Snapdragon's garden

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Really wild . . .
2007-04-13 18:30:00
Sometimes I think that I give the wrong impression of our land. I concentrate in posts about the flat bit near the house, the bit that forms the cutting garden, the bit which takes up most of my time. I rarely mention the rest.In reality we have about 4 acres here - around about 1 acre is flat - the house is built on this bit and we have put up a polytunnel and lots and lots of raised beds.The rest of the land slopes behind this down across a small tussocky field then a swampy field and finally through a bluebell wood down to the Altquhir burn. This whole area is completely untouched and has been for at least 20 years - it is where I go to be quiet and is why we bought the house. Today Zoe and her friend Jan went down to the woods to play on the tree swing - sitting on the river bank they watched 2 herons fishing in the river. It is a very special place.It is at this time of year that the fields begin to come alive with flowers - dog violets under the hawthorn trees, cowslips i...
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Thinking blogger awards
2007-04-12 18:24:00
A pink bee tagged me as one of her thinking blogger awards and now I have to pass on 5 recommendations for blogs which make me think.Normally I try to avoid any of these tagging things - they are a bit chain lettery and I won't pass them on even though I am very aware that it makes me sound very pompous. This is slightly different as it is a chance to mention blogs that make me think and change my life in some way.Fairly recently someone told me that they saw their blogging as a way of finding friends. To be frank my (internal) reaction was that she needed to get out more and find some friends where she could see the whites of their eyes. However, thinking today about who to chose for a mention here has been a bit like the way I chose my friends so there you go.I am notoriously picky about chosing friends and I have ended up with an eclectic mix, but the thing that binds them together is that they all have opinions (often completely opposite to mine) and an ability to articulate...
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Asparagus
2007-04-11 12:51:00
My Dad is a very good gardener. He learned from his father and he grows excellent fruit and vegetables on what really amounts to a sand dune in East Lothian.He remains slightly amazed that I have ended up gardening for a living as I showed neither aptitude nor interest as a child.I am putting this photograph in for him as he is an occasional reader of this blog.My Dad grows exceptional asparagus, one of my favourite foods. My birthday is in May, at the height of the asparagus season and I have always associated my father's asparagus bed with my birthday - I have always felt that he grows it especially for me in the way that he plants masses of strawberries for my Mum. Of course this birthday treat has become more of a problem since I left home and insisted on living outside East Lothian, so a couple of years ago Dad grew me some asparagus plants, and then, when they were ready to plant out, he came over for the day and made me an asparagus bed.I chose to site the bed near to the ...
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Family weddings
2007-04-10 11:57:00
Yesterday was a family day - we headed over to my parents in East Lothian for a day of catching up and bracing walks along Gullane beach.We also fitted in a visit to see the church and hotel where my brother Stephen and his fiancee Helen will be getting married in August.I shall be arranging the flowers so it was a relief that they are both lovely venues - full of light and air. I always dread wedding receptions in those dead corporate type venues where the flowers have to fight against the polystyrene tiles on the roof and the rails left over from audio visual presentations.At the moment I am trying to build up a visual portfolio of month by month ideas for weddings and events - on actual wedding days there never seems to be enough time for taking anything other than record shots. The photo shows Zoe modelling a bridesmaid headdress, a half band of individually wired hyacinth florets, each with a couple of amber glass beads in the centre. She looked very, very pretty in it practi...
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Seed sowing
2007-04-08 16:03:00
Today has seen the beginning of our seed sowing. I used to sow seeds far too early - champing at the bit in February - forcing seeds to germinate and then having to nurse the seedlings through frosty March and April.Now I sow only 6 weeks before the last frost (here that is Mid May) so that the seedlings will fill a 9 cm pot just at the right time to go straight out into the garden.I sow most of my hardy and half hardy annuals into coir jiffy pellets - they are low in nutrients so ideal for seed germination. I line up the pellets in old wooden seedtrays (I bought a load of 1950s seed trays that came from an old nursery - I use most of them but some are available for sale) - 35 to a tray and then put them into a poly bag in the boiler cupboard until they germinate. After germination they go into the tunnel so that they can get a lot of light. If it is going to be frosty I cover them with fleece, but otherwise they get no coddling.The main problem with the coir is that they dry ou...
