Broken Traditions

We didn't make it to the first RHS plant show of the year which was held last weekend. The second tradition we have broken since we have started this blog. The first one was a yearly spring trip to Cornwall which we didn't do last year and looks like it'll be the case again this year.

RHS Plant and Design Show 2014

Which makes me wonder now, will there be a third tradition that we'll break in the near future? And if so what would it be?

On traditional I don't think we will break will the the annual pruning of the large old sycamore tree at the bottom end of the garden. However I suspect that traditional may in part exist as it gives Gaz a chance to play with various boys toys or garden tools to you and I

Breaking traditions are not always a bad thing. In fact it could be the other way around and be a good thing, breaking monotony and introducing new things into ones system.

Cornwall, when will we see you again?

Going back to the tradition we have just broken, for years that plant show was dubbed as 'RHS London Plant and Design Show'. This year it has become 'RHS London Plant and Potato Fair'. I'm not sure what was the trigger for the change of title apart from the obvious which is the increasing popularity of 'grow you own produce' over or at least equal to ornamental gardening.

The change of the title and focus of the show however had no bearing to our non attendance this year. It was simply because of work which is extra demanding at the moment. We're both managers in our careers which makes taking time off extra tricky. Even when going on holiday. Ironically though we have both gained extra paid days off this year. But time off not taken this time is time off that can be taken later on. So our minds are hovering already on what other new things we can try this year.

Happy memories - our Cottesbrooke plant haul in 2011

and in 2012

Perhaps the Great Dixter Spring Plant Fair, or perhaps the Wisley one. They are both on the same weekend hence it will have to be one over the other. And for the first time Kew Gardens will have a plant fair as they take on the Plant Finders Fair which used to be held at Cottesbrooke for years before moving to Borde Hill last year then to Kew this year. Will it stay in Kew this time and become a tradition there? Who knows, we'll all have to wait and see (personally even this early I'd rather it go back to Cottesbrooke, it was perfect there).

Which reminds me, there is a third tradition (or is that the first?) that we have broken already, and that is going to Kew Gardens on a regular basis. We haven't been for over a year! So if we go to the fair on the last weekend of April we'll be sort of unbreaking a tradition. Or is that we'll be starting a new one?

Time to see Kew again?

It's getting a bit confusing now! Whether breaking old or making new traditions, isn't it nice to know that it simply means there lots of options out there? That choices are there for the picking. And that's a fabulous privilege!

Mark :-)

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Call of the Familiar

As I sat yesterday trying to think of things to possibly see and do for the coming new year I also found myself making a list of things and places to best perhaps steer clear of temporarily, just to inject some variety on our visiting repertoire.

Three places stood out for us, namely Madeira, Kew Gardens, and Cornwall.

Madeira

Nothing wrong with these places, in fact we love them to bits! It's just that we have visited them far too many times already and although each visit is enjoyable, it does make you wonder too if we've just let ourselves get stuck in some sort of routine.

Variety is the spice of life as they say and new experiences keeps ones interest refreshed and on going. And if you only have a limited amount of days off from work in a year there is this little pressure from within to try and include as many new things within this finite amount of free time.

Kew

So no visits to Madeira for quite some time? Perhaps bypass visiting Kew Gardens all of next year? And maybe break tradition and skip a spring week in Cornwall next year? There are so many other places and people to visit out there, so many things to see...

But there is also the call of the familiar. If you enjoy a place so much then what's wrong with visiting it over and over again? And isn't it nice that when you go to a place you know it so well than you don't have to adjust to your surroundings anymore? That you can just immediately settle in and not think anymore, but just feel it, straight away.

Cornwall

Heed the beckoning of the new or the call of the familiar? Sleep over it and let the universe answer the question for later on.

And I got some answers this morning, looks like it's going to be a 'meet halfway' thing. Despite initial hesitations due to our previous repeated visits, the feeling seems just right now to just give in and....what the heck, visit it again for the nth time soon. And one we'll be visiting again very soon as it's near a nursery that has a post Christmas sale ongoing.

Looks like only one will get the chop for a visit next year. But what about all those wonderful nurseries there, in a year when we need to stock up on plants again?

