RHS Malvern Spring Festival

Visiting an RHS Show for the First Time

Hi everyone,
Last week I got the opportunity to travel across the country to visit the RHS Malvern Spring Festival - think Chelsea Flower Show, but a fraction earlier and a lot easier to get your purchases home from!

Spoiler Alert - I bought a new Hosta

I was delighted to be invited by the lovely team from E-Coco Products to be their guest, get to meet and film them, and get loads of garden inspiration too!

Click the link below and come and join me in this week's YouTube video, see what I saw, and what I bought too ⌣

Enjoy!

Love 

Rebecca xx

Fairy Garden Makeover for George the Dragon

This week's YouTube video is a timely makeover for George the Dragon's Miniture Garden. It was looking a bit sunken and a bit shaggy. Watch how I divide the plants and rejuvenate the garden.
Enjoy
Rebecca xx

Create a quick table decoration with succulent cuttings

Hi there,

My vision for this week's project was a centrepiece for an alfresco dinner party. I had so much fun creating this lovely table decoration, and it was so quick, inexpensive and easy to do!

I bought the reclaimed cedar planter from Pembury Recycle for a princely sum of £8.00
The compost is my trusty E-Coco Products Cactus and Succulent one, and the small amount probably cost £1.50-2.00
The candle and votive were leftovers from Christmas, you could use something you have already.
The plants are all free cuttings taken from my existing plants.

Create a Quick Table Decoration with Succulent Cuttings

I'd love you to try something similar and let me know how you get on in the comments ☺

Lots of love
Rebecca xx

Visiting Godinton House and Gardens for Delphinium week 2018

Splendid Delphiniums on Display

This week's video (taken on my brand-spanking new camera - the Canon M50) is a visit to the beautiful, tranquil walled garden at Godinton House near Ashford, Kent.

Set amongst 12 acres of grounds, the Walled Garden was the kitchen garden for the House and Estate.
It is now home to a huge Victorian-style greenhouse, clipped box wood, a  rich collection of herbaceous perennial plants, and the stars of the June show are very definitely the Delphiniums. So much so that Godinton House and the Delphinium Society host a 'Delphinium Week' each year.

Come and explore the Walled Garden with me, and experience these breathtaking plants in their prime, plus some cheeky extras in the greenhouse!

Enjoy!
Love
Rebecca xx

Spring 2018 has arrived at last

Spring is in full swing!

It's taken it's sweet time, fierce easterly winds brought in snow, ice and freezing temperatures in March, but finally, enevitably, Spring 2018 has arrived - thank goodness!!

Let's have a look at a few of the highlights so far...

Alpines

New Alpine Planter

 This new planter is filled with two types of Arabis, one creeping and one upright, and wonderful softly spikey Armeria aka Thrift.

Spring Bulbs

Anemone coronaria and ladybird

I can't believe I took this photo with my camera phone! No filters or fancy stuff, this is just how stunningly vivid anemones look...the newly hatched ladybird needs to learn about the art of camouflage though 😄

Narcissus Tete-a Tete have been beautiful this year, and I love the contrast with these early purple tulips, the pink hellebores and all the vibrant fresh foliage.

Narcissus Tet-a Tete, Tulips and Hellebores

Sempervivums

I've just refreshed my Sempervivum planters, they are doing really well, and have put on lots of growth as the days are getting longer and warmer. I love the tapestry of colours, sizes, textures and markings.

A Mixture of Sempervivum in a Strawberry Pot

But as you'll see from the next photo, they also look really fabulous when one variety is planted en-mass (see the top right pot crammed with a cushion of wine red Semps)

More Sempervivum Planters

The Woodland Garden

Things are changing daily in the Woodland Garden, and whilst I love all my plants, there is something very special about Wood Anemones (Anemone nemorosa). I remember walking through woodland with my mother, and her pointing out these shining white, daisy-like flowers to me. She loved them, and the way they spread and bloom under deciduous trees.

My clumps are growing huge, and last Spring I took the opportunity to split off some pieces and replant them in other areas of the Woodland Garden.  I was delighted to see them flowering among the Primroses and Dog Violets too.

Wood Anemones glowing under the trees

On the Lawn

I scurrified the grass ready for it's first cut, and was surprised by this little beastie proudly sticking out from the turf...

A Morel Mushroom

And the Morel of this story is...Sorry, that's a terrible joke 😁

Don't become plant blind, nature is amazing and ever-changing. It's so important that we appreciate its diversity, ingenuity and tenacity. Not just from an environmental or horticultural standpoint, but also to get our faces out of our smartphones and start experiencing real life.

What's going on in your garden right now? Let me know in the comments,

Love

Rebecca xx

Holly's Succulent Fairy Garden

In this week's Youtube video, we're using copper, succulents and fairies to create a super-cute miniature garden...does it get better than that?

Hope you enjoy,

PB xx

Valentine's Inspired Sempervivum Heart Decoration Tutorial

This weeks video is live, and features beautiful Sempervivum, on a Valentine's Day inspired heart decoration.
Enjoy!
Love
Rebecca xx

Succulents and Righting Past Wrongs with Houseplants

Three weeks ago I posted here about my new plant obsession - succulents.

Since then I've posted about it on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and I've also made a YouTube video on the subject - why?

Background

As I said in my last post, my history with houseplants reads like the plot of a murder mystery, except I'm clearly the villain. I've starved them of light, water and food, then drowned them for a while, and finally dumped their lifeless forms in the compost heap - dark eh!

When I rescued a sad Echeveria 'Perle Von Nurnberg' to try my hand at succulent propagation, I fully expected to fail, but I've learnt so much recently, from various succulent websites and YouTubers, that my crown cuttings have rooted and are growing, babies are forming on the rooted stems, and many of the leaf cuttings have grown roots too.

