Snapdragon's garden

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here in killin
2008-05-28 11:58:00
jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjSnapdragon - Flowers to feel good about www.snapdragongarden.co.uk

WE HAVE MOVED
2007-08-28 16:43:00
We have moved and split in 2 - we are now hereand herePlease come and visit!JxSnapdragon - Flowers to feel good about www.snapdragongarden.co.uk

We've moved
2007-08-12 19:29:00
I've been thinking for a while that I need to do something different with the blog now that many people visit the website first and are primarily interested in photos of our cutting garden and workroom. I am probably most interested in the chance for conversation with a blog, the chance to bat ideas about with people.I have decided to move to typepad and to split the blog into 2One part Snapdragon's garden http://snapdragongarden.typepad.com/snapd ragons_garden/ will be about the day to day events in the garden - flowers, things I am making, etc.The other Snapdragon's Chat http://snapdragongarden.typepad.com/snapd ragons_chat/ will be about the back issues that crop up while trying to grow the business.I do hope that you will stop by and have a chat - all comments and objections welcome.And I know it is a bind, but could the people who generously link to me please change the url?ThanksJaneSnapdragon - Flowers to feel good about www.snapdragongarden.co.uk

Why do we hare around?
2007-08-10 15:15:00
Why is it so desirable to be too busy? Is it an essential part of the human condition?A lot of people tell me variations on the "I'm too busy" storyline. It tends to be "Oh you are so lucky, I am just too busy to buy from local shops" or "Oh you are so lucky, I am just too busy to help out at the school".I used to think, in my insecurity, that it was actually being used as a synonym for "too important" - as in "I am too important to help with weeding playgrounds". Now I am deciding that it is a bit more complicated than that.Like the jacket on the back of the office chair and the boasting about taking a Blackberry on holiday I think that this frantic "busyness" is perhaps itself a sign of insecurity - of needing to be seen to be doing things. A symptom of our tendency to judge people's worth by what they do for a living. A person who does so much that they are always "too busy" much therefore be more important than someone who has time to drink coffee in the sunshine.We all li...

Boden????? Surely not
2007-08-09 14:30:00
Yesterday Suffolkmum wrote a post about having been namechecked in a newspaper article as one of a group of "Boden bloggers". The article was a good example of snidely written lazy journalism, probably dashed off so the author could get away on holiday, and Suffolkmum was a bit miffed.I would have been too and it is obvious that the journalist had simply visited the Country Living Magazine website and copied down some of the names without reading the blogs. Suffolkmum strikes me as someone who thinks a lot and writes sensitively and humanely about some very difficult topics. I enjoy reading her blog.The article as a whole was poking fun at the Boden set - now I suspect that this is one of those groups that we all say "Oh yes, I know who that is" but would never admit to being part of. Even in my wildest fantasies I wouldn't identify myself with the smugly smirking models with "their" spookily groomed children in Johnnie Boden's catalogues. My self image is much more mucky.And ...

Cornflowers blue . . .
2007-08-08 15:10:00
Cornflowers with their searing blue are one of the essentials of the cutting garden.I grow mine from seed sown in April, though I keep intending to start it off in September and over winter the seedlings - perhaps this year.I don't actually grow that many plants - just a single row - as the important thing is keeping on top of the picking. Let just a few flowers turn into seedheads and the whole plant will stop flowering.In the case f cornflowers I find less plants is definitely more flowers.Some flowers I sell at the van on Fridays but that still leaves a lot flowering through the week that still need harvesting so I have taken to drying them.It is important to catch them at the right stage or they will disintegrate into (very pretty) petals. While this is ideal for confetti or for sprinkling onto tables it isn't what I want as I have plans for delicate cornflower wreaths.This top picture shows the stage they need to be harvested at both for drying and as cut flowers- the centr...
More About: Blue , Lowe , Flow

Farmers markets
2007-08-07 15:07:00
Yesterday afternoon's Food Programme was about Farmer s' Markets - amazingly, despite being a celebration of ten years of Farmers Markets it was an intelligent programme, not just an idealisation of the concept.I actually have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Farmers' Markets. I love selling at them - the customers tend to be interested and chatty - but I have reservations about them being the answer for either the foodie consumer or the small producer.There seems to be, to be honest, a big gap between the markets in Scotland and the majority of those in England (don't know about Wales or Ireland - Julia - did I read that your sister used to do markets????). To take a stall trading for 4 -5 hours in Edinburgh or Glasgow costs £70.50, add on petrol and any help you pay for and it means that to break even you need to sell about £200 worth of goods.This means that unless you have a semi-industrial product with a guaranteed yield it is difficult to regularly attend markets....

