Summer must well and truly be here as we are off to WOMAD, Charlton Park next week to do all the flowers for the artist dressing rooms and hanging out areas. Always something to look forward to, although this year I'm going to try to be more organised and sort the flowers into arrangements before I go, rather than turn up with a Landrover bursting with blooms and then have a five hour arranging stint on arrival. I also promise not to shriek too much as we buggy them around to the stages. Same thing at the Big Chill festival a fortnight later...pleeeease come out and play sunshine.
Frome Festival
Frome is fab I've decided. We don't live there but I'm angling for a move there in the not too distant future. There's always loads going on and this year's festival was no exception. We took a market stall to the Green Fair where we practically sold out of flowers and met lots of lovely people. I had forgotten how much work it is doing market stalls. Since we've take on the Walled Garden we haven't done any this year, a case of not being able to be in two places at once and our weekends in the garden being so busy. It is exciting though, I always get nervous beforehand and am convinced that we won't sell a thing and always come home with a glow and very few flowers. This year Kevin McCloud from Grand Designs opened the Green Fair but seemed to forget to come and say hello, I tried to catch his eye but he probably thought I was just being strange and stayed far away.
Tea Time
Mmmmm look at that chocolate cake. Remember we're open every weekend over the summer for tea, coffee, cordials and cake.
Relax on the straw bales in the sunshine and watch the Bees being busy.
Here comes the Sun
After two years of quite frankly miserable summers this year's good weather is even better than gorgeous. It's been a bit too hot for the young plants in the greenhouse even with all the vents open and the poor things have fried if I've been late with the watering in the morning. I've had to snip off the sunscorched leaves, muttering apologies and promising not to spray water around at midday again.
We've relined the pond....yay, it was just a muddy hole with a cracked liner and about 6 inches of fish poo and looked awful in the middle of the garden. June was just so busy we didn't get the time to deal with it but now we have and it looks great (if a little green).
It was very tempting to get in and have a swim but i kept remebering all those little stones hiding underneath the liner and didn't dare risk it.
I do, I do and I do again
Eight days, four weddings, two funerals and loads of gift bouquets....aaaagh, thank goodness for Rosie helping out. The end of May, beginning of June is Peony time. Beautiful, beautiful Peonies immediately lending a touch of glamour and a subtle, sweet scent. Our first big wedding of the Summer was definitely a Peony wedding, we used bowls of pink and white peonies on the tables, Peony and Sweet Pea bouquets and church arrangements with a beautiful dark raspberry pink Peony throughout.
Then we had Jane and Mark's wedding at Priston Mill, a lovely old water mill that suited our flowers perfectly. We painted up large baked bean tins, dressed them with raffia and filled them with flowers. They looked gorgeous.
We need to gather examples of all our wedding pictures together and put a wedding page on the website methinks....
