Wordless Wednesday: I See You Baby

Anyone for Asheville in 2012?

The next USA Garden Bloggers Fling is all set for 18-20th May in Asheville, North Carolina. Preparations are already well underway and details can be found on the dedicated Fling Blog.

Harvest Time at Malvern

The Malvern Autumn Show is always a celebration of harvest time, particularly the local cider apples and perry pears like those in the picture. Did you know the Three Counties Showground has the national collection of perry pears? I must try to find them. If you're staying in the area, you might like to follow this cider and perry trail :)

The show starts next Saturday and already Deb Bird is hard at work putting together her next show garden which like the others will have an edible theme. Thank goodness all of them will be in a tent, seeing some more miserable weather is forecast for the next couple of days!

Currently I'm not sure if I'll be at the show owing to family commitments. However, Ann Somerset Miles will be blogging live from the event (probably in her many blogging guises!) and Mark Diacono is firmly part of the weekend's programme. With Deb in attendance too (do go and say hello!), it looks like there's plenty of opportunity for an informal get together over the weekend. I'll round up any posts I find afterwards, and fingers crossed I get to see you there.

Do let me know if you're going (and the day) and I'll put up a list below, so you can keep an eye out for each other...

Update - here's the posts I've found so far:
Ann Somerset Miles with her Dobies hat on ;)
Patient Gardener
The Inelegant Gardener

PlantPassion was also there (no blog post as yet) and several from UK Veg Gardeners.

Wordless Wednesday: Saturday's Alarm Clock

Try here if the embedded video doesn't work

Wordless Wednesday: Pussy Willow

A Quick Walk and Some Snippets About May :)

Life has been very hectic lately with trips up to Birmingham on various family errands, so it was lovely on Monday to stop off at Malvern on the way home to catch up with what's happening with the preparations for the Spring Show.

I was a bit too early for my appointment, so an added bonus was parking the car close to Helen's and taking a quick walk at the foot of the Malverns on the common land near her house. As you can see it was a glorious spring day and a real tonic after a stressful morning.

It was great to see Vicky, Nina and Sharon again and to find out what's in store for us in May. There's eleven showgardens entered for the Chris Beardshaw Scholarship which is significantly up on last year's numbers. I'm hoping some of them will feature in guest posts here at Meet @ Malvern once the build gets underway on the 18th April. This year's theme is Atom, so there's lots of scope for interesting features and focal points in the designs.

Last year's Biodiversity theme continues in the Garden in Harmony theatre where James will again be master of all he surveys. Previous CBS winner Paul Hervey-Brookes has designed the stage area plus two satellite gardens. See my Green Shoots post for more details on this year's programme of events.

The theatre will be further from the coffee/catering area this year so we need to think where it'll be best for us to meet up at the show, especially as we won't have our Bloggers' meeting area this time. We do have the option of using the large flags to create a meet-up point though, so your thoughts on where these might go if we use them are welcome.

A new feature for this year's show is a book slot, with various garden authors appearing on each day to talk about their books and to sign copies. I'm pleased to see that quite a few of last year's Meet will feature prominently: Mark with his Taste of the Unexpected; Lia's lovely Twilight Garden and Anne Wareham with her hot off the press The Bad Tempered Gardener. I'll tell you more when I have the full list of authors and appearance dates.

It looks like it's going to be a great show!

Practice Sessions

Fearful we might have lost the knack of having a good time at Malvern, we've had a couple of practice sessions this week to ensure our meeting muscles are kept in good trim. First up was the RHS London Design Show. Arabella, Lazy Trollop and Victoria have already covered what happened in great detail: I'll only add why were the major design elements of the show shoved to the back of the Lindley Hall?

Not only were there a couple of middling roof garden designs; there was a good programme of talks (luckily GirlAboutGarden was there to thoroughly cover the one given by Diarmuid Gavin), advice from top designers including megaguru John Brookes; plus displays from the Society of Garden Design and a sneak preview of some of the major show gardens at Chelsea this year.

As you can see I also ensured my buying muscles were in good form too. I lost my heart to this Hellebore 'Winter Moonbeam', not only for its very large and prolific upward facing flowers, but also for its marbled foliage. I bought 2, which are due to go into a couple of very large pots either side of the steps leading down to the shed :)

Yesterday Helen and I braved the gloomy drizzly weather to meet at the home of John Sales (former Gardens Advisor to the National Trust) for our first taste of a Women's Farm and Garden Association event. 16 of us came together to admire John's collection of 250 cultivars in his Cotswold garden. I was particularly keen to go as I avidly followed his paper trail in the National Trust archives for a couple of years when I volunteered at their HQ.