Autumn is here?
2007-08-06 16:30:00
This morning, walking across the garden to feed the pigs, I would have sworn that it was October.It was beautiful - the valley was hazy with cloud the hills rising above it, all the plants glistened with water droplets and spiders' webs.It was beautiful but there was no way that it was August.Saturday was HOT. I fear it may we have been the summer.I am making things for Christmas photoshoots so I fear I have brought it all on mysef!Stipa giganteaSnapdragon - Flowers to feel good about www.snapdragongarden.co.uk
More About: Autumn , Autum

A visitor
2007-08-03 13:44:00
I have a problem with writers I admire. It is probably because writing is an unfulfilled ambition, but I just cannot behave naturally around them.So when Anna Pavord, author of "The Tulip" and many other books and gardening correspondent for The Independent newspaper, wrote to say she would like to visit I went into a bit of a panic.Friends and family assumed that it was that I was worrying abut the state of the garden but no - it was much more serious than that.I am pretty much immune to celebrity culture - usually I meet "famous" people and neglect to notice that they are "famous" - being on tv just doesn't do it for me.But writers, now that is quite different . . . either I am propelled into being incredibly boring - and I mean incredibly - I once talked to Adam Nicolson about slugs and ways to exterminate them for a full 20 minutes - or I am reduced to a squeak. Very generous friends have in the past introduced me to Candia McWilliam, Claudia Roden, and Naomi Wolf and have b...
More About: Visitor , Sito

Staking and storage solved in one
2007-08-02 10:52:00
I am very bad at staking things in time - every year my garden note book at this time of year says - STAKE!!!!!!!So as usual, the first days of August have seen me trotting round clumps of plants with string and canes rather than having constructed something artfully tasteful out of hazel in April.Looking for something to top the canes I suddenly thought of the small coloured glass vials I use for making wreaths and garlands - they fit perfectly on top of the canes and give the whole bed a celebratory feel. They will stop me jabbing my eyes when picking and it solves the problem of where I am going to store 240 small bottles to boot!Snapdragon - Flowers to feel good about www.snapdragongarden.co.uk
More About: Storage , Taking

Reflections
2007-08-01 09:25:00
Ginny at the Flour Loft has nominated me for a Blogger reflections award which is very kind of her. Euan's comment was "Reflection or narcissism? Hmm?"I can never manage to download images or buttons from the web so instead I put a photo of our eldest cats - Bix and Phoebe - drinking from the kitchen tap as there are "reflections" in it - how desperate is that?The idea is that I now nominate blogs that make me reflect on life, that influence me in some way.The problem is that I always nominate the same blogs - though I do spend time blog hopping, linking from one to another, there are very few blogs that I visit regularly.What I value in a blog is honesty and a conversation - I like comments sections which elaborate on the topic. This is why I personally try to answer any comments on a posting, not by e-mail. I particularly like comments that debate, disagree and bring in a different angle. Some blogs seem to achieve this really well though, interestingly, they are not the site...
More About: Reflections

Becoming a control freak
2007-07-31 14:24:00
I have always regarded myself as a laid back kind of person but this week I have found myself developing into a horrible control freak.The first thing that happened was that the dahlias began to bloom and instead of this - Rip CityThere was this - Arabian KnightAs one customer said when I contacted her "Well at least it isn't yellow"Then the lilies began to bloom and instead of this - Netty's Pride -There was this - Sorayo.I contacted my supplier - he contacted his and we have agreed that the bulbs and tubers be replaced with the correct varieties in the spring. I have also contacted the customers that I know bought these but I can't remember everyone - if you bought either from me and it has bloomed as the wrong variety please let me know so that I can refund your money or replace in the Spring. Fortunately it isn't affecting all the lilies - because if there was ever a beauty this is it. I think that it is a case of rogue handfuls being added to make up weight on a popular ...
More About: Freak , Control , Control freak , Ming

wedding photos
2007-07-30 09:36:00
The sun shone, the flower arch stayed in place and everyone looked like they were having a wonderful time.I really enjoyed arranging the flowers for this wedding - the venues were great, the caterers (Nairns) provided very classy table settings and were helpful and professional, and the families were open to suggestions.That said - I now know why I only do one wedding a month, I don't tink I have ever worked as hard in my life.These are a few photos of the flowers. Not brilliant shots I'm afraid but the photos are always the last thing to be done and tend to be taken in a rush.First is a pew end bunch with sweet peas, apple mint and hetty's pin cushion.Second is the pillars in Balfron High School draped in ivy with flowers in coloured glass bottles strung amongst them.Thirds is the top table with glass cubes of flowers and glass vials wired along the front (I was very pleased with the way this worked - simple and pretty in the sunshine)Forth is cones of petal confetti - purple s...
More About: Photos , Wedding

