Alvis come to Stevington

A group of Alvis car fanatics came on a garden visit in mid July and we enjoyed them parked in our front drive; made in Coventry, several dated from the 1930s. According to the Alvis Club website 'They were relatively expensive when new, competing in the upper end of the market, and were not produced in large numbers, thus they are very exclusive. Performance, appearance and finish are all well above the levels found in run of the mill cars. Whilst other makes are better known and more instantly recognised, there is an air of quiet good breeding about an Alvis which expresses its owner's taste.' They certainly graced our garden that day!

Mad Hatter's Tea Party

For our Mad Hatter's Tea Party next Saturday we are going to dress up and act out the trial scene about who stole the tarts with the Red King, White Rabbit etc all wearing glorious hats. Over 50 people are coming to the party and we will have the most exotic tea with Dodo egg delights, Eat Me Stuffed Mushrooms,Fish footman “Dear Little Crab” tarts,Down the Rabbit Hole Cupcakes,Pocket Watch cupcakes, Eat Me Cakes,Looking glass biscuits etc etc all made by Masterchef finalist, Hannah Miles. It promises to be an amazing adventure!

Deep Dark Clematis

Two of our favourite 'late flowering' clematis are out right now...angular Romantika and rounded Miegritianka both with an array of dusky jewels. They vie with Black Prince to be the darkest of them all....but there are also a host of others, light blue, purple, cream, yellow, pink etc. to be seen on our Tuesday openings in July or on our Open Day on August 2nd.

Bee heaven

Echinops sphaerocephalum Arctic Glow is really attractive to bees and on a warm day each spiky globe will probably have three or four different types supping the nectar.

We call these echinops 'golf balls' here, easy to see why with the Open Championship well under way, but the latin name translates as hedgehog and its easy to see why. They have self seeded amongst the gravel to form a great colony beneath the white stemmed birch trees and they make an impressive display.

All sorts of honey and bumble bees visit them including carder bees, orange bottom, and white bottom types. We saw a hornet there earlier in the week.

Nigella papillosa African Bride

Nigella papillosa African Bride comes out slightly later than the usual blue love in the mist. Self seeding every year between two white stemmed birches, it is as much an 'eye catcher' in flower, as it is when it holds its amazing seedheads aloft. A winner either way.

Wimbledon

I always love Wimbledon fortnight. I used to work at the Bank of England and one of the perks was to sometimes be lucky enough to receive entry tickets to Wimbledon (preliminary matches were held on the Bank of Englnad tennis courts at Roehampton). How I revelled in the excitement of John Mc Enroe and Bjorn Borg etc etc. Well, now I have my own tennis racket planted up! Is any one else that MAD! It will be even better next year when it has filled out a bit. Roll on Murray!

Creepy Crawly Insect Cakes

Imagine my delight yesterday to be given a wonderfully exciting tray of fairy cakes which Mary, the cookery teacher at Lincroft school had used as a demonstration to show the children how they could use garden insects as a decoration. Caterpillars and spiders were to look delicious! Their recent visits to my garden had made even the teachers think about garden life! More to come!

sunset

After the soaring heat of the day, how refreshing it was to enjoy the soft, exquisite light on the stipa giganteas and white echinops beneath the white stemmed birch trees which lie to the fore of the wild flower meadow. Here the bales of hay were alight just like the church tower in the distance. Then as the red ball of fire dropped below the horizon, the pale blue scabious were at their most delicate.

Sharing my garden with school children

Today was very unusual for me. My groups werenot a horticultural society, or flower arranging club as is so often the case. No, today my groups were Year 5 and 6 school children from nearby Lincroft School in Oakley (a middle school) which is quite simply one of the best in the county. Such enthusiasm for life, such eagerness to learn, and so creative.

The first group were here on a science outing, looking at the garden to understand how the plants reproduce. Well we normally think about insects don't we...bees and moths etc and we saw plenty of bees supping on foxgloves and honeysuckle. But as it happens, four crack willows on our western boundary are shedding their seed at the moment in clouds of cotton like balls, so that they are spread 'down wind' for 300-500 metres, may be more. Then there are animals and humans, one and the same thing maybe for whenever I pull all the foget me nots out at this time of year I always come away with seed all over my jumper. The same with goose grass seeds!

