RHS The Garden v Gardens Illustrated 17/12/2015

The most useful and inspiring Christmas present that I have regularly received over the past few years has been my Royal Horticultural Society annual membership - thank you very much Mother!

I have agonised this year - have I made the most of my membership? 

Answer: No. 

My weekends are mostly spent ferrying two young girls to birthday parties, clubs and activities, tending my own garden and the odd muddy stomp to the swings. If we do go garden visiting it is to local gardens open for charity. 

I do go to the Malvern Spring Festival and I long to visit Hampton Court Flower show (I will attempt Chelsea again when the girls are more independent and any spare earnings are for me again.....that will happen, won't it?) but is a discounted show ticket or two enough to warrant my membership renewal? 

I used my RHS membership most frequently for a quick trot around nearby Westonbirt Arboretum with the family but I have found that I am increasingly turned away because I have stumbled upon a peak time for visitors i.e. Autumn Colour time and my RHS membership will not allow me entry. 

So it comes down to the battle of the monthly magazine. Financially and time-wise I cannot justify more than one periodical.  

This year I have decided to give up my RHS membership in favour of receiving Gardens Illustrated magazine....thank you very much Mother! Xx

Gardens Illustrated has always appealed to my aesthetics and I often buy it when I stop to refuel the SwampDonkeyMobile. 

Dreamy side 1 - 0 Science side

Maybe I will regret giving up RHS membership ~ this could scupper my chances of receiving my medal for horticultural services when I am seventy three....it could be that I am not destined for such distinguished heights anyway. 

I have received both the December 2015 issue of The Garden (RHS magazine) and a special 'The Plants Issue' of Gardens Illustrated this month; I will be reading both with a reviewing eye. 

I suspect that I will miss the News section of The Garden the most and I am worried that Gardens Illustrated will not satisfy me on a professional level. I hope to follow this post up with a more in-depth review and, after a few months, come to some sort of a conclusion. 

Deep down I know that I need both publications in my life to grow as a well-rounded horticulturalist and feed the artist and the scientist that lurk (fairly deeply) within me. I fully intend to be an RHS member again in the near future (30+ years to work towards my medal!) so the question is will Gardens Illustrated be the monthly magazine for me? 

Well, I am already rather taken with the DIY origami seed packet feature. 

My efforts ~ 

Not bad! 

A very rare, strangely ok photograph of me ~ 19/10/2015

My mother is a wonderful photographer. She is so talented that she has managed to capture an image of me in which I actually look like a human being. 

This human is a bit geeky, slightly wonky and fairly exhausted but it is definitely recognisable as a human. 

This will be my profile picture for the rest of my life.....or at least until someone manages to repeat this remarkable feat.....this will not happen for a long, long time. 

I am an Etsy Seller ~ I have my own online shop!!!! 5/10/2015

Good golly, I have gone and done it ~ I am a #etsyseller!

Go to Etsy.com and search Nicola Hope Designs......go on, I dare you. 

I am selling my gorgeous greetings cards in packs of 10 different botanical designs.....

....and you can buy one of my pieces as wall art in canvas form - 12 different designs and 2 different sizes to choose from - the text is there to help you decide on your favourite design. 

Plants and flowers are proven to have healing powers, promote wellness and stave off anxiety, stress and other mental health disorders so have as many as possible dotted around your home and workplace, especially with winter edging ever nearer. 

The dark, midnight-blue backgrounds have been described as having zen qualities - I was chuffed with that one!

(....and they are really rather stunningly beautiful, even if I do say so myself)

Have a look! 

Tell your friends!

Individual cards are available from Acacia Floristry in Malmesbury.

More designs to come in the future 📷⭐️💚

Thank you for all of your kind words and support 

Nxxx 

Greetings Cards ~ who'd have thought it?! 21/9/2015

My botanical prints have morphed into greetings cards and........here's the thing......people like them and they are selling! 

I am selling them at two local retailers ~ The wonderful and super-talented Jodie Smith at her shop Acacia (check out her gorgeous Instagram @acaciafloristry) in Malmesbury and I have a selection for sale at Malmesbury Tourist Information Centre.  I am also thinking (after much encouragement and many kind words) of starting up an Etsy shop. 

.......but first, it's this......

This coming Saturday and Sunday I will be opening up my studio (my hallway) and inviting those who are interested to view my work. I will be selling prints, canvases and greetings cards - all at very reasonable prices. Many other local artists and craftspeople will be doing the same - there are painters, sculptors, potters, photographers and many others. So, what are you waiting for? Have a look at malmesburyartsandcraftstrail.co.uk and follow the map to unearth local treasures - it'll be worth it, I promise!

Last minute preparations for THE EXHIBITION!!! 12/8/2015

This is my big-myself-up blurb - all about.....me

I am starting to get excited about the exhibition. I hope people like what I do.

