Getting ready for the workshops

Just limbering up for the workshop season.  Really looking forward to all of the sessions that we are doing this year with both the University of Bristol Botanic Gardens and the Avon Gorge and Downs Wildlife Project.  

We are doing two sessions on Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th in the Potting Shed at the Botanic Gardens making fresh traditional Christmas Wreaths.   If ever there was a perfect place to spend an afternoon making something lovely that is it.  And its warm....

New this year is a day at Bristol Zoo making traditional blue spruce swags to decorate fireplaces and staircases on Saturday 10th December.  We are going to make a day of it with a walk on the Downs after lunch with Mandy Leivers, the Education Officer at the Avon Gorge and Downs Wildlife Project talking about the history and folklore of the foiliage used for Christmas decoration.  Last year we did that walk after a heavy snowfall the day before and the temperature was well below zero even in the afternoon, so we were very happy to get back for tea and cake after..
 
More details are on the website.  There are a few places left so come and join us if you can....

a warm welcome to our Clifton Life readers

been a great week.  About to take delivery of our first batch of Welsh blue pine to start working on samples and our first order of wreaths  for delivery to The Better Food Company in Clifton later in the month.  The rope for our swags is on order from Neil in Norfolk too so its really starting to feel a lot like Christmas.

The Clifton Life article is out. Jamie Oliver on the cover and greengarland on page 11 with an interview for their regular GreenLife feature, all good stuff.

We are coming to the end of the hydrangea season and they have been selling very quickly. Hopefully we should have a few left for the markets in December but if the frost comes that will be all the hydrangeas until next year.

  the secateurs are being sharpened and we are nearly ready for the season.  Come join us..  

Orange and Cinnamon Wreath

Orange and Cinnamon Wreath

 Been making bases for this year's wreaths with some good willow from my mother's garden.  Its very easy to work with right now and doesn't need soaking.  It really is starting to feel like Christmas is coming.  
This Orange and Cinnamon Wreath was a big seller in 2010.  With the cold and the snow last Christmas season we decided that we should leave most of the holly berries to the birds and made these instead.  These smell gorgeous with Welsh Blue Spruce, perhaps Juniper or Bay depending on what is cut  and good on the day, and decorated with Orange slices and Cinnamon sticks.          
     

These we send in beautiful red gift boxes by post all over the UK.  They make lovely presents for family and friends with handwritten messages on greengarland gift cards.  Those first two weeks of December are going to be very busy.....  

Hydrangea Wreaths

Yes - its that time of year again.  Been all day making heart hydrangea wreaths and some round ones too.  There are not so many good coloured hydrangeas this year.  I could go into detail but probably not for here.  Anyhow, the ones that we do have are good.  Really dark red ones and lovely raspberry pink.   They wont be in stock for long as they do sell out fast.  All made on willow and dogwood bases and hand tied with jute.
All the ladybirds carefully removed and taken back into the garden.....

 
All this has been distracting me slightly from the imminent arrival of the new greengarland website.  Have seen one sneak preview and J has done a great job.   Can't wait....

Coming over all autumnal....

harvest herb wreath

Got up early this morning to cut materials for this harvest wreath, commissioned by a customer in Westbury Park having a big celebration this evening, and looking for a statement piece for their kitchen wall, the table being too full of party food to take a decoration.  We incorporated some materials from their garden (lavender, fennel, rosemary) and made this harvest celebration wreath using all edible flowers and herbs.  The borage, calendula and sunflower buds all good at the moment, and, having done the Chelsea Chop to the herb bed, so was the lemon balm and oregano - all added to a base of bay leaves and dill.

There really was an autumnal feel about the garden;  the spiders weaving webs between the artichokes on one side of the path and the hop shed on the other, so walking through to the cutting patch a slightly edgy experience. The winds this week have given the garden a bit of a battering - the Horse Chestnut trees on the Downs are raining conkers and their leaves turning from green to red.  I like this time of year. After all, Christmas is coming....

This afternoon is the Westbury on Trym Flower Show  and we are exhibiting in the XXL categories with our marrows and pumpkins from the allotment at Canford.  Also have fingers crossed for some glory in the jam and marmalade classes with some Summer Berry Jam and Kumquat Marmalade, made from the left overs from the last year' s wreath making workshops at the Botanic Gardens.    Never was there so little at stake....  Will take the camera....

Running out of room...

Drying Nigella pomanders and poppies at Crockbarton

This weekend we went to the country and took some of the poppies and nigella that have been picked recently.  Our fireplaces are now full so thought I would dry some at Catherine's  -  She lives in a 16th Century weavers cottage in Timsbury with huge inglenook fireplaces.  I have dried flowers everywhere and am busy wondering where I am going to put all the hydrangeas when we start cutting them shortly..

Wendy Paul of Organic Blooms

Organic Blooms have now cut all the nigella  they have been growing for us and have it hanging from the rafters of  their flower shed ready for collection.  They have an open day on the 4th September so if you want to see Wendy Paul, their florist, with hundreds of nigella seeds in her hair go and check them out.  Its the most amazing place.

Update from Canford E (or A new enemy at the allotment)

Been a while but busy, busy with the growing season in full swing.  Have been growing big patches of poppies  to collect seed heads for the heart willow wreaths we will be making for the Christmas season.  Also growing  Cyperus glaber for the first time which should give us something new to take to the workshops we are running this year - Saturday 10th December with Avon Gorge and Downs Wildlife Project at Bristol Zoo making fireplace and staircase garlands - with a walk and talk about the history and folklore of Christmas foliage, and two over the weekend of the 3rd and 4th December in the Potting Shed at The University of Bristol Botanic Garden.  Booking details are on the greengarland website.  Really looking forward to those.

Canford E July 2011

All that talk of a summer like the one in 1976 seems like a very distant memory now.  We did have a very, very dry spring (like 2010) and, like 2010, it looks like its going to be followed by a wet summer.  The Canford gardeners are now standing around just WAITING for the blight to arrive - the conditions are just perfect.  We have been distracted slightly from worrying over our potatoes and tomatoes tho' by a new enemy - not seen around these allotments certainly since we took our first half  plot some five years ago.  Rabbits!  So we are busy building rabbit defences in order that we can grow the carrots to a size where if the carrot fly doesn't get them, bugs bunny doesn't eat all the top growth, the badgers will dig them up, eat a few and toss the rest around, munching all our sweetcorn on the way back to the sett nearby. Pah.

Hard to stay grumpy there for long.  It's light at 4.30 and still light at 10 so if you can bear the  biting insects at those times of the day it is a lovely place to hang out, do a bit of weeding, more planting of beetroot carrots and lettuces, and come back with baskets loads of lovely fresh berries for jam making, boxes of fresh veg for the kitchen and loads and loads of lovely flowers for the house.   Is all that hard work worth it ? You bet. Love it, love it, love it.....