But one of the most memorable sights that day were the peony seedheads, pregnant and swelling, but still with their red styles intact. The peony concerned was Scarlet o'Hara, one of the best! My thanks to Russell Kearsley for this photograph.

The morning ended with the children drawing lots of seedheads and there were such interesting shapes...peonies (with pink styles attached as shown), honesty, alliums (with tiny white styles attached), foxgloves with long styles, aquilegias, cranesbills etc etc.

In the afternoon another class came with their dance teacher. She asked them to look at shapes in the garden, colours, movement etc and before we knew it the children had identified all sorts of fantastic ideas which were to be the core of a dance they are to perform to the rest of the school. A Boogie Woogie terrace dance floor based on Mondrians famous painting was certainly fertile ground. 'S' in the French garden, 'Z' in the sunken pit, 'V' in the walnut tree were also much discussed....I wonder how they will interpret it all.

So if you ever want to see a garden through 'new' eyes, just look at it with a child. Quite simply my garden will never be the same again. What a wonderful day!

25,000 Visitors

Imagine the scene. Last Bank Holiday Monday was fine and sunny. We had lots of visitors for our late spring open day to see eight dreamy arches in the Wisteria Walk draped in laburnum, wisterias, robinias and clematis, all underplanted with glorious purple alliums. Rose petal sponge, and lavender-lemon drizzle cake teas were being served on the lawn...all was well with the world.

Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves....when 25,000 visitors flew in from the north west and made a bee line for the orchard. It was Bedlam with bees buzzing everywhere amongst the orchard trees over exactly the route that all our visitors came in by, except now some were leaving by that same route! One of them said to me, better call a beekeeper. Simon happened to be passing and I relayed the message. He rushed inside...but how do you phone a beekeeeper????

118 500 did the trick.....yes I have several in Nottinghamshire! Shall I put you through? Yes please.......several seconds later the beekeeper answered....Simon explained that we had an open day here, and there was a swarm of bees in the orchard, maybe with just a hint of panic in his voice! The person at the other end of the phone giggled and she repeated Simon's comments, and there was much guffawing in the background. She then told him that she was the landlady of the Beekeeper Inn and wasnot a beekeeper at all!!!! No doubt the customers that day are still chortling!

So that avenue closed, but thanks to Google the Bedfordshire Beekeepers site soon emerged and after several attmepts to find someone at home, Simon manged to find a real beekeeper only three miles away at Milton Ernest....and fifteen minutes later a super man called Chris Lewis came to save our day!

He made Simon dress in a beekepers outfit and soon they were cutting down branches of the cherry tree where the bees had now settled. A large box was then held underneath the swarming 25,000 bees (Chris reckoned that was the figure) and with a sharp shake of the tree the swarm fell off and the box was left on the floor whiltst the bees settled.

Apparently late that evening they were already making honey!

A moveable House for Eeyore

I want to encourage children and mums and dads and grandparents, so that they can all have fun on an outing together in the garden. Simon and I are big fans of all Winnie the Pooh stories, so we thought we would make a Winnie the Pooh trail. We kept a lots of cuttings from the willows and cornus in late winter, ready to make Eeyore's new house.

Yesterday, Simon masterminded seven fence old posts to make the A frame and then I had the easy task of tacking on green and yellow stems. It doesnot look that dense a covering in the photos but then I didnot want it to be dark inside, just enough of a structure to make children want to explore.

Winnie came to see Eeyore in the evening and I think they were both very happy. They hatched a plan to invite all the 'other friends' to visit on Sunday and have a lovely picnic and games together.

English Bluebells

Late evening sunlight, shafting through a blue bell wood, must be one of the loveliest sights in England. A dreamy place to be especially at the end of a busy day. But made even more so by the route to and fro. For the meadows were full of ladysmock and two pure white swans performed a special flypast for us before swooping and curling down to the river.

spring flowers for pots and baskets

This is a wonderful time of year for spring colour in containers. Pots of cerise Parrot tulips, baskets of vivid blue muscari, and lots of different pots of daisies and violas are all looking wonderful in the spring sunshine. Evening light is particularly magical.

The Green Green Box of Home

The box is fast putting on new growth and looks so so green. In fact,unbelievably green. At the same time the hornbeam towers and hedge are just coming into leaf. The whole effect is an explosion of green. Spring green!