Now

Spurred on by this success, I bought some more 'Perle Von Nurnberg' from the reduced section of my local DIY store, bought some unidentified Echeveria, a Graptopetalum 'Opalina', and some Pachyphytum oviferum (aka Moonstones) cuttings, plus some mixed cutting from Little Bunny Lilac's Etsy store. My collection was growing fast

Then I realised I had a problem -  I'd run out of window sill space!

We had a large plastic shelving unit going spare, so I decided to invest in some grow lights, and fit them to the shelves for a fancy grow-station.

After lots of research, I went for the Sunblaster Nano Tech T5 light combo kits. They come with the full-spectrum light tube, a reflector, fittings and fixings, a power cable and a double ended cable so you can connect two lamps together. If you would like to see me installing the lights, then do watch the Youtube video, I'd appreciate the views (and don't forget to like,share and subscribe while you're there ;-) )

I started with four lamps, enough for two shelves...then I went on a shopping spree at Surreal Succulents, and had to buy two more for a third shelf - Oops

Succulent Grow Shelves

So here we are just three weeks down the line, and I have already had to expand my infrastructure twice over. I'd better not do it again in three weeks time!

Let's give you a list of the plants on the shelves, as far as I can, many plants are supplied unlabelled, and Echeveria for example come in hundreds and hundreds of hybrid varieties. Unless you have bought a named variety, grown from a named variety parent plant by a reputable source, you will be unlikely to identify it with any certainty.

Echeveria	Runyonii ‘Topsy Turvy’	‘Perle von Nurnberg’	prolifica
Graptoveria	‘Opalina’	‘Debbie’	acaulis	‘Pik Ruza’
Sedum	morganianum burrito	Rubrotinctum ‘Aurora’	‘Sandra Mottram’	clavatum
Crassula	ovata	mesembryanthemoides	ovata ‘Gollum’	‘Horn tree’	perforata	tetragona
Sedeveria	‘Leitzia’
Haworthia	cooperii
Pachyphytum	oviferum
Kalachoe	pumila
Senecio	rowleyanus
Cremnosedum	‘Little Gem’

My succulent journey is well and truly on the way, I'm looking forward to propagating lots of young plants so that I can start making projects with them all. Keep a look out for upcoming posts and YouTube videos.

Love
PB xx

The Start of a New Obsession - Succulents

You know when you get that 'feeling' about something or someone, and you just know it's the start of something big? Well recently I got that for an Echeveria at the local DIY superstore.

Echeveria - Isn't it pretty!

Historically, I've not had huge success with houseplants, and after a while I get annoyed with crusty looking soil, dusty window ledges and sunlight being blocked from rooms. Not to mention my extreme clumsiness - potted plants and cream carpets do not mix!

Then I was given a Moth Orchid (Phalaenopsis), then another, and another...I've got about 10 now (I think), they really love my West/ Northwest facing kitchen window. Then someone gave me their ancient Hoya (Wax Flower). I was terrified I'd kill it, but it also adores my kitchen window sill!

As I watched more videos from my favourite YouTuber (besides myself of course lol), Laura at Garden Answer, I realised how diverse the world of succulents is, the stunning arrangements you can create with them, and the propagation techniques you can try and (hopefully) master. My interest was piqued, but I wanted to start gently. So I got myself some Sempervivum (aka houseleeks, Hen and Chicks or Ice Plants), and created some exciting outdoor planters and projects.

Sempervivum are a brilliant way into the world of succulents

Sempervivum are completely hardy in the UK, and will survive down to zone 4 in the USA (−34.4 °C (−30 °F)) - That's pretty darn cold!! The range of colours and textures is lovely, and they are so easy to propagate. When the 'mother' plant (or Hen) grows baby offshoots (chicks) on thick fiberous 'stems', you can either gently pull them off the hen and plant them somewhere else, or allow them to form a beautiful clump. Eventually the hen will die (after about 3 years), and you can take that opportunity to renovate the clump, or just position some of the chicks on top of the brown patch the hen leaves behind.

The large central 'Hen' surrounded by her 'Chicks'

They are quite the most forgiving succulent, and being outdoor plants are much much less demanding than indoor (tender) succulents.

But then I saw it...shriveled and stretched out (etiolated), planted in a chunky glass container with no drainage and marked down from £5 to £2...

The true state of this poor Echeveria

So I thought, I could use this poor sad creature to practice propagation etc on, the worst thing that could happen is that I kill it outright, and lose £2, but potentially I could have 10-12 leaves, a crown and a rooted stem to grow new plants from - isn't that a really exciting concept?

In fact it was so exciting that the following day I went back and bought the other 3 discounted Echeveria and created this...

Leaf cuttings and Crown cuttings read to get growing

80 leaf cuttings, five crowns, four rooted stems (not shown), and an experiment with an unrooted stem, which unfortunately started to go mouldy, so I threw it away for the health of all the other cuttings.

I should mention that there is a really important step in between taking the cuttings and laying them on damp soil to form roots, and that is to allow the wet wounds to dry out and form a callous. This prevents the cuttings soaking up too much water and rotting off. It can take 3-5 days for this to happen, and smaller wounds will callous faster than large ones like crown cuttings.

In this photo the cuttings and soil surface had just been damped down with a spray bottle, I will now leave them alone for a week or so in a bright location, but out of direct sunlight.

This is a brave new world for me, and you can fully expect more blog posts, YouTube videos, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts on the subject.

Do you have a passion for succulents? Have you had a go a propagating them? Leave me a comment below and lets have a chat :)

Love
PB xx