Ahh C'est La Vie! But what about you, would you prefer to keep coming back to the same place you are familiar with, or would you rather visit somewhere new each time? Or have you found a middle ground between the two?

Mark :-)

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Encore! Encore!

Time flies so quick when you're having fun. And certainly that was the case with our week long stay in Cornwall.

Scilla peruviana

Come Friday afternoon of that week it was time to go home. But to end the holiday in a falsetto high we did a flying visit to one of our favourite places in Cornwall (for me personally, the world), the Minack Theatre.

We featured this dramatic place before, and certainly will do so many times more in the future for we absolutely love this place. Encore! Encore!

A lovely place to sit just just before you enter the theatre itself

Gorgeous backdrop, a place oozing with character and artistic flair, stunning views and scenery from almost every angle seen from within, and for plant lovers a beautiful garden that complements the place well, what's not to love about it? Okay, perhaps not the exposure during windy days but as long as you keep an eye on the weather forecast and wrap up accordingly before visiting then you should be fine.

The beautiful views out into the sea immediately hits you as you enter the theatre

And the descent to the stage begins

And fortunately that afternoon the weather remained on the relatively pleasant side. Largely overcast yes but was still bright enough and more importantly dry to make our short visit this year pleasant and comfortable.

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Technicolour Trewidden!

Colour and warmth it was on our last day in Cornwall! It may not be from the weather but it certainly came from our visit to Trewidden Nursery last Friday!

The beautiful restio Cannomois grandis

For most of our stay in Cornwall the weather was brilliant, really sunny and somehow warm, just about right to feel comfortable walking around places in a t-shirt. But by Wednesday the rains had arrived and it was pretty much consistently drizzly all day on Thursday. Come Friday morning the rains have ceased and it was actually sunny for most of the day which was great! An unexpected bonus on our last day of stay in Cornwall.

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Cornwall Day Six

A Day late, but that's because we opted to travel home last night rather than this morning. We often leave Cornwall on the last evening of our holiday rather than the following morning as the roads are so much quieter, allowing us to save a lot of time on the 5 hour journey (plus breaks).

So on day six, we started off with a couple of quick trips to nurseries near to where we were staying, firstly to collect our plants from Hayle Plants, and then pick up a couple we had not decided on at the time at Hardy Exotics before heading to Trewidden Nursery. As you may recall Trewidden won Gold last year at Chelsea and are well known for interesting and unusual succulents, Restios and proteas in particular as well as having a range of other plants too.

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Cornwall Day Five

Well after several nice days the weather did finally break and it rained and rained and rained today! But Cornwall being such a beautiful county the weather did not dampen our spirits.

We started off with a second visit to Lower Kenneggy Nurseries where we selected a number of succulents and a Fatsia polycarpa for our friends Gary and Nat who had been after one. Steve only had three left so this was a bit of a result to get one.

From Lower Kenneggy we called in to Constantine Nursery which usually have a wide range of interesting herbaceous plants, we only bought one plant - a Beesia calthifolia before heading on to Burncoose Nursery.

Constantine

Burncoose: A photo from a prior visit as we forgot to take any today

We only had a short amount of time at Burncoose as we were meeting up with friends to visit a fabulous private garden. As it is a private garden the owners have asked us to keep the many photos we took to ourselves, so you will have to take my word for the quality of this garden, with fantastic examples of many rare and unusual shrubs and trees.

Gaz

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Cornwall Day Four

After the lovely weather the last few days it was almost a surprise to wake up to some drizzle today. Almost but not quite as the weather forecast had predicted it. We had arranged to meet up with plant friends Chad and John at Pinetum Park and Pine Lodge Gardens in St Austell. This is a garden we have visited before but not for a few years, and since our last visit the garden has new owners who have been renovating an restoring the gardens. This has involved the removal of a number of mature trees and shrubs to open up the garden and provide more light to the ground.

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Cornwall Day Three

Day Three on our holiday, doesn't time start to fly by when you are away!

It was another mix of gardens and nurseries today starting out at Lower Kenneggy Nurseries. (see here for our visit last year) and then onto Trevena Cross nursery which is fairly close by.

Both have a reputation for having a great selection of exotic, unusual or rare plants, in particularly Lower Kenneggy where much is propagated on site by Steve Mules.

