Technical hitch

Guess who spilled tea into their laptop...?

Luckily, No. 1 son is a certified computer service technician-type thingy, so he's sorting it out. Hopefully I'll be up and running soon, if I haven't done some serious damage to it!

Another satisfied customer

Have spent most of this week working on a front garden and driveway project. We finished it off this morning, spreading an extra tonne of slate chips and potting up a couple of standard bay trees. Our client was delighted with the end result, which can be seen here.

We had some fun at the start of the project when we started the driveway. Along the same street a 'driveway specialist' was touting for business, and they had a few takers (it was a long street). Once they'd worked out what we were doing, (our client had turned their quote down), they wouldn't leave us alone – "how much you doing this for?", "where did you get your stone?", how long is it going to take?", "where are you from?" etc.

Eventually, once we'd batted off the Spanish Inquisition, they left us alone to get on with it. 

We had plenty of nice comments from passers-by: "yours is so much nicer than that lot down the road", "they are only taking 2 days to do a whole drive", "they aren't using much sub-base" and, scarily, "some of their drives slope towards the house!"

Don't get me wrong – I'm all for a bit of competition – but if it were me and I wanted my driveway replacing, I wouldn't go with the first bloke who turned up on my doorstep.

British Summer Time

It's official! The Summer is here. We've celebrated the day by wandering around the house shouting "have you changed this clock yet?", then finding out No. 2 son went and changed them all before we were awake, so we had to change half of them back again.

Anyway, just a brief veggy garden update. So far the only sign of any life in the first vegetable bed is some cabbage seedlings. Beds 2 and 3 will shortly be home to potatoes, onions, blackcurrants, redcurrants and a small peach tree which was given to us by our next door neighbour. If there's any room after that I've got some parsley somewhere, and a potted bay tree I can set out.

For the moment, however, Anna's at a new business meeting so I (Keith) have sneaked inside for a rest... don't tell the boss!

Gardener's Whirl

Here is the first of my articles for Village Life magazine. I'd welcome your comments:

Hi, my name is Anna and I run Lush Landscape and Garden Design – a local garden design business. Over the next few months I will be writing about gardens and gardening and I hope to inspire you to get outside and enjoy a successful and enjoyable gardening year.

In this series of articles I hope to cover all sorts of garden-related topics. But as March is the first “proper” gardening month of the year I will detail some of the pressing tasks needing attention in your own garden.

I’m not one for laying down rules and regulations, but the exception is my Golden Rule of Home Gardening: ‘if the mud sticks to your boots, go inside for a cuppa!’ You can do more damage than good by compacting your soil if it’s waterlogged.  If it is too wet use the time to get a plan together. A little forward planning will save you time, effort and disappointment later on, And once you’ve decided what you need to do, cleaned your tools and boots and checked the weather forecast, you’re officially ready for the 2009 Gardening Season.

There’s certainly lots to do – probably the first job is a good tidy up. Bush and shrub roses need pruning, as well as Cornus and other shrubs grown for their colourful winter stems. Cut back overgrown climbers like honeysuckle and winter jasmine. Remove the dead stems of last year’s flowering perennials and divide any that are starting to take over.  Flower beds need weeding (as ever), and once done you can sow hardy annuals like poppies, Cosmos and Limnanthes – the ‘poached egg’ plant. If your lawn is looking a bit threadbare now is the time to re-seed. And if your herbaceous perennials are growing fast, get some twiggy supports in to protect new growth against the wind.

But what about the kitchen garden?  If you’ve never grown your own, now is the ideal time to give it a try.  To be honest, my experience of growing produce is rather limited. Years ago we had an allotment which was so large and welcoming to local weeds that we gave it up after one season. We did manage to harvest a few potatoes, some rhubarb and a ridiculous quantity of butter-nut squash, but eventually we surrendered in the face of an overwhelming enemy. This year, however, we are prepared to give growing veggies another go.

So, armed with a trusty guidebook, we shall first prepare our seed beds (“ensuring the soil is not too dry nor too wet”), then begin sowing. We’re going to try parsnips (“notoriously erratic at germinating”), early potatoes, onion sets and hardy herbs like chives, coriander and parsley. I’ll keep you posted as to how it goes, and if we get anything resembling food as a result you’ll be the first to know.

If you have a little space for a few pots or a small veggie bed why not join us and share your experiences?

Fame awaits!

Exciting news - I am going to appear in print. Admittedly it isn't in the Sunday Times, but readers of Village Life magazine in and around NW Leicestershire and S Derbyshire will soon be able to read my purple prose once a month. But enough excitement for one day - I'm off to visit our accountant!

New Year, New Improved Website!

Happy New Year!

It's -2ºC outside as I write this. With everything looking grey and miserable in the garden there's no better time to dust off the old website and add pictures from last year's work to the gallery.

Looking through the selected highlights it brings home how quickly the seasons change. Some of the shots from February and March last year look grim and depressing, but as soon as some of the plants get going it lifts everything. Have a look through and let me know what you think.

We've also made two significant changes to the way we do business this year. Firstly we've decided to stop offering a hard landscaping service, opting instead to recommend trusted landscapers to our customers. This decision wasn't one we made lightly, but last year we found that we were turning down design projects because we couldn't fit them in. Hard landscaping and project management is particularly time consuming, especially if the weather is against you, which it was a couple of times last year (see pic above from last summer!). We felt that we'd be better off focussing more on the design work and leave the hard landscaping headaches to someone else!

The second change is really us building on what proved to be a successful service last year - the online design service. We are very happy with the service we've developed, and now seems like the perfect time to push it forward. We didn't advertise it at all last year, except on the website. This year we will be more proactive and put some weight behind it nationally. We've added a new section to the website specifically for the online design service, including sample plans from successful projects.

Local Food Grants

I was invited recently to a presentation at Woodcote Primary School in Ashby. The school has a gardening club and the teachers have applied for a National Lottery Grant, through the Local Food Grant scheme, to create a fully functioning kitchen garden.

The Local Food scheme is a £50 million programme aimed at supporting a variety of food-related projects which will help make locally grown food accessible to local communities.

The aim of the Woodcote scheme is two-fold: to get the children fully involved in all aspects of growing their own produce; and to sell the produce to parents and local residents.

I think this is a great idea, and I hope Woodcote are successful with their application.