 Over the last four weeks, my annual enjoyment of daffodils has almost become an obsession. We are experiencing the first spring in our new home and I have being watching with anticipation (and some impatience) to see what, if any, spring bulbs we have inherited. I am delighted that my assumption that it would be the usual and very familiar varieties we see everyday was completely wrong. We have at least seven different varieties around the garden and hence my new obsession in the Narcissus family, as I strive to identify which varieties and cultivars I now proudly own. At the same time, I am also making notes on which appear to be growing the best or need moving and sticking a pea stick in any clumps which haven't flowered. These ones, I will dig up once the foliage has died, as I suspect they have become over-crowded as the bulbs have multiplied over the years. I will keep and replant the healthiest bulbs 5-7cm apart. All bulbs will benefit from a general feed such as Growmore as they finish flowering and I will add some to the soil when re-planting as well. Spring bulbs, such as narcissus, are an incredibly easy low-maintenance way of adding colour to your garden with some varieties flowering as early as January and February and others as late as April. You can buy pots of narcissus from your garden centre now, but this is a very expensive way to buy them. It's much cheaper to buy them as bulbs, so make a note on your calendar at the beginning of October to remind yourself. There are many different varieties in all shades and combinations of yellow and white and even some with orange or peach trumpets. The height and size of flowers also vary so you can choose those which best suit you and your garden. There are excellent specialist nurseries and suppliers on-line offering a much wider choice than you will find in the big chain garden centres or supermarkets. I would definitely recommend that you drool over the offerings of Chelsea gold winner Avon Bulbs and Croft16 Daffodils who hold the national collection. How have I got on naming ours? Well, it's slow work but I think two may be 'Biggar Bountiful' and the honey-scented 'Magnificence. We might also have one of the oldest varieties available 'Telemonius Plenus', which also carries the uncomplimentary name 'Guernsey Cabbage' - although to be honest it has more character than looks. There are so many varieties and the differences can be subtle so I am hoping the experts at the UK Daffodil Society will help me with the rest. Maybe you have a favourite variety you would like to share?
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 Won’t you come into my garden? Richard Sheridan used the excuse that he would like his roses to see the young lady in question, maybe not a chat up line that would work today. However there are many reasons other than romance to enter into the world of gardens and gardening.
Horticultural therapy is now a recognised field and profession and uses plants, gardening activities and the garden environment to promote well-being and improve mental and physical health. We may know someone who benefits from such treatments and happily support it's growing (pardon the pun) use across the NHS. But do we think about how it could help us live a healthier, happier life? I have yet to meet many people who include 'must do more weeding' or 'visit more gardens' as part of their list of New Year resolutions. There are obvious benefits from any hobby which involves exercise and fresh air and maintaining a beautiful garden or productive allotment can provide plenty of both. But there are also measurable health benefits from just looking at a garden, a strong argument for creating a beautiful garden and the perfect excuse for a lazy summer afternoon in the deckchair. Just a few minutes looking at a view of trees, water or flowers can reduce stress and anxiety and induce relaxation. These are not just self-reported feelings but real, measurable improvements in blood pressure, muscle tension and brain and heart activity. So maybe this year instead of New Year diets and gym passes we should simply decide to make the most of our gardens and if we haven't got one of our own at home prescribe ourselves a visit to a nearby park or garden and simply enjoy the view, increase our daily step count and unwind.......
 On the 18th and 19th July, the Jewellery Quarter will be holding its first JQ Festival to celebrate the opening of Golden Square. As part of the Festival there will be an Open Studio Trail, where visitors can visit all sorts of craftmakers, designers, jewellers and architects to see them at work and ask for advice and tips of the trade. I work from home and so opening up to the public was not a practical option but towards the end of May the idea of a pop-up garden was mooted. By early June the Open Studios organiser had found me a courtyard tucked away behind a black door on Pitsford Street and I was part of the Open Studio Trail.  I was delighted to get the support and sponsorship of two dealers in reclaimed and vintage - Moseley Gifts and Gardens and The Barn at Studley. Both are a treasure trove of items from tin baths, furniture, chimney pots and much more. The ideal source of items to match my theme. I was really pleased to find these ladders which make a colourful and quirky alternative to trellis reflecting the industrial setting of the garden, the primary colours provide a cheerful contrast against a white painted wall. Having only containers and pots for your plants can seem restrictive and yes some plants sulk in pots and they all need more love and attention as they relay on you for food and water. But you can have lots of fun using whatever you can find from old tin cans to boots and unlike the garden-bound gardener you can create the ideal conditions for the plants you like in their very own pot, sitting drought lovers and water-babies side by side. The JQ is full of beautiful buildings being renovated and repurposed creating a vibrant, eclectic eco-chic community and it's time to do the the same with our outside spaces too. It's been a mad few days getting ready but we have finally finished setting up and I can relax at least for a little while. The moment of truth will be seeing the reaction of visitors tomorrow to our newly-loved outside space...  The JQ is full of tiny courtyards, roof spaces and balconies; most of which are unused and unloved and many residents are renting and so unable or reluctant to invest in longer-term roots : ) With little money to play with, the idea of recycling, up-cycling and reclaiming objects to create a garden seemed like the perfect solution and so 'The Room Outside' began to develop as an idea. Hopefully showing how we can all make the most of these secret spaces and create our own personalised urban oasis. Old furniture and household items are re-purposed and filled with living colour and everything in the pop-up garden can be taken away when the owner moves on.
