Tea Surgeon lends a hand - Head Gardener makes a big mistake!

After the arrival of our flat footed avian visitor, I entrusted Chris with my camera and asked him to take photos of all the visitors in the garden.  As O.I.C. (Officer in Charge) of ticket sales and on entry duty, I could hardly wander off and take piccies!

Some of the team

Chris drying up

What did he do?  Answer: he played with the camera taking close up shots of individual blooms and leaves.  Hardly any people appear on them and so it looks as if the garden was empty!!  The couple I've found with any visitors on were obviously taken with Chris hiding in the undergrowth!  I cropped out all the foreground foliage he used as camouflage in order to see tiny distant 'visitors!'  His excuse: he didn't like to photograph people!  Honestly! (sigh)  Still he did help with the teas and we changed the wording on his shirt to something more appropriate!

More pictures (of an empty garden!) can be seen at:

https://picasaweb.google.com/100788191989823327785/NGSOpenGardensWeekend

One or two distant visitors.....

It was a really tiring week with 5am starts to get everything ready.  Maybe it was a high level of fatigue that caused my first and single biggest mistake!  Our first visitors arrived early.  Alarm bells rang as we heard early footsteps scrunching on the gravel until I realised it was friends who have already promised to come and help again at the village event at the end of the month.  I say again because, it didn't occur to me that they had come to support us and look around a garden they already know so well.  How wrong could I be?  I rushed out with 'pear' aprons (that Denise had made the night before).  In no time, they were modelling the aprons and AMAZINGLY, they stayed and worked ALL day!  Dave shuttled visitors to and fro in Mellings (the Mini - bus!) from the car park.  I say car park but, it was in Rob's perfectly manicured apple orchard - the world's most scenic car park!  Many thanks to Rob for the privilege!  

...have been found after enlarging the photos!

What absolute dedicated spontaneity by good friends.  A special vote of thanks to Dave, Di, Eve and Jo who served teas all day long and only expected to come for an hour!  ........And, may I say?  This was not grubby chipped mugs slopping around with super-strong builders tea!  It was elegantly served trays of afternoon teas using china cups and saucers with yer actual napkins!  Real class!

Our other weekend stalwarts from the NGS were Pauline, Rosemary, Katie, Barbara, Roger and Teresa. The house was left spic and span with all crockery washed and stacked tidily and not a crumb to be seen.   A big thank you to them all! We had more compliments about the teas and cakes and Denise's works of art than we did about the garden!!  Despite all the hard work and anxiety over weather and numbers, it was a fun and successful day.  We were really lucky with both the weather and all the yummy cakes that people made. The grand total achieved for the NGS was £846.32!!!

Open Gardens First Visitor!

Our first visitor to Open Gardens flew in and watched the last minute preparations with interest - from the ridge on the roof!!

Why is it that a duck on the roof should look quite so out of place?

Even Nearer!!

A very tidy greenhouse...

..with neat labelling!

Have been madly tidying .....

.........everywhere - trimming, edging, weeding, sweeping, titivating etc.  Only 24rs left before the final mow and edging.  The greenhouse has never looked so tidy I even labelled Chris's tomato plants!  The Garage Gallery is really taking shape and now even has a plant stall outside.  Denise also brought some super cushions for Chris's seat.  Al has been shopping for teas and coffee and friends have really rallied round and cakes are rolling in - phew!  Even the weather forecast is favourable.  Fingers crossed!

If only there was time to sit on it!

Beginnings of an art exhibition

Meanwhile Denise and her team were slaving in the garage and turning it into an art gallery with more exhibits coming tomorrow.  Even in a half finished state, it's looking nothing like a garage!

No going back now!

As Open Gardens loom even closer, things have been pretty frenetic with little time for blogging.  Plenty of outrageously early starts and achingly late finishes.  Even so much has been achieved and things are looking pretty tidy.  Because of the atrociously cold spring, hardening off greenhouse plants has been later than ever before.  Still, with any luck visiting gardeners will understand.  The  much moved Hostas have put on growth and, we might even have some roses in bloom for the weekend.  The greenhouse has had a late spring clean and the potting bench has seen much activity.  The pots and urns which Chris brought have all been filled.  The nice lady from NGS has organised help with serving teas and more cakes have been promised (phew!)

More Cast Iron

Found at the Spring Garden Show...

...a new addition for the shady side of Chris's wall. A bit of cherub-like rusting cast iron ornamentation found at the Garden Show.  It's  rather small to plant up and then there's always the responsibility of remembering to water something that's likely to dry out every 5 seconds so, we'll probably leave it as it is.

Homeless Hostas on the Move - Again!

It's been a couple of weeks since Chris rounded up all our Hostas, divided them (and brought 3 of his own) and planted up a dedicated Hosta bed.  What happened on Saturday?  I spotted a couple more that had popped up in the Woodland Border.  I bought one from the Spring Garden Show and had popped that one in. Yet another was awaiting planting with 4 bags of bark chip all bought using nectar points at Homebase.  The trouble began when Chris spotted Bindweed roots whilst digging a planting hole for the very last one - the Homebase Hosta.  That meant he lifting out 8 more of the newly planted ones and then digging a massive hole 2 feet deep (and about 8 miles across!) to access and remove all the Bindweed roots.  The lovely settled bed looked like a bomb crater with Hostas scattered around!  Chaos! Eventually after ages of careful digging and sifting, we removed half a bucket of healthy, stealthy Bindweed roots and then couldn't remember where all the removed Hostas had been planted in the first place! All had to be laid out again (sigh!) along with the 2 new ones, replanted and then the bark chip carefully mulched around each plant.   If I see any trace of Bindweed in the Hostas this summer, you may hear screams!  As for slugs..........!