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Presents for my girls
2007-04-07 09:15:00
One of the important reasons that I began my business was that I wanted to be around for my girls. Zoe was 3 and Katie newborn when it all began and the business has grown with them - finally getting more serious when Katie hopped on to the bus to school last year.I wanted to be able to go to all the school shows and to help with the school garden. I wanted to have them wandering about aimlessly in the sunshine during holidays.It all sounds idyllic doesn't it? The down side for them is that I may work from home, but I do work. Running a small business is all consuming and at busy times they don't get enough attention.It got particularly bad around the Country Living Fair - I missed a parents' evening, the house was hemmed in with boxes of stock and they were farmed out to a series of friends after school - so I decided to get them something as a thank you for their tolerance.I have long admired Manda at Treefall design's sock puppies so I decided to get a couple of them - as...
More About: Girls , Presents , Girl , Present , Resent

Peblo v. Jasmine - an update
2007-04-05 21:19:00
This photo is of Peblo, survivor of the fox attack, frequent flier, and determined free ranger.Up until Tuesday, Peblo would shriek and squawk when she met Jasmine - running around like a particularly interesting feathery ball - with dog in pursuit until I rescued her.On Tuesday I was on the telephone and didn't get out there as quickly as usual. Peblo, fed up with the chase, stopped, turned on Jasmine and pecked her sharply on the nose. Now Jasmine is largely ignoring her- chicken, what chicken? - she is obviously not used to being attacked by her toys.I suspect it will not last so I have bought a copy of The Practical Dog Whisperer as suggested and so far I am very impressed by the simplicity and humanity of the approach. I will report back
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Snakehead fritillaries
2007-04-05 09:38:00
I have a particular soft spot for snakeshead fritillaries.Charles Rennie Mackintosh's iconic watercolour of fritillaries was the best selling postcard at the Hunterian Art Gallery where I was a curator pre-flower growing. The watercolour is a fine, accurate botanical drawing with a tension between pure representation and the checkerboarding pattern which fits so well into Mackintosh's textile and furniture designs.Inspired by the glamour of the flower it was the first bulb that I had the courage to plant in drifts - I bought 200 bulbs and put them into the small lawn in our first garden. Every single one bloomed, and if you lay down in the grass and blinkered out the flower and vegetable beds you could believe that you were in a meadow.They were also the first flower that I sold - to a flower shop in Glasgow.Snake head fritillaries get their name, I suspect, from the way that the growing stem writhes around on the ground. Like the snowflakes I mentioned a couple of posts ago, th...
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Herbs and health
2007-04-03 11:20:00
Tomorrow is my annual check up at the endocrine clinic in Glasgow. I am not looking forward to it, partly because it will be a waste of a sunny day but mainly because I dislike the attitude of the medical consultants that I deal with.There is a tendency, particularly I believe in teaching hospitals, to treat results rather than patients. I have an illness which is fairly rare so I have had hundreds of tests - and I find that as soon as results come back the doctors stop listening to me and start checking numbers.About six months after I began steroid replacement I read about a herbal remedy - rhodiola rosea - which is meant to support adrenal function and give more energy. I thought that I would give it a try and found the boost in energy to be amazing - I no longer had to spend the afternoon in bed in order to be up for the children coming home from school. At my next consultation I mentioned the rhodiola to the consultant and he completely dismissed it as though I had said that I ...
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Snowflakes
2007-04-02 21:28:00
The warm weather is certainly bringing the plants on quickly in the garden this week.This photo is of a clump of Leucojum aestivum "Gravetye Giant" which is flowering 3 weeks earlier than last year. Leucojum is also known as the summer snowflake or Loddon lily and looks from a distance rather like a snowdrop in size, colour and grace. This variety - named in 1924 by the garden writer William Robinson after his home, Gravetye Manor - is about twice the height of the normal species and is super-model elegant.It is a very useful bulb to have growing in Scotland as it likes having wet feet - seemingly you can even plant it as a marginal plant in a pond. It would look wonderful reflected in the water.It also - surprise surprise - makes an excellent and long lasting cut flower. I first saw it is a magazine article about the florist Shane Connolly where he had about 30 stems simply displayed in a pottery crock. It is so elegant on its own, it doesn't really need any other embellishment...