 The surrounding walls of the garden are interspersed with eccentric, brick follies providing miniature towers, turrets and shady garden rooms, all in soft old brick with silvered timbers. If only we all had such fairy-tale buildings to weave into our gardens.....Wisteria and roses hug the walls and the planting seems inseparable from the built structures enhancing the feeling of a secret garden lost in time.  We took advantage of the gorgeous weather recently to make a trip out to some nearby nurseries. All with the excuse of market research of course : ) Stone House Cottage Garden has been on my list to visit for some time and I am really glad we made the effort to get there. Just outside Kidderminster, it sits in the tiny village of Stone on the A448. The garden has been created inside a one acre walled kitchen garden and is one of the most eccentric and romantic gardens I have visited. The style is very much English Romantic and includes the classic yew hedges, abundant herbaceous borders and garden rooms. But far from been a cliché it has a very personal touch and feels like the private garden of a passionate plantaholic. It has distinct areas and the use of hedges to create separate rooms and passage ways makes it feel larger. The wandering visitor is presented with tempting glimpses and vistas leading you one way and then another - one of my favourite design techniques.  The entrance into the Garden is through one such folly and leads you into an open grassy area and the visitors first choice of route. To your left there are some excellent specimen trees including two of my favourites magnolia and the less common but stunning Cornus kousa. The latter is a small, bushy tree (8m when fully mature) and follows these graceful flowers with strawberry-pink fruits and purple-red autumn colours. In fact the 'flowers' we all admire are actually modified leaves called bracts and these surround the actual flowers, which are white and tiny. It can be slow to establish and you may have to wait a few years for it to start flowering but in my opinion worth the wait. Alternatively straight ahead takes you along a refreshing vista of green and white, walking along a wide mown path flanked on our visit by swathes of ox-eye daisies. Many of the garden rooms are colourful and the owner obviously has a favourite palette of pinks and purples. I would have liked to have seen a greater variety or contrast in colours between one area and the next but then one of the charms of this garden is that it feels so personal and loved- not a conceit created with the sole aim of impressing visitors.
Next door to the garden is a small nursery where you can buy many of the plants you have been admiring in the garden, some of which are the rarer and more special varieties that you just don't see in the larger, everyday garden centre. Well worth a visit to get ideas on how to create mystery and surprise in a garden and for some beautiful plant combinations - particularly the good use of contrasting shapes and colours in foliage. Its not a nursery to visit for your standard everyday bedding or plants but a good source of the more unusual varieties of perennials and shrubs. Its not the smartest or tidiest of nurseries but for some of us that's part of the charm and the plants themselves look in robust condition. They do not offer mail order but you can view their plant lists online or order a catalogue.  In mid-May, I spent an enjoyable day visiting the Dorothy Clive Garden in Wiloughbridge, Staffordshire. Set on a hillside the 12 acres of garden are well worth a visit and will provide a leisurely work-out as you meander up and down the hillside exploring the pathways. Run by a charitable trust the gardens aims are to maintain and develop the gardens in the memory of the late Dorothy Clive and to promote horticultural education. The original gardens were developed by Dorothy's husband to provide her with somewhere interesting and beautiful to walk: walking and exercise were the 1940s prescription for Parkinson sufferers.