As requested .
2007-07-27 16:31:00
Sweet peas on the vine and waiting for the wedding.Snapdragon - Flowers to feel good about www.snapdragongarden.co.uk
More About: Este

Back
2007-07-26 15:37:00
Well its back to work after a few days spent beach combing on Kingsbarns Beach near to St Andrews. We borrowed a cottage from a friend which was ten minutes walk from the beach - these poppies and ragwort growing out of the top of a wall were one of the things we passed on the way.Now I am busy working on the flowers for a wedding at the weekend - making moss garlands to put over the arch into the church, taping grids on glass vases and painting barrels to plant up with daisies.But first I think that I shall make myself a cup of coffee and go and delight in the sight of thousands of blooming sweet peas before they all get cut tomorrow.Snapdragon - Flowers to feel good about www.snapdragongarden.co.uk
More About: Back

Yesterday was the beginning of our "holiday" - I a...
2007-07-20 09:30:00
Yesterday was the beginning of our "holiday" - I am back working in the shop today but then away for a few days away from the computer, weeding and packing up wire baskets!We went to Perthshire to fulfil promises made to the girls last year. Last June we all picked a touristy thing we would like to do but then the summer was so gloriously sunny we just played outside all the holidays and didn't venture out at all.It isn't exactly like that this year so we got in the car and headed for Perthshire.Zoe's choice was to go and see the ospreys at Loch of the Lowes - this has two great hides with telescopes trained on osprey nests so you can watch the birds flying over the loch, catching perch and then bringing them back to the nest for everyone to feast on. The Scottish Wildlife Trust has a couple of webcams sited at the nest so you can follow the ospreys' progress when back homeKatie's choice was to go to the Crannog Centre on Loch Tay - a reconstruction of a crannog - a prehistor...
More About: Holiday , Yesterday , Este

Space and simplicity
2007-07-18 17:49:00
I have just finished reading Margaret Forster's book Keeping the world away - a novel about the effect that Gwen John's painting of the corner of an attic bedroom has on the women who hang it on their walls.It is, in part, a study of the yearning for simplicity and control symbolised by the spare, composed painting.I enjoyed the book very much and was thinking of it today while I drove though the sublime landscape of deep cleft valleys and deep reflective lochs that is between here and Loch Fyne.It is a beautiful, beautiful drive, I was on my own in the car and it is quite the most relaxing thing I have done this week. I was going up to The Tree Shop, run by the Ardkinglas tree nursery to pick up some beautiful white birch trees - Betula utilis "Jacquemontii snowqueen" which I am intending to use to make a small glade at this wedding in ten days time. The idea is that it will make the large space a bit more intimate and give a sense of enclosure for the guests who want to sit do...
More About: Space , Simplicity

Sturdy but not so you would know.
2007-07-17 16:14:00
I really dislike the waste that goes into event flowers - the discarded flowers, seen for only 20 minutes - so I am always keen to transport flowers from church to reception or to refashion church flowers as bouquets to be presented later in the day. It makes financial sense too, a flower budget can be stretched that bit further and a more flowery day had overall.I am working on flowers for a wedding at the moment where the flowers on the church windowsills will transfer to become table centres at the reception. It will work well as it is a large generous wedding and this way the windowsills can be more lavishly decorated - with 5 cube vases full of flowers put together on each- than they would be if the flowers were simply for the service.The trick is to make the arrangements sturdy enough to survive being packed up quickly as we race from church to reception while the photographs are taken. The extra trick is making them look light and airy and not at all sturdy.So today I have...
More About: Would