The paper impression I'd formed was a man of succinct and straightforward, no nonsense advice. However, this didn't reveal the twinkly sense of humour and hospitality we were treated to. His position as NT advisor and later consultancy work meant he's been able to indulge a passion for collecting snowdrops. Not only that he freely lets them hybridise to see if anything interesting results. If they do, they're also planted out and named after his grandchildren or given names such as 'January Sales' (because of its early flowering habit) or 'Compu Ted' (after a relative who's rather keen on computing).

Much of the collection is contained in an ancient ditch bordering the garden and here the snowdrops were on display to their best advantage: massed plantings reaching above eye level. For me it was good to see the differences between a G. plicatus cultivar (very broad leaves, usually grey-green in colour), G. elwesii (very large flowers), G. woronowii (very broad, bright green leaves) and my more familiar G. nivalis ones. We were surprised at how tall some of the latter ones were: this is because snowdrops tend to get taller with age.

The rarer snowdrops were to be found in the main garden, some in a 'bed of treasures'. Here it was easy to pick out the individual characters of some of the more precious cultivars and to compare the striking yellow ones which (shhhhh!) to my eye looked a bit sickly compared to their green counterparts. I was also able to see what my freebie G. 'Augustus' - garnered on Tuesday with my Hellebore purchase - will look like when they eventually flower. This is a plicatus cultivar which is fairly short and bulks up well. I'm glad I saw in situ it because I've now had a rethink on where I'm going to put it in the garden.

Helen and I giggled over whether our posts will look similar as we were taking pictures of the same views of the garden, so I'll leave it up to her to give you the main tour. It's safe to say that our long chat in the pub afterwards, plus the one everyone had in London on Tuesday, show we're beautifully in trim for our get together in Malvern in May :)

Our get togethers this week mean I've also had the chance to update the Attendees Page. Do I have the correct information for you?

A Curiosity for you to check-out

As I have mentioned in a previous post Malvern has quite a few historical connections but it also has another claim to fame - well maybe not so much a claim to fame but it is in the Guinness Book of Records. The photo above gives a clue to its claim to fame - can you guess?

No its nothing to do with the double yellow lines though they do seem to dominate the photo above.


Its the Theatre of Small Convenience The theatre was created in an old public convenience in 1999 and regularly puts on various performances. Do look at the link to see some photos of the interior. In 2002 it won its place in the Guinness Book of Records - see below

I'm not sure if they will be having any performances on while the Spring Show is on but its well worth checking out just as an oddity - you may even pass it on your way from the car park to ASK is you are joining us for the meal on Saturday night.

Great Malvern - some historic connections and heritage

I thought it might be nice for those planning to come to the Malvern Spring Show to show you something of Great Malvern. I moved here in 2000 with my two boys, following my parents who had retired to the area about 8 years previously. I have grown to love the area and feel that Malvern is more my home now than Berkshire where I grew up. Malvern is actually broken into 3 areas: Great Malvern, Malvern Link and Barnards Green. Great Malvern was very popular with the Victorians who came to take the spa waters driving from one of the many natural springs across the hills.


Above is the well in the middle of Great Malvern. To be honest I hadn't really noticed the design of the well until I saw the photos my eldest took for me. There is a tradition around the Malvern Hills of well dressing. I seem to remember it happening around May time last year but I'm not sure it will coincide with your visit but if you are interested you can find out more via this site .

For those of you wanting to know more about Malvern you can visit the Malvern Museum which is pictured above. On looking at their website I was interested to note that they are running a series of events this year to mark the 100th death of Florence Nightingale who frequently visited the spa for her health.

Just by the museum is Great Malvern Priory. Originally started around 1085 - yes thats 1085! It was extended in the late 15th century. During the reign of Henry VIII the priory was saved from being destroyed by the villagers who petitioned the king to let them buy the building for £20. Further work was done in the 19th century including the building of the north porch. If you wander around the graveyard and look very carefully you will find the grave of Charles Darwin's daughter, Anne, who he had bought to the town to take the waters.

So that's a brief tour of the highlights of Great Malvern. The other thing you need to know if that it is on a hill so you need to be prepared for the slopes. I tend to plan a route for my shopping that only involves me going up hill once on the route!!

I should say that as well as some lovely old buildings, Great Malvern has a range of small eateries and cafes, numerous shops from large supermarkets to small boutiques, an excellent theatre which often has pre-West End shows and a very friendly feeling about it. I do hope that you will get a chance to visit the town as part of your visit.

A day away from the show?

I thought it might be nice to show visitors to the Malvern Show some of the gardens in the area that you might like to incorporate into your visit. We have already told you about Hampton Court and you can also read a post I did back in 2008 on Hampton Court here.