More About: Snow , Lake , Flakes , Flak , Snowflake

Chicken and dog problem - advice please
2007-04-01 15:15:00
Right from the beginning I have had a clear vision of what our garden will become - what looks like sticks in a field to everyone else are, to me, stately hornbeam hedges flanking paths, what is a bit of a dip in a swampy copse is, to me, an amphitheatre seating area surrounded by coloured dogwoods. And so on . . .come back in ten years.An important part of this vision is free ranging chickens. On a visit to Sarah Raven's garden at Perch Hill Farm in East Sussex I saw a clutch of bantam eggs amongst the cabbages - and that is what I want.But we have made a grave mistake in the plan.We used to have free ranging chickens. Our first flock lived in houses at the top of the field. They had the run of the place and were blissfully happy, following me round and rooting for worms. Blissfully happy, that is until all but one were eaten by a rampaging pack of young foxes which struck just before dusk.So, fearful for the safety of the one remaining and intent on getting more chickens, we...
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Getting outside
2007-03-30 17:51:00
This morning was the school Easter service and afterwards I went for coffee with friends, friends that I have been very remiss about keeping up with over the past six weeks or so.It was somehow immensely cheering. We moved to Drymen 3 1/2 years ago, knowing no-one and slightly wary about whether it would be one of those places that you had to live in for over 80 years to become a local. It isn't.The decision to move here was a good one, one of our better ones. I have more friends - good, funny, gallus friends - now than I have ever had before. Friends who can tell me as they did this morning - when I am moaning about the state of the cutting garden - that it always looks appalling at this time of year.It is the cusp of my year, the point when I tip from making things to sewing things. I do hardly any gardening between October and the end of March but then, once the clocks go forward it is a mad rush to claw it all back from chaos.So today I have been weeding, dividing perennial...
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Species tulips
2007-03-29 14:02:00
I have never grown species tulips before. I have grown perhaps 100 different varieties of garden tulips but this is the first year that I have fallen prey to the charms of the species.Part of the remit of our business is to grow things that you just can't get anywhere else. I could go to any flower wholesaler this lunchtime and come back with trays of Muscari armenium (grape hyacinth), Narcissi tete a tete and white, pink and blue hyacinth. So could any florist.But you can't go anywhere, bar perhaps a specialist nursery, and get pots of flowering species tulips. They are the complete opposite of the lowest common denominator plant.The tulips in the photograph are Tulipa turkestana about 6 inches tall with up to 7 flowers on a stem. They are not one of the parents of garden tulips as breeders have so far failed to get them to hybridise with other varieties (think of the flowers you could get if you could get an elegant multi headed version of Queen of the Night) but rather gro...
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Flower Confidential Part 1
2007-03-28 13:31:00
One of the few advantages of still feeling rotten is that I have had a chance to start reading Amy Stewart's new book Flow er Confidential. I had assumed that I would race through it and report today but unfortunately I am still so woozy that I am having to take my time. As I am a "race through it" type of girl it does me good to slow down and it is a book which probably deserves 3 or 4 reports anyway.Amy is an American garden writer who has already written a couple of books, one on her first garden and the other on earthworms. Flower Confidential shows the journey of a cut flower - from breeding, through growing, packing, sale and finally to vase. One of the quotes on the back jacket is "Amy Stewart understands that a good book can be about a subject as commonplace as the ground beneath our feet - if the author has a passion to share it" and I think that pretty much sums it up. If you like the kind of book that is about cod or lighthouses brought to you with passion, then you ...
