On 17/03/2014 17:56, sacha wrote:
On 2014-03-17 15:41:39 +0000, Spider said:

On 17/03/2014 15:09, sacha wrote:
On 2014-03-17 14:29:01 +0000, Spider said:

On 17/03/2014 11:39, Sacha wrote:
Ray & I were 'interviewed' for the Garden Festival at Powderham in
May.
We had no idea that following a long, relaxed coffee time with the
lovely PR people about Ray doing an informal, anecdotal chat there, we
would then be asked to compete with the rooks for a bit of 'airtime'!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtsGvkRQQAI

Nice to see you both before our May visit. Well done for competing so
bravely with the rooks! Will you be able to go to Powderham, or is
Hill House too hungry for your time?


Definitely going to Powderham but it will be just me and Ray manning it,
as it's a BH week end. It's very rare for us to do any shows because of
the Nursery but it's so good to see a real horticultural show taking
place in the far south west that we want to support it and there will be
a lot of good nurseries and speakers, including Ann Swithinbank and Dr
Todd Gray who's a historian whose expertise is the history of Devon.
Ray's going to do a sort of "Confessions of a Nurseryman" chat with one
of the women we met on the Friday.

That sounds great. It's just what you wanted. Hope it goes well for
you.

There's also the Cornish Spring Flower Show (5/6 April) at Boconnoc. We
don't take part in that and it's organised by Cornwall Garden Society. I
wish we could get to these shows but one of the drawbacks of this
business is that when we want to visit gardens or shows, this place is
super-busy and so we can't go away, especially at week ends.





Yes, that is a real shame! Pity you can't send a proxy shopper on your
behalf, but that could be fraught with problems.



Powderham is the castle close to Dawlish and for those who have come
down to Devon by train, as you go through Dawlish and look up, you can
just see the castle and a lovely view of the deer park. In fact,
they're going to make a bit of a 'thing' out of the fact that people can
walk from Dawlish station to the castle in 10 to 15 minutes.

Easy enough to walk there, as you say, but I bet most visitors will
take the car so they can load up with plants and gardening artefacts.
It will be a lovely day out, though, esp. if the weather is good.

Well, if we were going as potential buyers, we'd certainly want to load
up the car! I wonder if they could run a tractor/trailer service to
take plants to the station! Shades of Downton Abbey! When we went to
Hampton Court Flower Show years ago, one of the first things we did was
buy a collapsible wheelbarrow to stash our plant buys in! It was used
(mostly by me) in the garden here for a couple of years after that, so
it earned its corn!




When I go to Hampton Court Flower Show, I always take the bag out of my
4-wheel trolley and take that. We put a false base in it for the plants
to stand on. I usually fill the trolley and a couple of pvc bags as
well. Mind you, with all the gravel walks at Hampton Court, I often
wish the trolley was 4-wheel drive! Nevertheless, I manage bravely ;~).
--
Spider.
On high ground in SE London
gardening on heavy clay