Wichenford Open Gardens 2013

Day 2

Visitors queuing at the gate

After a 5am start to finish watering, dead heading, general garden tidying and most importantly the critical: cushion placement (on every seat and bench in the garden including the Yew sofa!) The helpers arrived before I had even changed out of garden scruffs!  Today's Tea Team consisted of Colin, Val, Lindy, Maureen, Lyn, Eve, Di, Dave and Paul.  Chris was our photographer and general eye in the garden whilst Dave was the shuttle bus operator.  Paul helped on the gate and Al was in charge of dinner preparations and garden tours.  Denise was OIC Garage Gallery.  We were SO lucky with the weather as it was fine and sunny with a cool breeze (which did get a bit too cool by evening!)  We had about 457 visitors over the 2 days and our takings were:

• Gate: £113.10
• Teas: £420.64
• Donations: £86.20
• Gallery sales @ 5%: £25.65
• Total : £645.59!

Visitors in the garden

That is an increase of 25% from the last event in 2011. We won't know what the final total will be until Tuesday when Denise works out the 5% from garage sales. A big pat on the back and an enormous vote of thanks is needed for the entire team who baked wonderful cakes, served teas, washed up and left everything perfectly spick and span after 2 hectic days!  11 stayed for Al's BBQ supper and we moved the outside table into the conservatory as we would have just been too cold to dine al fresco.

Visitors queuing for teas

Now here's a funny thing.  Usually, it's me working alone in the garden with just the birds for company and a Chris on a Saturday.  Suddenly when it's filled with throngs of enthusiastic strangers, I found that I didn't feel at all comfortable about walking around and so talked to most people on the gate.  Weird!

We had a coach party from Staffordshire and visitors from as far away as South Africa and Japan.  The Japanese lady was truly amazing as she was something of an international expert on old English roses and was naming individual varieties and even discussing their history.  Furthermore, she was travelling alone and even driving to Stratford afterwards!  I should have enjoyed talking to her for much longer.

The visitors were really friendly and enthusiastic. However, there's always one exception!  She was the lady who claimed not to have seen our large warning about the electric fence which surrounds the Hen Pen and who even queried the  need to leave it switched on during the day!  This is the actual laminated A4 sign which was pinned on the gate post less than inch away from the electrified wire!!!

Her knowledge of vulpine habits was obviously a big fat ZERO and we all agreed that it was a shame Chris hadn't been on hand with the camera when she discovered the error of her ways!  

Chris by Chris!

However, he was on hand when needed later. Following an incident the previous day when 2 certain visitors were caught trying to blag their way in for £4 instead of £5. One in particular was so terribly convincing when claiming that the advertised admission price was actually £1 less.  We felt the score had been levelled!!  

Following a degree of flack, Chris also managed to capture shots of actual visitors in the garden this time and more of his (excellent) photos can be seen at:

https://picasaweb.google.com/100788191989823327785/WOGWEDay2

Wichenford Open Gardens 2013

DAY 1

The Teas Team!

What a perfect day!!  Warm sunshine after the hassle of cutting hedges in the rain!! Poor Brian painting the summerhouse and the rain washing off the paint faster than he could paint more on!  At one time, it looked as if someone had tipped a churn of milk over the windows!  He stuck at it despite everything and it looked pretty good.  Chris and I worked on the Yew hedge until 8:30pm and it did look pretty amazing.  A quick blow round before the team arrived to serve teas and placing cushions just about everywhere and we were pretty much ready. 

Chris was under very strict instruction to take photos of visitors in the garden this time and not shots of an empty garden!  This time we found pictures with people on!!

His photos can be seen at:  

https://picasaweb.google.com/100788191989823327785/WOG2013DAY1

Meanwhile, I have to get ready for today's invasion......................!

Open Garden Preparations - halted by RAIN!

Seeding meadow grass

The last 3 whole days have been spent pulling up dead forget-me-nots elsewhere or rather everywhere else in the garden and removing dead daffodil leaves, dead-heading everywhere and even spraying greenfly on the roses.  I've lost count of the number of trips to the compost heap with full wheel barrows. Then there's been the mowing and edging......I even found time to redo the culvert and fernery signs.  I did take a few pictures of the meadow grass just because it looked so lovely as the sun was setting.

Mown path to the pear Hut

Moon daisies in the grass.

The weather for the weekend doesn't look too promising and tomorrow's not looking too good either!  That's about typical as Brian's coming to paint the summerhouse ready for the weekend..................