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Ethical weddings
2007-03-27 17:19:00
Suddenly I have begun to get masses of wedding enquiries - so much so that I am almost full up this year.Partly it is the wedding planning season, partly that I have had a couple of small newspaper mentions but mainly I think it is that couples are increasingly interested in ensuring their big day doesn't have a big carbon footprint.There are now a few websites catering for people looking for ethical suppliers - I think the best is Katie's site Ethical Wedding s which has the advantage of an active forum.As we have always sold ourselves as a completely seasonal, homegrown florist we have always attracted couples looking for eco type flowers - I think that I have done more flowers for youth hostels than fancy hotels (and co-incidentally they were the nicest buildings to decorate as well). It is lovely that it is moving more into the mainstream.I am wanting to build up a good wedding links section on the website - not the kind of thing that duplicates what Katie is doing - just perh...

Country Living Roundup.
2007-03-26 10:34:00
This was meant to have been done on Thursday - ah well - it is probably a bit irrelevant really but these are stalls I liked at the show and then there are a couple of rantsCaroline Zoob - always beautiful, much copied, but then they never quite get it right.Primrose Hill Interiors. Flowers, ginghams, hearts and dotsBoxwood - the most packed stall in the hall.And now for Rant 1.The Count ry Living Magazine awards a prize for the best stall design, the prize is a free stall next year and it is meant to encourage people to put a lot of effort into their stall design and so improve the look of the whole show. we won last year and it was a good reward for a lot of hard work that went into the look of the stall over and above the things we were selling.This is the stall that wonHume Sweet Hume. I don't really understand it - I'm not being tricksy with the photos - that is the whole stall, there isn't something interesting just out of view. Now I like Hume Sweet Hume's products, ...
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A duvet day
2007-03-24 21:08:00
Hmmmm. By the time I turned up at the SECC this morning it was obvious that I was not going to be an asset to the stall. "Death warmed up" seemed to be the general opinion - grey face, dark circled eyes, that dull sticky ill hair, a 60 a day cough and no voice. I could see their point.All potential customers were likely to make a wide berth.I was taken home and have slept more or less since. I am feeling quite a bit better - still no voice but hopefully I will be able to flash a welcoming smile tomorrow.What it has taught me is that I have such a super team working with me now that I no longer need to be everywhere all the time. I can even be sick on the busiest day of our year.Thank you Sally for organising everything superbly, to Jo for coming in at short notice, to Euan for being bossy when he had to and to Callum.
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Time to chat
2007-03-23 21:08:00
Today was a much more relaxed day - more a steady stream than mad surges so there was more time to talk to people.Time to talk to customers who bought dahlias last year and are back to add to their collections this year. Time to talk to the bloggers (8 in all) that came and said hello - hopefully you will all feel ready to comment now you've seen my face.Time to talk to fellow stallholders and find out how the London shows are and make contacts.Just time to talk.I am actually not feeling that well this week - I caught some kind of chest infection from Zoe - so I have been drugged up today and paranoid about coming across as really spaced out. Tonight I am left with just a poor croak of a voice - I am keeping quiet and hope it is back to full force tomorrow. Otherwise it will have to be sign language.Sorry that these are yet more photos of MY stall. I'm not trying to be narcissisticDo come & say Hi if you are coming to the CL Fair this weekend.
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Busy, busy, busy
2007-03-23 08:22:00
Goodness, it was busy. At 10 o'clock as the doors opened we were still tagging up and sticking magnet sets up on the wall.From that point on we didn't stop. Jo, who was in shopping stayed to help as we were overwhelmed with queues of people wanting to chat.The nicest thing was that practically first in the queue were a couple of women who bought garden kneelers last year and rushed in to buy several more before we sold out. that got my day off to a very good start.And we have sold out of a number of things so we shall be re-arranging the stall first thing this morning.The upshot is that I haven't really had a chance to look round. I had intended to post about all the lovely stalls but haven't any photos and only know stalls either in the ways to the loos or near to us. Caroline Zoob's stall is gorgeous as usual, Primrose Hill Interiors is very pretty, Samantha Holmes has wonderfully luxurious jumpers and scarves and there are a couple of lovely vintage fabric stalls.