If nobody likes it......I get to keep all of my pretty prints. If people do like them I will carry on doing what I do, getting better and better and refining my techniques. 

2 days until the exhibition goes up. Busy times!

Bringing the Fine Art back in after 15 years of pure horticulture ~ 4th August 2015

It was just a matter of time. I turned my back on the Fine Art world before I had ever really given it a chance. I was 21. I was heading down the horticultural road and leaving Fine Art far, far behind. 

........it has caught me up. 

My exhibition is going up in just a few days. My first exhibition in 15 years. 

Of course horticulture was always going to be my subject; flowers are my muse.

My beautiful daughters are my inspiration. I see them experimenting with art materials and I join them. I am relishing discovering art all over again.

For this exhibition (my comeback - how exciting!) I am bringing flowers dramatically to the fore by sketching in the darkest of midnight-blue backgrounds. 

I know not what to expect. 

I will not stop. The Fine Art road and the Horticultural road have merged. I am travelling along and enjoying the ride 🎨💚🌻

Saturday 15th August - Thursday 3rd September 2015

John Bowen Gallery

Malmesbury Town Hall

Cross Hayes

Malmesbury

Wiltshire

SN16 9BZ

6th July 2015

I've been clipping topiary morning, noon and night. I don't mind at all - in fact, I love it. 

I love the smell of the first cut. Every plant smells different when it is clipped. Yew smells sweet, box smells at once sharp and musky and lonicera smells.....planty. 

I love the artistry and the chance to express myself in a way that is different entirely to any other sculptural practice or horticultural practice (not that I've ever tried bonsai ~ I'm not sure I fancy bonsai ~ it seems a little odd).

I love dangling precariously, higher than the ladder will go - one foot on the highest rung, the other kicked behind me in some strange clumpy-booted ballet move. 

I love standing back and trying to be objective about the 'cutting edge' (ha ha, groan) decisions I have made with my shears. 

.......and I love my shears. 

They are new, they are precious and they are treated like royalty......although I am not sure that the Queen is sprayed liberally with WD40 before being put to bed......hang on, have I just stumbled upon her secret?

I have just finished my own home topiary. Mature lonicera nitida hedges have been seriously attacked. 

I couldn't make up my mind about the ultimate, finished look ('finished' will probably be in at least 3 years) so the 3 sections of hedge will have 3 different aesthetics. 

The 1st hedge is formal. A hint of a buttress, smoothly clipped, straight sides and a level top crowned with (what will eventually be) pom poms.....or snails or curled up cats or Axl Rose in bust form.....

The 2nd hedge has a quirkier (for want of a better word) concept. I want it to look like a row of terraced houses but each house has a different architectural design. I want the end result to look a little like Diagon Alley.....and if you don't know of the alley to which I refer.....poor, poor you. 

The 3rd hedge lends itself nicely to cloud hedging. - I hope that in a couple of years it will look billowing and tranquil not like I just attacked it with careless abandon. 

I have told my husband that if any of the 3 hedges look awful in a year I will change them. 

And therein lies the beauty of topiary - you can change it. It is like living play dough. 

We've passed the halfway point ~ 27th June 2015

The most frantic section of the gardening year is over......in theory. 

Most plants - annuals, vegetables, tomatoes, dahlias etc - are in their permanent summer season positions and growing healthily. 

Topiary has been clipped. 

Harvesting has begun. 

Many flowers are looking their best. 

The hard work now involves maintaining flowers, colour, structure, health and vitality all the way through until the first frosts strike us in (hopefully) late Autumn or early winter. 

I will be deadheading, watering, staking, tying in, weeding, feeding, nurturing, harvesting, edging, coaxing and pest-controlling for the foreseeable future. I will try to take a few minutes here and there to stop, look around me and feel happiness and satisfaction.....before I scurry off to repeat the tasks listed above! Shampoo, rinse, repeat......

Under control ~ Spring 2015

Everything appears to be under control! Who would have thought it! Spring has been kind so far but one can never rule out late May frosts. 

A late May frost at this stage in fruit, vegetable and annual flower production would be more than a little frustrating so I keep an almost obsessive watch on the weather forecasts. 

Any predicted frosts in the near future would involve me scurrying around to protect all the young plants that have recently been placed outside in order to 'harden off' (acclimatise to the weather conditions that they will have to experience over the course of a British summer ~ and we all know that a British summer can throw anything at you!). I either return them indoors or arrange a temporary cover for them. Horticultural fleece, cloches or similar. 

I will then leap into my car and repeat the process at the other gardens that I tend. Much scurrying!

No late frosts please weather people. The weeds are coming thick and fast and climbers need tying in before they look floppy or scruffy so I simply haven't the time! 

