The perfect start to the weekend - Bosvigo Gardens Hellebore Day

We at Daisy! had a lovely start to the weekend visiting the Bosvigo Gardens Hellebore Day. Held annually to raise money for charity, we strolled through the beautiful Woodland Walk gaining inspiration and ended up at the sales area full of a fantastic array of Hellebores. The Woodland Walk was full of Hellebores, Snowdrops, Crocus, Puschkinia and early Narcisi in drifts under the trees, and although it was cold and quite grey, it was lovely to see Spring so well underway.

The day was opened by the lovely Carol Klein, presenter of Gardeners World (and veg guru - see previous entry), who stayed around to chat and drink tea (see above).

We managed to leave with only three Hellebores between us, which we thought was very restrained, although we could easily have doubled that! 

The Hellebores are all grown at Bosvigo and varied from darkest purple, through pinks to white, and on to yellow and green, with double and single flowers. Indeed every variation on a Hellebore that you could wish for was there, although by mid morning the supply was already much depleted. The experienced Hellebore Day veteran is there at 9.30am, opening time, for the best choice.

We loved our trip to Hellebore heaven and will certainly be visiting again later in the year to see what developes in the rest of the garden. 

Bosvigo Gardens opens from March through to the end of September, Wednesday to Friday and is well worth a visit.

Check out their website for further information

Bosvigo Gardens

St Valentines Day - be original!

Today is the day of the red rose and they're everywhere (in the shops - obviously not in my house!). Now the red rose is a lovely flower, but they can have a tendency to flop immediately and never revive. There are lots of theories as to how to avoid this from putting lemonade in your vase, or soluble aspirin, to bashing the stem ends flat and sticking pins through the stem behind the bloom. 

So why not try something different we thought, and went off to research the hidden meanings of flowers, an idea loved by the Victorians who put meanings and messages to hundreds of plants and flowers. And this is what we found as an alternative to the red rose:

Purple Lilac represents the first emotions of young love. 

The Blue Violet represents love and faithfulness

The Forget-me-not represents true love and means 'you are the key to my heart'

The Primrose represents young love and means 'I can't live without you' 

Snowdrops represent hope

The Red Peony represents devotion and aphrodisia!

There is an amazing variety to choose from, some of which we can even find in our own gardens. But we did spot one or two to avoid - yellow Roses represent jealousy, Begonias mean beware and the Cyclamen represents resignation and goodbye!

It's lovely to give and receive flowers at any time of year but who knew that it could be such a minefield?

A lovely local flower site is based on a beautiful organic farm in Fowey - 

The Garden Gate Flower Company

All pictures Google Images

The garden - refuge or running battle?

Reading through February's copy of Garden Magazine (from the RHS) I came across an inspirational article by garden writer and designer Mary Keen. She was looking at what her garden really means to her, and observing that often gardening - the weeding, planning and planting and the constant striving for the garden we long for, takes over from the real enjoyment a garden. 

Mary says that her garden changes the way she feels, makes her happier, calmer and more able to deal with life's stresses. It's easy to let your garden become one of those stresses - the weeds not weeded, the planting times missed, the neglected pots reproaching you as you pass. But working in the garden, growing things and creating some order has an amazingly calming and levelling effect, and the sense of achievement is fantastic. 

Let's strive to be more like Mary and see our gardens not as a huge pile of chores that need doing, and instead appreciate it for what it is, and enjoy pottering. Gardening is not competitive and shouldn't be obsessive, although it is always absorbing. The idea of a garden is much the same as the idea of your house - it's a space in which you can enjoy being and live your life. The garden just happens to be outdoors, is slightly more weather affected, and is shared with a range of living vegetation. Hopefully the perfect space in which to meditate, relax or just drink tea!

As Mary Keen says:

"A garden, like a poem, clears a private space in your head where you can retreat. It isn't about complicated techniques or aspiring to what you see in magazines. It doesn't have to be perfect - and if horticulture gets in the way of a more important experience, then forget it."

I like Mary!


Check out Mary's monthly gardening column.
Telegraph - Mary Keen

The beginning of the year in Veg

Whilst this time of year can be a slower paced planning phase in the flower garden, things need to be a bit more organised for the vegetable plot. 
Now we at Daisy! don't claim to be authorities on vegetable growing, we're still at the experimental stage. Therefore we look for advice and guidance to our Veg Guru - Carol Klein and her Grow Your Own Veg book.

So with the onset of February we consulted her book  in a bit of a panic, afraid that we were already behind!

Thankfully most of January's to do list was already done or not applicable:

'Continue harvesting your winter vegetables' - this assumes that you were organised enough to get any planted in the first place.

'Plant onions' - this was done in our patches in November so didn't need doing either.

'Take care with soil' - top news, you really shouldn't dig soil when it's sodden - it damages the soil structure! In our world this is great news, any excuse to avoid digging, mind you given the weather at the moment we may never be able to dig! The down side is that when the soil does finally dry out the amount of digging needed will be huge!

'Set out seed potatoes' - we haven't done this one, but will save egg boxes madly and set the seed potatoes in them to chit rose end up (or eyes/shoots up) as soon as possible - as soon as we've got some seed potatoes!

And Carol's final piece of advice - well, it appears every month - Look out for slugs and snails! So wellies on and brollies out and let's go patrol!

RHS Bookshop -Carol Klein's books

And now Carol's written a book on growing veg in pots! Hurrah!

Photo Google Images