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Moving the van
2007-03-20 16:45:00
Well we are on our way - Robin Watt from nearby Lomond Classic Transport came to pick up the van and take it to the SECC. Euan cameback in his lunch hour to drive it up onto the ramp, it was strapped down and is now safely on our stand at the CL Fair.Robin is a great chap, not phased at all by the vagaries of vintage vehicles. After delivering our van to Glasgow he was about to transport a band box new landrover down south so that it could maintain its 0 mileometer until delivered to the owner.Taking the van in today also meant that Euan was able to see the space that we have, he says that it isn't as big as I've been fearing so hopefully we will be able to fill it all generously tomorrow.
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Tying up loose ends
2007-03-19 17:30:00
I have finished making things for the CL Fair- I wish I could have made more but I have to stop sometime, I'm not doing that "taking a sewing basket along with me" thing.I am now concentrating on all the things that make a stall look nice.One of the things that I have been doing today is potting up some unusual spring bulbs.In the autumn I planted trays and trays of spring bulbs in the hope of having lots to pot up now.To be honest, it hasn't been a great success. Mice and the unremitting rain saw a lot of them off but there were some survivors.The photo is of muscari latifolium - basically a grape hyacinth in a very deep blue with a beautiful spathe shaped leaf.I always think that shape gives a kind of sinister glamour to a plant - I don't know why. The flower hangs around inside the leaf for a week or two then elongates and looks much more like a grape hyacinth.Bix, our eldest cat, has been supervising the packing up.
More About: Ends , Loose Ends

Aprons
2007-03-18 11:09:00
Last year the most requested items at our Country Living stand were the aprons that Sally and I were wearing. I didn't have any for sale at the time but subsequently made some up - mainly for B&B owners who wanted something out of the ordinary for serving up breakfast.So aprons were always on my list, but with one thing and another they have turned out to be the last thing to be sewn up.I actually have a problem with aprons. I have as euphemism would have it, a curvy figure. I have a bust and hips with a waist inbetween. In most aprons I look like a badly tied parcel with a baggy bit above my bust and not enough material to wrap round my ample hips. I never feel like a capable confident domestic goddess in an apron. I feel like I am in a hospital gown.Over the years I have tried the tie on 1950s pinnies and the amazing wrap dresses from the 1940s - the sort of thing you should wear to scrub your step in a Hovis advert - but nothing looked right.So this year I decided to twe...
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Bellis, bella, bellum
2007-03-15 20:13:00
I normally like to grow all my own plants but getting the larger space at the Country Living Fair, Scotland was a last minute thing really so I have had to buy them in.Yesterday I headed for Perthshire to collect my order from the Dutch van man. They have done me proud, really good quality plants - these are the bellis daisies. I also have muscari, narcissi, primula and cyclamen.Tomorrow they will have all their flowers cut off to let the new stems get ready for blooming their socks off next week. It seems a bit mean, and I am very anxious about the planting bit - I have never tried to time plants flowering like this before and I hope that they will be happy in the heat of the SECC.I hate the waste of shows - the first one I went to threw out 50 perfectly good jasmine plants (which I rescued of course) and hundreds of narcissi at the end of the 3 days.My mother is worse - I did the flowers for the CL pavilion when the show was in Edinburgh. With the dryness of the hall it was a ...
More About: Bell , Bella , Ella , Ellis

Walking the dog
2007-03-14 18:14:00
I have been musing - this being my second year doing the CL Fair - whether I am better prepared, both in terms of stock levels and, more importantly, in terms of stress levels.I think that I am - and part of that is remembering to properly walk the dog. At Christmas I got so tied up with work and so stressed with orders that I stopped doing anything else. Jasmine was neglected and she turned into a wee tub looking morosely at me from her basket.Now I have begun to realise that, counter-intuitively, doing things away from the business gives me a better perspective and moreover seems to actually stretch time. You also notice things - a couple of days ago Jasmine and I walked along the track at Craigievern, part of the West Highland Way, and saw ditches full of billows of frogspawn. Spring.These photos were taken yesterday evening. Katie and I went for a walk by Loch Lomond and up through the woods. Zoe was at her piano lesson. This time last year I would probably have been sat ...