There are many more areas to explore including a waterfall, pool, gravel garden and two new developments include an edible forest garden and winter garden. Anyone fancy Shuttlecock fern shoots and Dahlia tuber mash for supper? Both areas are on my list for a re-visit later in the year. Although the garden is large, it has lots of smaller areas and is full of ideas to take home. It shows just how important it is to create surprise and a sense of journey within a garden - whatever the size. Meandering paths and strategic placing of shrubs leads you on to explore and prevents you seeing everything in one quick glance. A lot of the paths are generous, wide swathes of grass - we often forget that grass can be used this way and doesn't always have to be the traditional lawn. The final praise must go to the tea room which serves scones to die for- freshly baked and delicious. This has to be the perfect destination for National Cream Tea Day (yes there really is one) on the 26th June- yum yum.... http://dorothyclivegarden.co.uk/  The highlights in spring include an amazing array of rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias in every colour available. They all sit within the woodland garden, created within an old quarry and with its own gentle micro-climate thanks to the canopy of mature trees. These shrubs are not my favourites for small domestic gardens, as to me they seem dull and 'heavy' for the majority of the year but even I had to admit that the blaze of colour was fabulous. They really come into their own in a large garden and the woodland setting provides them with the perfect backdrop. I did fall in love with this delicious Magnolia 'Lemon Drop'.  We were given an excellent guided tour of the garden highlights by knowledgeable gardener Zdenek Valkoun-Walker, who also looks after the bee hives in the gardens orchard. Zdenek is in charge of the beautiful seasonal borders and garden areas which tumble down the hillside. Although the tulips were beginning to turn they still provided a colourful display hovering above a forget-me-not sea. This type of bedding scheme would be very labour intensive at home but incorporating some later flowering perennials to take over after the spring flowers have finished would prolong the display. Forget-me-nots will seed quite happily everywhere, so make sure you really do like them before you bring them into your garden.
Another seasonal highlight is the Laburnum Arch, which was just starting to come into flower when we visited. This is a great way to grow this cheerful tree and it will provide you with a stunning display each spring. The seed pods are poisonous but then so are many other plants so don't cross it off your plant list too hastily. The arch is underplanted with box balls which create a sense of rhythm and draw the eye along the path. Intermingled are alliums, about to burst into flower and contrast beautifully with the sunshine yellow of the Laburnums. On our visit there were just hints of yellow and the arch created a cool, green retreat on a very sunny day. In my October 2014 blog I talked about a design I had done for a client with a small enclosed garden. Last week I was invited back to see how it was progressing and spent a lovely afternoon chatting with Val, the owner, drinking tea and soaking up some sunshine. It really makes my job worthwhile to visit a client and see them enjoying their new garden. The garden was only planted last summer but is already beginning to fill out and mature. The climbers are doing very well and beginning to create the desired sense of enclosure around the bench. Last October the water feature felt very prominent and exposed but this summer is surrounded by a climbing rose, just as we wanted.
A number of garden used floating surfaces- both Alan Gardener and Matthew Wilson had floating decks and Tatyana Shynkarenko's Thinking of Peace garden appeared to be floating on water. This is something which can be replicated at home and shows us again that changes in level, pre-existing or created, add interest to any garden or outside space. One of my favourite gardens was Marcus Barnett's Mondrian inspired design, with its simple blocks of colour and texture. I also like the effect of the industrial tram lines in the Rich' brothers garden, these created a sense of movement and strong lines we could all copy even if we can't stretch to a moving summerhouse. The planting within the tramlines also shows that applying a little thought allows even trafficked areas to be green - something we should all emulate when turning gardens into driveways and parking spaces. In contrast to gardens inspired by art and architectural movements, it was interesting to see those drawing on very personal stories and experiences from Charlie Albone's The Time Inbetween about the loss of his father to Kamelia Bin Zaal's Beauty of Islam. When designing gardens for clients, it is sometimes personal events or stories which can provide the inspiration - maybe certain plants remembered from childhood or a favourite place.  In terms of planting it was a pleasure to see greater variation both in terms of planting style and the plants themselves. Anthriscus sylvestris or Cow Parsley seems to have left centre stage having been almost compulsory at one time and although Lupins and Irises continue to prove popular with most designers, no single plant was dominating the show. There also seems to be a growing acceptance that naturalistic planting is aesthetically acceptable and worthy of display - although the Chelsea version of naturalistic is obviously staged and manicured . James Basson's Perfumers Garden aimed to show us all that imperfection and simplicity can be beautiful but then the attention to detail and design involved created a perfect interpretation of imperfection - maybe we should simply accept that as the Chelsea paradox. I'm not sure that this is something easily created and maintained at home, although I sometimes have 'perfect moments'' on my naturalistic allotment when the buttercups and strawberry flowers are beautifully intermingled, less-than-perfect moments are a more common experience : )  It's always interesting to see what themes emerge each year from the collective subconscious of Chelsea' designers. This year it was refreshing to see more variety across the main show gardens than we have had in the last year or so. Although there did seem to be a shared fondness for slate which was the dominant hard-landscaping material for several designers from Darren Hawkes 41,000 beautifully crafted slate pieces to the slabs and chippings used by Sean Murray, winner of the BBC Chelsea Challenge.  I wasn't able to go to Chelsea this year but when I have visited in the past, it is surprising how different gardens can appear in reality compared to viewing them on television. However I certainly didn't miss the crowds and if you haven't had chance to do Chelsea yet then its still available on iplayer. There are some excellent mini-tours of the main show gardens by Tony Buckland and Ann Marie Powell as part of the voting run-up to the People's Choice. I think I might just go and re-watch them now with a cup of tea...
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