday and Bank Holidays

Price £4.00. There is a season ticket available for £10.00 well worth it if you are planning to visit a few times in the opening season.

Shop There is a nursery area with a large array of plants available to purchase, to add to your garden. They also have an online shop

Refreshments there is a little area for drinks.

If you want something more substantial we can recommend Braxton Gardens that is about 5-10 mins drive away. Braxton Gardens is definitely worth a visit, especially when the roses are out as they have a rose garden, as well as a tea room.

Mobility if walking is hard for you; there are little sitting areas to admire the garden from. The paths are small, so using a wheelchair may be difficult, as it doesn’t have paved paths. I would suggest contacting the garden before you visit, to see if it is accessible for you.

I hope you enjoyed the video and find the information useful.

We hope that you will add this garden to your list to visit, as you won’t be disappointed.

For more details Apple Court Gardens website is – www.applecourt.com

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