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Faultlines
2007-03-11 15:40:00
Last night was the Karine Polwart concert in Balfron - or perhaps I should say Karine Polwart and the Get Reel Allstars as the first half was a mix of local musicians aged 6-60. It was great fun - nothing beats a small venue and it was intriguing to hear the story behind Karine's songs. She is a truly amazing singer-songwriter. The audience had a lot of children in it - we took our girls along - and instead of playing up and running around, they all listened rapt the smallest fell asleep on parents knees. It is odd as many of the songs are sad and desperate - Zoe's favourite, Over the hill is about a woman driven to drink and drugs by her partner's behaviour! I assume that she responds to the harmonies rather than the lyrics.Karine's best known song Daisy was very poignant this weekend. "Hey Daisy darling don't give them all you can, why don't you keep a few more cards in your hand. I know you'll only say a thing you believe to be true, but there are people in this world ...
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Wonder cloches
2007-03-09 13:57:00
Do you remember my putting cloches over my parsley plants in February? I didn't have enough cloches for all the plants so I covered every second one in the row.Here are the photographs of the difference in the plants. The one under the cloche is lush, bright green, soft leaved and ready for picking.The one without cover is tiny, its leaves went mushy in the frost, and it is yellow and poorly looking.It will recover, both will be thriving by May. But for the moment the cloches are giving me enough fresh parsley for my cooking.Those C18th dutchmen knew a thing or two about gardening.
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Planning the stand
2007-03-08 15:34:00
Yesterday Euan went to see a cooper in Aidrie to pick up our barrels. I wanted to have really large planters on the stand with tripod frames and ivy growing up them.Whisky barrels seemed to be the obvious solution - unfortunately while they would have all been delighted to provide them, none of the whisky distilleries round here had any in stock.Fortunately the cooper in Airdrie did and he cut them up for us to order. They are fabulous - chunky, weathered, big enough to put planting in, it is a pity we can't show off their very scenic purple bottoms. We have left them outside to get rid of the smell - they are very alcoholic. My car smells like a wild party in Inverness.I was paranoid doing deliveries this morning that people would think I had taken to morning tippling on my way to the shops.
More About: Planning , Plan , Stand , The Stand

Flower Confidential
2007-03-07 21:40:00
I turned on the radio today halfway through an interview with Amy Stewart, an American writer whose book Flow er Confidential has just been published in Britain. the book is about the cut flower trade - I can't comment on it yet as my copy is still in the post - but from what I have read on Amy's website and heard on the wiggly wigglers podcast she did, it seems to be a balanced account. A clear look at the bad practices and problems with cut flower production but married with a voluptuous love of flowers and a realisation that wagging fingers don't change anything.I have read another couple of books by her - one about making her first garden, the other about worms. She is also very into her chickens.She is a woman that I think I would get on with.CL blog still going! here
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Up at last . . .
2007-03-06 16:21:00
I feel like I have been trailling this website for ages - but now it is properly live - at www.snapdragongarden.co.uk.There are still some kinks to sort out but it should work -let me know by e-mail if something doesn't work - snapdragonjane@yahoo.co.uk.I have been looking at it for too long today so I can no longer see it rationally.Feedback would be great - in theory I should be able to change things!
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Browns Restaurant, Drymen
2007-03-05 16:54:00
I thought that I would do my bit to promote local business today as I know that a lot of the people who read (but don't comment) are local.Drymen used to have an Indian restaurant that did meals and carryouts. The food was fine but the restaurant was very dark and a bit musty - not somewhere you would want to go in the daytime and to be honest, not really nice enough for a treat either. A while ago the building went on fire and the business closed.I was hoping that it would become a kind of nice lunch dining place like Ramsays in Bridge of Allan or Kemble & Jones in Glasgow - somewhere that I could meet friends for a civilised, light and not too pricey lunch.To be honest I was rather miffed when I heard that it was going to be a "fine dining place" with "contemporary scottish cuisine". Rumours began to circulate about how expensive it was going to be.I was very disappointed. How often do I get to go somewhere like that? I miss having somewhere that I can eat out every month, n...
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