Other mid Spring tasks include assembling plant supports for the rapidly growing perennials. This is one of my favourite jobs. I enjoy weaving the supports (see a previous blogpost) and I greatly look forward to putting them all in place. They look smart, lend an organised air to a border plus one knows that very shortly they will be providing much needed support to peonies, foxtail lilies, delphiniums - and then further on in the summer - taller Salvias and penstemons. 

Job satisfaction☀️

Willow weaving......of sorts....in a rudimentary fashion

Every year in March I coppice one willow tree. This one willow tree produces the most vividly coloured stems.

I sort the stems into different lengths in the potting shed......

 ....... and then it's a race against time to use it all up before it is too brittle to bend. 

So, over the course of the next month or so you will find me weaving frantically to produce structures that will have various uses in the garden.

This year so far I have made two hazel and willow wigwams for runner beans and other climbing legumes......

.....and about 500 million (that's what it feels like!) circular plant supports. These supports are designed to sit above a growing herbaceous plant in Spring ~ think open top stool. The willow circle sits on 3 or 4 bamboo cane legs, which are plunged into the ground around the plant. As the herbaceous plant grows upwards in Spring it passes through the circular top piece. Come late Spring or Summer, when the plant is really going for it and producing loads of flowers (hopefully), the circle of willow will provide support to stop it flopping over should the flowers or the rain showers prove too heavy.

Here are the 500 million plant supports in storage. I will be putting them in place in over the coming weeks. - I am aiming for 750 million. (In reality ~ as aposed to my little fantasy gardening world ~ there are probably 25 or so). 

Willow is wonderful to work with. It is gloriously bendy when first harvested. With practice I hope to be able to weave much more impressive structures.

Last year I managed a couple of spheres. This one has been outside for nearly a year and is still looking fairly smart. It looked great with wild flowers growing up though it during summer 2014. 

More than anything willow is just so wonderfully pretty when it is newly harvested, brutally manipulated and set against the bluest of blue skies. 

Or freshly mulched soil

It is well worth having a go. I highly recommend an RHS short course. Go on, look it up at www.rhs.org.uk. You will never look at a willow tree in the same light again.........you will be staring at it, probably with head askance, pondering all the gloriously practical things you will be bending the stems into. 

24th March 2015

It has been a really, really pretty day

Happy gardener. 

A different view on this whole blogging malarkey

A recent visit to Bletchley Park - home to the Enigma code breakers during WW2 - has inspired me to rethink my blogposts. 

My Grandmother was one of the women who worked at Bletchley Park but she shared very, very little of her experience there with us, her family, and this has been more than a bit frustrating. We managed to find out where she worked (Block E if you're interested - communications - she would have been listening to information on headphones, typing what she heard and passing it on) but we know absolutely nothing about her day-to-day life. 

One of the Turing bombes used to decipher German codes during WW2 ^

From now on I will be writing my blogposts with two aims in mind:

1 ~ To show existing and potential clients that I have sound horticultural knowledge and acres of practical experience

2 ~ To speak to my (hopefully!) future grandchildren - to show them that their old Grandma was once (before babies, mortgages and other such responsibilities) an intrepid traveller with a strong desire to be precisely where every other tourist most definitely wasn't ~ plus being the owner of a stomach of steel.......that last bit is a lie; South Western Chinese food nearly polished me off (mainly because it was so delicious, I kept going back for more).

I kept detailed diaries throughout my times working for the great and the good of South West England....I wonder if there are any publishable nuggets.....?.....hmmmm.....I feel a novel coming on........

Spring 2015: so far so good

I could describe all of the horticultural tasks that I have undertaken so far this spring but instead I will bombard you with photos. It's prettier! 

Tending to the houseplants. 

Watching the Pelargoniums come out of their winter dormancy. 

Getting far too excited when spring bulbs break the soil surface. These are the Fritillaria imperialis 'William Rex' that arrived really late. They're doing their stuff.....eeeeeeeeeee!!!

More stunning spring bulbs around every corner!

Huge amounts of spring pruning. Whatsinmywheelbarrow? Hydrangea and Buddleja prunings. 

Colourful willow prunings. 

Here's a good photo to illustrate how to prune a Hydrangea macrophylla. Simply prune the old flower heads off, cutting back to a nice big pair of fat, green buds. 

I have already sown lots and lots of seeds and when the get to this stage they need pricking out into separate modules or pots. In this photo there are lupin, Coreopsis and Nicotiana seedlings all fighting for space. 

I have started weaving plant supports and wigwams in preparation for when the growing season kicks off in a month or so. 

I have sown onions outside......

......and garlic.......

.......and potatoes.

Summer and Autumn flowering clematis has been cut back.......

......and now I'm off for a sit down. Not for long though - it's all happening and it's beautiful.