Lower Kenneggy

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Cornwall Day Two

Following fast on the heels of day one, comes Cornwall Day 2, actually posted on the day this time!

After a traditional full English cooked breakfast (well you have to spoil yourself on holiday!) we headed over to Hayle Plants. Another visit to a nursery we have blogged about in the past which has now fully settled into its new site just outside Hayle. Jane accompanied by her faithful dog, Rooney gave us the guided tour of the various glasshouses, and we were tempted by any number of interesting and unusual succulents, ferns, arids and others. We chose a fairly modest selection of plants, although intend to pop back anther day and choose a few more.

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Cornwall Day One

We have blogged about Cornwall frequently in the past, we visit this county at least once a year, usually in May, but this year we thought we would try and do something a little different and blog as we go.

Saturday was our travel day, calling in at Desert to Jungle near Taunton and then our good friends Lucien and Laura in Devon, although on this occasion Lucien was otherwise engaged. Finally arriving at our destination on the Saturday evening.

So Sunday was our first day ‘proper’ in Cornwall. First up was a nursery visit, calling in to see Hardy Exotics. We have blogged about this nursery previously and as always there were several interesting plants to come away with. After reminiscing with the owners Clive and Julie, and all agreeing that it did not seem like a year since we last visited, we chose a small selection of unusual woodland plants and also a Mahonia confusa and Lindera megaphylla. 

Close to Hardy Exotics is Tremenheere Sculpture Garden, which has a number of exotic plants thriving in its protected location. Tremenheere is still very much a garden in development lacking maturity in places. However there are a number gems to entice us. Since we last visited a fantastic new reception, café and gallery building has been added. 

Finally we headed on to Trengwainton a traditional Cornish Garden now managed by the National Trust, we had blogged about this garden previously but as it’s such a lovely garden we wanted to revisit.

As well as having lovely mature trees, and shrubs, Trengwainton has a number of modern introductions such as this magnificent Schefflera taiwaniana.

At the end of a fantastic day visiting gardens and nurseries, what better end to the day than a walk along a near-deserted beach.

For various gardens or other places featured this week we will come back to many of them over the coming month and provide a more in depth blog post about them.

Hope you enjoyed our first day... (sorry its a day late after all we are on holiday!!)

Gaz

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Cornish Pick and Mix

Sometimes I find myself taking only one or few photos of a place or subject. Not that they weren't of any interest whatsoever but more often I get caught up in a flurry of other thoughts and activities at that time that I forget to take any more than just a few snaps. These few photos are good enough to share but not plenty enough to make a stand alone blog post about them. 

Sort of a photo 'pick and mix', an odd selection of different things but good enough to combine with each other. And whilst browsing through the photos we took whilst in Cornwall May of last year I found several of these 'odd and few' photos and I'm combining then in just one post. A Cornish Pick and Mix I'll call them....

Some newly delivered Trachycarpus fortunei palms that we spotted at Trevena Cross Nursery, waiting to be potted on or perhaps delivered on to their clients. Quite interesting and fascinating to see them bound and lined up this way. Mind you I do like the colour of that wall!

A line up, now which one of them is the odd one??

The fernery section at Trevena Cross Nursery. I do love this bit, they usually have so many rare and unusual tree ferns to choose, and of different sizes too. When Cornwall was also hit by the nasty winter 2010-11 winter this nursery was not spared and they suffered extensive losses and damages to their stock, including their ferns. Some of the rarer and unusual ferns that they used to have were either killed or severely damaged and for awhile their stocks were limited to either hardy ground ferns of the more common Dicksonia antarctica. This year though it looked like they have started to regain their previous stocking level and variety.

Burncoose Nursery, one of my favourite Cornish nurseries and always worth a long browse for they have so many treasures all over their huge site. 

One of the retail polytunnels at Burncoose. Seems to go on forever doesn't it? Make sure you browse well and carefully, you might miss out on a gem amongst the crowd!

Cornwall, such a beautiful part of the world! Sometimes it's best to just ignore the map and drive randomly and aimlessly, you're bound to see pretty things along the way...

They say Cornwall can get heaving with people during the main tourist season but time your visit well and you may find an entire stretch of beach all to yourself (almost anyway), bliss!

Mark :-)

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