Indeed for that price you get access to the following facilities according to Garden News:
a club house with fully fitted kitchen including a bread oven, a gardening library, 3 barbecues, car parking spaces, regular events, security, and free tea, coffee and juice for children. An artesian well has also been sunk to ensure that alloment holders have easy access to water. But most of all each plot has been dug over and is guaranteed stone free! Now that’s a luxury you wouldn’t get with a standard £15 rent a year council allotment.

You would probably expect to find this type of facilities in a more urban and cash rich like London but it seems that the allotment is popular with local residents from all trades of life.

I am lucky enough to be able to grow all my vegetables in my garden and if I were not able to do so I would certainly look to find a plot nearby. Although I don’t really need all the luxury which the Scotlandwell allotments bring with them. I would be particularly interested in the sense of community that allotments can bring together and which I have seen on many allotments in the Birmingham area for example.

There has been an increasing demand for allotments in recent years with a resulting shortage. In Cardiff alone it is reported that the allotment waiting lists stands at 857 people with an average waiting time of almost 12 months.

And we are being constantly being encouraged to reduce our impact on CO2 emissions with greater emphasis on where we source our food from. So I wonder: just like local councils provide recycling bins to every household is it possible that one day they will also plan for and provide grow-your-own plots for every household?

I guess it’s quite natural that in my circle of friends many of them are keen gardeners. And most of them are rather well equipped with tools and plants, so when it comes to birthdays, choosing gifts is not an always an easy task.

Garden Designs

The garden design gift experience seems to be an original present as well as an ideal activity for the summer time. Aimed at people who enjoy learning new skills and getting involved with activities, this course enables you to learn in sitiu how a famous stately garden is designed and to get useful tips for your own garden design too.

The activity includes a light lunch, and interaction with the professional gardener and other fellow enthusiasts is highly encouraged and should be fun.

This garden design workshop comes as a gift presented in a nice silver presentation envelope which can be personalized with a message and sent directly to the recipient.

Since this course comes as a gift experience I think it makes an original present. I have been on driving and food tasting experiences in the past and I know that gift experiences are something that you will remember fondly as a good time in your life.

Why not visit a garden as part of the National Garden Scheme?

Summer days are here and you can visit some of the most beautiful gardens in Britain in the most informal way. You will get the opportunity to have a friendly chat with the home owners and get their personal advice and input on their successes and potential failure in their garden activity. The personal advice that you can get from amateur gardeners can be most valuable if are looking to achieve results with home-tried gardening practices.

I also enjoy the opportunity to relax and treat myself to the great British tradition which is afternoon tea, preferably with a big slab of Victoria sponge cake – after all I deserve it!

But all this is also for a better cause. The funds raised will benefit a number of charities including Marie Curie Cancer Care, Help the Hospices Movement, and the Royal fund for Gardeners’ children, to name but a few.

You can find more information about the gardens which are open this summer on the National Garden Scheme website.

If you’d like to share your experience on the best British gardens, please leave a comment.

An example of this is the Rendezvousauxjardins initiative which is the French equivalent of the British National Open Gardens Scheme and is organized by the French Ministry of Culture.

The aim is to encourage people to make their garden open to the public and it also gives the opportunity to combine the visit with a musical, theatrical or cultural experience.

And this year the theme for the garden scheme is related to land, soil and territory. The purpose of the theme is to highlight the importance of the Land in all its characteristics.

This Open gardens event will take place this week on 5, 6 and 7th June. So if you are planning a trip to France and enjoy discovering new garden ideas do look out for the gardens taking part in this scheme: Rendezvousauxjardins.

So we are not alone doing our bit in our garden and contributing to a better, greener environment, our neighbours are doing their bit too!

Bamboo Alley

I followed the guide who provided useful information about the plants and trees in the park, and I learnt some interesting horticultural facts about bamboos. I shall always remember that bamboos shoots grow like piles of plates stacked upwards and growing at a speed of up to 1 meter a day.

All in all it comforted me in the opinion that some species of bamboos can be difficult to contain since they have a tendency to spread quickly whilst other smaller varieties can be used as bushes in order to provide handy green borders.

Feng Shui Garden

Another point of interest is a Feng shui garden which was most delightful, tucked away in a lovely natural valley. It was very colourful and relaxing, containing red leaved Acer trees set against the multi-tinted green backdrop of bamboos.