Toning it down.
2007-07-15 15:21:00
6 or 7 years ago I went to a demonstration given by Sarah Raven in her sister Jane's house in Edinburgh. I can't remember how I heard about it - it was before Raven was that well known in Scotland - and I stuck out a bit as I was oddly young and un-lunchy compared to the other atendees.At lunch I was at a table of fifty-something "ladies who lunch and attand lectures", next to a very stylish, petite, brunette who did nothing but moan about the (very good) food, the stairs to the demonstration room, the lack of cushions on the chairs and so on. After she had exhausted complaining about that day's entertainment she moved onto the previous week's garden club trip to Great Dixter "And do you know Christopher Lloyd has bindweed in his borders, he has the cheek to open his garden to the public and it has bindweed in it".I don't know what this obviously unhappy woman moved onto next as I got up, made my excuses and left.I didn't post over the weekend because I had a very rude group...
More About: Toni

July's flower tutorial
2007-07-13 14:38:00
I have finally got round to putting up July's tutorial on how to make a rose candle holder with oasis.The containers I used are small zinc holders - I only sell these at Christmas for people to make their own arrangements but in the meantime they can be got from Caroline Zoob's online store after July 30th (she is closed till then). They are very useful things. As well as being lovely taper holders in their own right you can float flowers round them, fill them with small shells, sweets, beans or make them more elaborate with oasis and a flower arrangement round a bigger candle as here.A cup and saucer also works well.I use them all the time for weddings where they also make great place card holders with a bit of looped wire jammed with blutack into the candle hole.Snapdragon - Flow er s to feel good about www.snapdragongarden.co.uk
More About: Tutorial , Rial , Lowe

The most stressful day
2007-07-12 17:39:00
I am posting this image of a lovely calming hydrangea heart to compensate for having the MOST STRESSFUL DAY.This morning was fine - not really my sort of thing but there you go. Katie wanted to spend her holiday money - £13.68 - so we went into Glasgow and she went into a frenzy in Claire's Accessories where they had a special deal where you could get10 sale items for £5. We now have a very happy 6 year old with lots of glittery bits in her hair.Then I got back here to find that the buttons on my website were not all working properly - aaaarggggh - lots of individual orders instead of nicely grouped ones. I emailed everyone to confirm their orders and refund their multiple postages and thought "Aha, it is a problem with the shopping baskets - I can fix that"So I redid all the shopping basket buttons on the website, very tedious work, - loaded it all up and found that now NOTHING worked.Hmmmm. I was not a happy bunny. I ate a lot of chocolate (73% cocoa - allowed), I stomped a...
More About: Tres

Country Living
2007-07-11 16:24:00
Hoooo! Woooo! as my youngest would say.2 posts in one day.The excuse is my Country Living magazine dropped through the door and there we are - one of our painted handle baskets in the Emporium section!Snapdragon - Flowers to feel good about www.snapdragongarden.co.uk
More About: Ving

Irrelevant mice
2007-07-11 09:59:00
Recently I have lost a few stone in weight and in attempting to adjust my steroid medication to fit with my new BMI I have knocked myself out of kilter and am really knackered.Therefore - instead of spending the evenings pulling thistles and digging beds in advance of the garden club coming on Saturday, I have been making what Euan is terming "those highly irrelevant mice". This is as in "And are Connell Garden Club going to be impressed with these ranks of highly irrelevant mice?". I should point out that, while I am sitting on the deck embroidering dresses for mice, he is busy strimming a path to let the garden club members into the garden.When I was small the magazine with the craft patterns in it was "Woman's Weekly" - my Gran got it, storing it under her sofa cushions to keep it in mint condition until our visits. Then my Mum would make things from it - mainly small soft furry toys. the main designer was a woman called Jean Greenhowe so when I saw a book of her patterns I ...
More About: Mice , Irrelevant

The winner in the weather
2007-07-10 09:06:00
These leopard lilies (lilium pardilinium) seem to revel in the cool, damp weather we have been getting this summer.They have completely taken over one half of a long border - rising up through everything else with their glossy whorls of leaves topped by these recurving spotted flowers - like elaborate turbans.Lilies are an interesting flower from a commercial point of view. They are the most expensive bulbs I buy and as you can't cut them the first year that adds to the cost both in money and space. They are, however, essential at this time of year - taking over from the alliums and filling in the "big bloom" gap until the dahlias, sunflowers and gladioli come on stream.Lilies are also a standard florist (and supermarket) flower. Amy Stewart's book Flower Confidential documents the development of the Stargazer lily and how it was its upright facing buds and increased "packability" that led to its cornering the market. Certainly you would not want to try and pack these into flo...
More About: Weather , Winner