Another garden that is well worth a visit and is not far from Hampton Court is Stockton Bury Gardens. I discovered this garden last August so I can't vouch for how it would look in May. However there is an Iris bed so there should definitely be something to see. Stockton is more of a personal garden than Hampton and makes quite a nice contrast. It is a real plantsman's garden with lots and lots of unusual plants. As you can see from the photos above there is a lot of perennial planting and also a lovely pond and stream.

As we are going to be welcoming Gail and Frances from the US I have suggested to them that they might like to spend a day visiting some gardens and I think Hampton Court and Stockton Bury would be the best combo for a day out. It will also give me a chance to show them some English countryside and maybe a stop in Bromyard or Leominster - both traditional market towns. You are more than welcome to join us - maybe we could have a blogging convoy!!!

Malvern Memories: On the Road Again

This time, Anna shows us the delights of Hampton Court, somewhere not far from Malvern which is older than the place of the same name in London. I had the pleasure of meeting up with Helen and going round this garden with her in August last year :)


Leaving the occupants of the greenhouse to entertain themselves for a couple of days, we have just been to the Malvern Spring Gardening Show. We broke our journey down south with a stop at Hampton Court Castle in Herefordshire . I could not wait to return to the gardens there after making my first visit there last summer. It was an ideal chance to call in again and I was not disappointed. Stepping into the walled garden we both commented on the rise in temperature - oh what would I give for a walled garden ! If we ever win the lottery jackpot a walled garden would be top of my list, followed by clean sheets every day of the year. Although it is still early in the season there was still plenty of colour. We met one of the gardeners who was cutting flowers for the house as the owners were visiting for the weekend. She had plenty to choose from including alliums, tulips, valerian, lilacs, euphorbias, both real and false 'Solomon's Seal' and tellima odorata - she highly recommended the latter for its scent.

Another week or so would have seen the wisteria arch at its peak ~

Instead I drooled over the one or two flower heads that had fully opened ~

There was not much planted yet in the vegetable garden but preparations for the new season were well underway. I admired these sweet pea supports where sweet pea 'Matucana' had been planted ~

Lusted after the greenhouses ~

before finishing our stroll with a visit to the restaurant ~

where it was warm enough to sit outside to eat - enjoying the views down to the river and the clouds of orange blossom ~

All too soon it was time to return to the camper van to continue with our journey to Malvern and the show. To be continued in my next post .......

Contents and photographs courtesy of Greentapestry.

Malvern Memories: The Other Malvern Spring Show

Staying with the theme of exploring outside of the Showground, Happy Mouffetard takes us back to the splendours of the Malvern Hills which can be seen in springtime...

What a weekend. I'll write lots on the Malvern spring garden show tomorrow when I'm back home, including which garden designer was upstaged by an egg-laying chicken [don't worry it'll get featured later on - Ed]. However, just in case anyone is thinking of going to the Malvern Show tomorrow [or even this year] and wants to round off a great day out with something even more spectacular, I'd recommend a trip to Cowleigh Woods in West Malvern.

And here's why...







And then we had a quick trip to Welland Village Hall, where there are these beautiful green-winged orchids.



Stunning!

Contents and photographs courtesy (and copyright) of The Inelegant Gardener.

My Malvern: Patient Gardener

In the first of our forays outside the Three Counties Showground, Helen tells us a little bit about The Malverns...



Everyone knows that Malvern is by the Malvern Hills but how many visitors to the Spring Show actually take time to do more than admire them from the showground?

The Malverns are a gentle range stretching from North Malvern to Eastnor where they are surmounted by the Obelisk. The Malvern Hills are designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) primarily because of their geology. It is also part of the Abberley and Malvern Hills Geopark, one of 7 in the UK and 50 worldwide. You can find out more information on the area's geology, archaeology, industrial and cultural heritage and ecology via this link

The beauty of the Malvern Hills, to me, is their accessibility. I’m definitely not an enthusiastic walker and certainly not a hill climber but you don’t need to be when considering tackling the Malvern Hills. The Malvern to Ledbury road runs all the side of the hills, crossing over the top at British Camp where one of the biggest car parks is located. On the other side of the hills you can access various car parks from points along Jubilee Drive. You can access a map of the Hills via this link.


The walk to the top of British Camp is very popular with visitors. British Camp is a complex of earthworks built during the Iron Age. However, my favourite walk is from the Earnsilaw Quarry car park which is located on off The Wyche (road between Malvern and Colwall). I like this walk due to the range of trees and woodland in the lower parks, there is also a beautiful quarry which is now full of water and quite eerie at times. You can see more information via this post on my blog.

So if you are visiting the Malvern Spring Show and particularly if you are staying overnight why not build in some time to explore these beautiful hills.