Dandelion Art

I also enjoyed walking through the water garden as well as the 1860 Victorian greenhouse which includes temporary horticultural exhibitions (at the time of writing this post it included hundreds of Dandelion blossoms forming a inquisite a symmetric pattern which you can see in the picture).

The visit of the bamboo garden takes about 2 hours and if you are planning a trip there you may also take the opportunity to catch the steam train which gets you there and back from Anduze.

My Flower Border

Obviously you don’t have to plan the border in exact details but you may find that it pays to do so in the long run and it’s also quite interesting and fun. You will find below my personal gardening tips on how to achieve this.

Right now my flower border is adorning a few tulips which will soon fade away (as you can see in the picture) so I need to fill the empty spaces with some more beautiful flowers and plants.

I first had a look at my border area earlier in the year and did a lot of sowings of flowers which are currently growing patiently in the greenhouse. And now I am just considering which plants will be grown in the border and as part of my simplified version of garden design.

Usually I try to plan most of my borders according to two basic principles: creativity and practicality. I don’t necessarily draw out what the border should look like but it can help to sketch it out too.

1. Be creative with your gardening

From the point of view of creativity I am looking for a theme which could be a colour or style. For example I have a blue border (with mainly blue flowers) as well as an exotic border. This usually means that I have to work out what type of colour scheme or effect I am trying to achieve. And this is the fun bit.

2. Consider practical gardening options

From the practical point of view, I need to take into account the size of the flowers which I will plant in my garden as well as the flowering season and the suitability to the area (does a particular plant need to grow in a sunny spot for example?).

So I find that in my border I have permanent flowers (perennials & bulbs) which will blossom in the future and must be taken into account. This year I have a few clumps of light pink sedums which are scattered in the border, as well as some hellebores which blossomed in winter and will constitute a green shape in my border.

The back of the border is constituted of dahlias of vivid colours (white, yellow, red) as well as apricot-coloured rose bushes of medium size which will blossom throughout summer. I also have a few left-over pink sweet williams here and there but there is still space to fill in around the plants.

So this is my plan for this year:

At the front of the border I will plant some of the lawn chamomile plants which I have sown in the greenhouse back in January. Now I have never grown these plants before but I guess that they will provide a green sheen to the front of the border and be suitably fragrant as I walk past the border. I will probably intersperse the camomile with some other flowering plants which I have not decided upon yet (yellow marigold or erigerons?)

Behind the chamomile I have already started to sow some clarkias which come in a wide range of vivid hues of pink and should be about 18 inches tall. And I shall also plant a few of the gaillardias, chrysanthemums (tricolor mixed) and rudbeckias (hues of yellow and brown) which I have in my greenhouse and were sown back in small pots back in February.

I have also bought 2 light pink crinums which I will place in the middle of the border between the hellebores and they should flower later in the year.

Now I admit that I always tend to cram too many plants in my border but the advantage of this is that it means less weeding for me since the weeds don’t have enough light to come through. Alternatively I could mulch around the plants but I like to create a patchwork effect of colours in my flower borders.

Now remember I am just not an expert garden designer but overall I think that it should be quite a colourful warm border mixed with annuals, perennials, bulbs and sizes of all sorts.

I really enjoy experimenting with colours and shapes in the garden and I believe that anyone can have a go too. And with gardening there’s always the chance for some unplanned effect or lucky growth which I welcome every year.

So now that you have read my plan do check out this diary soon to find out what my 2009 flower border eventually looks like! And as usual I welcome your comments.

Castle Howard Fountain

Castle Howard is most famous for its walled garden including an ornamental vegetable garden, as well as for being the setting of the Brideshead revisited film.

To make the most of the walled garden I think that it is best to visit when the roses and delphiniums are in full bloom in July.

At this time of the year the visitor will appreciate the sense of grandeur expressed in the formal garden layout complete with its numerous temples, statues, lakes, fountain and wide expense of green woods.

I also recommend visiting the castle which despite a great fire in 1940 still has a lot to show about the lifestyle of the Howard family through the years. In particular I was impressed by the guides who were available in most rooms to provide interesting facts about the castle and gardens.

So if you are planning a trip up to North Yorkshire remember to take a little detour to the gardens of Castle Howard.