Not knowing "how its always done"
2007-07-08 16:59:00
I have always preferred working with people who are outside the field they were trained in. Perhaps it is natural, given that I changed careers from the very academic art gallery curator to the very muddy gardening florist.It pre-dates that though - the best exhibition I worked on in terms of sheer outside the box excitement was at Kelvingrove museum with Ben Kelly - designer of the Manchester nightclub The Hacienda. He had no concept that things couldn't be done - the problems of listed buildings, crane access, getting porters to work late and so on meant nothing to him as he had never worked within a hierarchical institution like a council art gallery - so miraculously they got done. To be honest I think it was a nightmare for the Kelvingrove curator in charge of working with him but for a lowly minion it was an eye-opener in how being trained in "how things are done" can be a real disadvantage.I have been thinking about this this week as I have to work out how I deal with flor...
More About: Knowing , Done , Always

Jack and the giant plume poppies
2007-07-06 18:15:00
Here we are with a rare overview of the garden - I pick so much that I am always aware that it is very green and doesn't really look like a cut flower garden. I am also aware that these photos demonstrate that the grass paths need cut pronto - the excuse is that it just hasn't been dry enough.In the photos is one of 2 long borders - they divide the two parts of the cutting garden and are filled with all the tall clumpy plants I love but which would take over a raised cutting patch very quickly.I wanted to put the photos in to show just how tall everything perennial is growing this year. The plume poppy is now 10 feet tall, the stipa gigantea isn't far behind and just look at the size of that yellow lily - far too big to cut! Here is Minou to give some sense of scale.What a contrast to the annuals - particularly the not-too-hardy annuals like dill and larkspur. I have never had such pathetic looking plants! Today I got a phonecall from a grower in Fife, desperate for flowers f...
More About: Jack , Giant , Plum , Poppies , Poppi

More about the pigs
2007-07-05 14:35:00
We have been meaning to get pigs for ages - in fact there was a distinct possibility that we were turning into those irritating people who say they are going to do something and never ever get around to it. they just talk a lot.I had begun to get worried that pig keeping was becoming trendy - Liz Hurley et al - and as I tend to run away from trends we decided that now is the time.So we have 2 unnamed Oxford Sandy and Blacks - ideal outdoor pigs - who are living in our rough field alongside the chickens with an electric fence to stop them getting into the henhouse and eating the eggs.They will be with us for only about 10 weeks at which point they will be the right size for slaughtering locally. we could keep them longer and feed them up but we would not be able to use the local abattoir.I know that the idea of killing animals is a great problem for a lot of people and I think that, if you are a vegetarian then that is fair enough. But we eat meat and we want to know where our mea...
More About: Pigs

Look who has arrived
2007-07-04 21:10:00
2 14 week old pigs and an electric fence!
More About: Arri , Look

Jane in a sweetie shop
2007-07-04 11:39:00
The bulb catalogues have now all arrived so I have that "sweetie shop" time of choosing what I want for next spring. The problem is avoiding buying everything - I need to get a good spread of colours and flowering times and a mix of established favourites and new varieties.It is important that I get the order in in the next week or so as otherwise varieties are often out of stock in the quality of bulb I want.The job is made even more interesting this year as I have offered to provide the flowers for the Think Pink Ball which is at Oran Mor in Glasgow's Byers Road on 25th April 2008. My favourite amongst the paintings that Christine McArthur did of my flowers last year was of a large bunch of pink tulips - each one a different shape and colour. My aim for the Think Pink flowers is to have spiralled bunches of as many pink varieties of tulips that I can get to flower at that time. I have marked up 25 varieties in my catalogues ranging from the elegant lily flowered "Mariette" to t...
More About: Shop , Jane

Saying yes
2007-07-02 09:47:00
This New Year's resolution was to say "yes" more often - not the advice you would give to your teenage daughter necessarily but for a 37 year old prone making excuses it seemed a good idea.So when s woman from the production company SMG phoned me a couple of weeks ago to see whether I would be an "expert" on a reality tv show they were making for Scottish Television and Sky - well I said "yes".Filming was yesterday - and boy it was fun. I had begun to get cold feet about it earlier in the week, worrying about either sounding like I had just swallowed helium or getting that deer in the headlights look. A friend from my book group, Clara is a tv director, presently on maternity leave and she kindly calmed me down - pointing out there would be 5 hours of filming and only a maximum of 5 minutes footage actually used - surely even I could sound compos mentos for that amount of time.The photo shows crew and contestants with me in the middle - as foraging expert. I can't say more abou...