.............And what happened today?  It rained and then it RAINED!  Now we have a half painted summerhouse which looks worse than an unpainted one!  Hedge cutting was stopped by rain so they are only half done too!  All meadow grass will be flattened - big sigh!  The only person to finish all preparations was Denise who was working in the garage on her display of art exhibits.  Fingers are very tightly crossed for dry weather from here on in!

Comments from the Coop

L - R: Percy, Marigold, Winifred & Sophia

The new flock are much more settled these days and don't flee to the furthest corners of the Hen Pen anymore.  They now come rushing up hoping for food - which they usually get!  Egg production is up and for 3 consecutive days we've had 4 eggs.  A large proportion of the cream eggs have had double yokes - bonus!  We have Percy to thank for those.  Before the rain set in today, Chris cut their hedge and bamboos and so at least the Henclosure is looking very tidy for the weekend.  So tidy in fact, it made us realise that these hens really do have a very large garden of their own considering there are only 4 residents!

Summer Solstice + 3

Woodbury

It was too cloudy to see the sunset  on 21st so here's a couple taken on 23rd.  It's the nearest the sun ever gets to setting at the base of Woodbury.  One thing is certain: we never tire of the views from PTC.  

The shot of Martley Hillside taken from the terrace path shows Bulmer's orchard in the middle distance and the top of a dog rose in our hedge with the tip of a Photinia just visible.  The field with the long shadows is strip grazed earlier in the year, from left to right by a milking herd.

Long shadows on Martley Hillside

HAIRCUTS ALL ROUND!

Shaggy sofa before

The jobs I end up doing!  Honestly!  Did you know that Chris's hedge cutter has 84 little cutting teeth each with 2 edges??  Why am I telling you this?  Well, when he arrived we found it was SO blunt it left white whiskers on the Jasmine.  Guess who ended up holding it patiently whilst he sharpened all 168 edges? (yawn!)  

Anyway after that, there was just no stopping!  The yew hedge had a haircut, the lane hedge was re-styled; even the Yew Sofa had a very precise haircut.  We very carefully lifted the canopy of the Acer Seiryu and now it's looking super smart! 

Now that the robins have fledged, even the balls had a trim.  They had been nesting in the smallest Cotoneaster ball.  Yes, I know that trimming Chris's balls has all sorts of connotations but calling them 'spheres' sounds rather too grand!  It was, after all, his idea to create their shapes!  Anyway, moving quickly on - whilst he was trimming them, he found a nest of bumble bees exactly where he needed to stand!  Typical!  In order to avoid standing on angry bees meant operations had to move to the other side - exactly where where a very droopy white rose covered in vicious thorns had draped itself elegantly in front of ball number three.  Even in a combat jacket with the hood up,  Chris got very hung up in it.

The artiste at work!

Note the warm clothing on an English summer Saturday in June!  We dodged the really heavy showers but Barbour's were on and off all afternoon.  

All this activity meant a HUGE amount of clearing up and, after leaving a very full compost heap, we eventually called it a day at 7:30pm.........Zzzzzzzzzz! 

The apprentice with a very smart sofa!

LONGEST DAY

'This week I  'ave bin mostly............'

Evidence of work being done!

Moyesii

............. trying to keep things tidy for the Wichenford Open Garden weekend and removing yet more dead forget-me-nots and keeping pace with edging and mowing.  That meant being up early and, with help from 'he who should be retired' (who's still only allowed to mow the lower lawn and not do the edges!) all lawns and orchard were mowed by 9am!  By way of a change, the weather was unusually seasonal ie. warm and sunny.  The Moyesii rose is blooming and looks fab.  Trouble is it's down by the swing seat so it was a perfect excuse for us to go and enjoy a sundowner (or 2!) just to admire it and to also gaze across to Woodbury and Abberley clock tower as the sun set over Rob's perfectly manicured apple orchards - sigh!

Our new rose garden is looking a little more like a rose garden - the only trouble is: due to the viciously cold spring, the frost really burnt off the new growth which really held them back.  That means that the under-planted Geraniums not only caught up but are trying to overtake them and that many of the rose blooms aren't quite as prominent as they should be.

Shrub roses fight it out with the Geraniums!

The veg patch with its well rotted cow manure is doing well although very late.  If only the sparrows would stop dust bathing and eating the lettuces - Grr!  Still, with the weather is set to deteriorate with more rain and dreaded strong winds forecast for tomorrow. At least 'the dear little sparrows' won't have any dust in which to bathe!  You see, I can always look on the bright side!

More photos taken on the Longest Day

https://picasaweb.google.com/100788191989823327785/PTCLongestDay2013