Riply castle

Last Saturday I had a rare day off, Robert and I made the most of the day and went to Ripley castle in Yorkshire and then on to Newby hall which I will post photo's in my next blog.

We didn't go in the castle we went just to see the gardens. They hold the national collection of hyacinths and have large tropical conservatory.

I loved this door in the castle and tower

These Fratilers looked good growing in the grass

There was a wide range of daffodils some over some still to come out growing wild on the river bank.

We got there just in time to see these tulips, another week and they would be over.

Some of the plants in the tropical conservatory

Just some of the Hyacinth's growing the smell was overpowering

This box garden was planted in the year 2000 for the millennium, the blue is forget-me-not.

This bed was full of tulip peony 'Carnival De Nice'

This tree is a self perpetuating beech tree. Planted in 1840 branches have grown roots on contact with the soil, creating another generation of tree's that are now no longer reliant on the mother tree as you can see in the photo.

Pear blossom

I seem to have been so busy this last week. My Friend is very ill and cant do her garden and iv been promising to go for weeks to do it. I went this week and gave it a good clearing. It was made more difficult as all the plants are coming up and the weeds and grass are growing through them. It was hot day and was really done in by the end of the day. The distance is to far to go often but it need doing every week, she cant get out at all so I don't really know what the solution is. The next two nights Iv been out but I wanted to share this lovely image of the pear tree in full blossom. Its quite old and its one of Roberts jobs to prune it, but it wasn't done this year. its on the end of our next door neighbours house.

Roberts potted up these three trier terracotta pots with pansies. Will take a photo later to show the flowering results.

My winter pansies baskets still look good it seams a shame to throw them out to make way for the summer bedding. Our shop is bursting with summer plants, its to early and I have to keep telling customers they could still get caught by frost. We have bissy lizzy in flower which look good for instant colour but I fear by summer they will be leggy and over.
The baby chicks are growing but the numbers have dwindled. Today there are only three and the mother seems to be missing they are on there own.

Easter Monday with mum and dad

I love these white Narcissus we call them John quills

Lovely Hellebore

On Easter Monday Robert and I took Mum and Dad (who had been with us since Thursday) to Wentworth a small village near Rotherham. There was a garden centre we wanted to visit which also had renovated gardens to walk around. I don't know the history of the big house which is now privately owned and not open to the public. You can walk to the front of the house but we saved that for another day. There were a lot of old statues around the garden in the photo above mum and dad with Robert hiding, are next to a lion and dog.

This arch way lead to the stairs which lead to the upper part of the garden. There were traces of it being very ornate like a grotto.

I love the tree's with the white bark there were quite a few with spring flowers all coming up.

There were a lot of water features.

I counted 16 chicks with this duck they seamed to be all hers.

This neat clipped hedge was box with yew around the outside

The restored summer house was being used as a photography studio

We are not sure what this was. They seamed to have had doors on at one time. It was by the pond which had a cascading waterfall but was dry and the pond wasn't full ether.

Easter celebrations

Easter the most important time in our church life. we don't often have flowers in church but we do have them for special events. we had a visiting minister Alfred Kalemboo from Zambia, he told us how as a child he had to walk 4 miles to go to school and at the age of 16 it was the first time he saw running water in a house and a light bulb. He preached Good Friday, Saturday evening and Sunday morning and was then leaving to go to America for a hectic tour preaching, we send our prayers with him.

Baby Hannah weekend

What a lovely weekend. Saturday evening my sister, niece and myself went to Sheffield arena to see Torvel and Dean the fantastic ice skating couple. Of course Nikki my niece brought her adorable baby Hannah. She had her new dress with hat on to go to church on Sunday, I think the hat stayed on for 2 minuets. We had a leisurely lunch before it was all to soon they had to go. Hannan is so near to walking but seams to be having a good time just standing.

Hannah loved to see the mother hen and her chicks running around

Presentation By Tor Gundersen.

On the 29th of march I attended a future concepts meeting down in Oxton. The Norwegian International designer Tor Gundersen gave us a fabulous presentation. His designs were amazing some of which i managed to take photo's and wanted to share them with you. I was so inspired and want to get my teeth into making some of the things he showed us. His designs were so invented and and a wide range of designs. The design above was his interpretation of a hand tie.

This was a fabulous brides bouquet, surprisingly made with fishing line hot glue strands flower shapes silver wire and sequins.

A cushion with tiny chrysanthemums and knitted flowers.

There were 50 carnations in this bouquet

This wall hanging was so fine and looked transparent against the window.

A very desirable design

This frame was made with Japanese rice paper it only has a few flowers but I thought it was stunning.




The design in the back ground was a massive wire knitted construction with test tubes to hold the flowers. The bouquet in the foreground was the same design as the cushion.

These large metal flowers had test tubes at the top where fresh Flowers were placed it was fabulous.