Lyn and Malcolms Garden.

[Lyn and Malcolm]

It's been a while since I posted, I apologise for that.
We have had a busy few months with the garden and all our hundreds of sale plants I have lost count long ago how many plants I have potted or repotted. And then of course where do we store them all.
We are still getting some low night temperatures, last night +3.9c but all bar the most tender plants are now out in the Exotic Garden.
First visitors arrive on July 1st, a garden tour group of 32 from Sweden, taking in gardens such as Mottisfont, and our wee garden.
July 4th and it is a garden tour group from Leeds, round about 40 people, then on the 10th July we start our open days, so July is set to be a busy month.
Last Thursday Lyn decided to cut her hand, which I said would heal itself, but needed four stitches when we visited casualty the next day.
A couple of pictures of our patio taken this evening after having a nice dinner in the warm sun.






For anyone interested in Clematis, we have a page on our website devoted to pictures of the Clematis that have flowered so far this year, using new pictures taken as soon as the flowers opened, all arranged and listed in date order.  http://www.lynandmalc.co.uk/clematis_flowering_2011.htm

[Eric Hardy]

Everything looking lush and lovely, Lyn and Malcolm. What a lovely place to enjoy a dinner in the nice warm sun. What a schedule of visitors coming as far away as Sweden to see your garden. I truly admire all the hard work you both put in. What bad luck, Lyn cutting her hand, the last thing you need as a gardener  . Good luck with your busy season.

I will look at your Clematis pictures on your website when I have posted this

[Eric Hardy]

I have looked at your website. What a good idea to record them like that. I was amazed at the size of your collection. They are all so lovely and it I would be hard put to it to find a favourite. I did find Clematis viticella 'Pagoda' lovely and very unusual though.

[Lyn and Malcolm]

Thank you Eric, glad you liked the Clematis. Those pictures are only half the collection, another half yet to flower.

I don't know if you have seen our garden picture blog, have been doing it for over a year know, following the seasons.

The Picture Blog is here  http://www.lynandmalc.co.uk/garden%20blog%20may%202011.htm

[Eric Hardy]

I don't know if you have seen our garden picture blog, have been doing it for over a year know, following the seasons.

I am sorry to say that after all this time I have not really looked at your website in depth. Since getting up about an hour ago I have been exploring it  and have been so impressed at what I saw, including the photography of course. I even saw a very impressive close up of the moon which I imagine was taken with your bird photography equipment. The list of awards and publications is phenomenal. The picture blog is a great record and I will make a point of visiting it monthly. I have already bookmarked it. With your type of gardening, every plant needs love and nurture. Our gardening has been more just letting everything rip and trying to keep some semblance of control (which has got very difficult now we are old  ) Nowadays we do have to get help with hedges and heavy work while Benji, our grandson with Down's Syndrome, cuts our grass when he comes to see us. Most of our gardening is now done from gardening stools and even kneelers are getting a bit difficult  We still enjoy our garden though and try to keep cheerful 
Good luck with your beautiful garden, keep up the good work. It must be very rewarding to have so many appreciative visitors.
Eric

[roiphil]

looking very nice, hope all goes well with your visitors from sweden coming to see your tropical garden, have not looked at your website yet but i will do, and lyn i think this could be an excuse to sit down put your feet up and recover 
Phil

[NightHawk]

Welcome back to the Forum Lyn and Malcolm.

Sorry to hear about Lyn's mishap.  Pass on our best wishes to her for a speedy recovery.

Your gardens are looking great, as are your photos 

Hope everything goes well for your visitors.  If past events are anything to go by, you're in for some hectic times ahead.

Good luck with that.

Laurie.

[Lyn and Malcolm]

Eric
Thank you, I am glad you liked our website, I have been adding new subjects to the website and taking out old this year. We have had a garden website for I think about 8 years now, it takes a lot of work to keep it somewhere up to date.
The picture blog (and a few words) seemed a good place for some of the hundreds of pictures of plants and the garden that I take every month. I couldn't do a blog without the pictures, as writing about things doesn't come easy for me.
I know how hard it gets as you get older, I go to a lot of older customers in my work, and have a mother of 93 who used to garden a bit and do cleaning and ironing for people younger than she was. Now she can only just look after herself and is housebound.

Phil
It's a job to keep Lyn from working, she has been out gardening here for the last two days. She has to go to the doctors tomorrow to have the dressing changed, bit of a waste of time as we have had to change it ourselves as it got dirty on the outside from the gardening 
A German tv company has been in touch with us over the last few months wanting to come and film here, they have got back to us this afternoon and are coming on the same day as the Swedish visit, to get the atmosphere of garden visiting. So we will have to contend with visitors and a film crew. We did contact the Swedish tour guide before hand to see if they had any objections and they were very happy about it.

Laurie
I hadn't been too far away from the forum, I have been keeping an eye on it. We have a bit of a respite for a week or two now, but July is going to be a bit hectic, so will probably dissapear again for a while.

I bet you all will be suprised to know that we are going on a Gardens tour on a coach, only two days, some gardens in the Cotswolds, and includes Kiftsgate, Hidcote Manor and Bourton House.

[roiphil]

That is really great news about the german tv company, worldwide fame, you should be very proud of your achievments, keep us updated
Phil

[ideasguy]

Great news indeed Malcolm and to think we knew you before your were famous 
Your garden looks absolutely splendid and photos have captured it so well. Thank you for sharing with us.
Swedish garden tour, TV company - all on the same day How on earth do you cope with even ONE of those events. Both on the same day is unthinkable. VERY best wishes.
Then we read that you are off on tour for a couple of days yourselves. Please take loads of photos
I just don't know how you find the time, and do a full time job.

Sorry to hear about Lyn. Bad when you cut one of those green thumbs! Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

[Lyn and Malcolm]

Well we got back from our Garden Tour on Monday evening, manged to do it without getting wet too. Just had one heavy shower while we were having lunch indoors on the Sunday.

I took 400 photos at the five gardens we visited, it took me two days on and off to sort them and put them up on the internet, not all 400 I hasten to add. I need to caption some of the plant yet, but if you want to see the gardens, here is the link.
http://www.lynandmalc.co.uk/cotswolds.htm
We were very very disapointed with Hidcote Manor, a National Trust Garden, we were not the only ones. All the other gardens were superb. We enjoyed the tour. But our garden looked very small when we arrived home. 

Malcolm

[Eric Hardy]

Very interesting additions to your website, Malcolm. I was particularly interested in The Old Rectory at Duntisbourne Rouse and the view of the church. The church has been on my “to do” list for a long time.

Kiftsgate is somewhere we have meant to visit but never managed it. We have been to Hidcote  three times but never managed Kiftsgate even though it is almost next door. I think we have chosen the wrong days. I am interested in what you found disappointing in Hidcote. I have always enjoyed it. I think I have been more taken with the layout than looking at the individual specimens.

Bourton House gardens looked interesting too but slightly more formal.

I really like the look of  Chisenbury Priory, a place I hadn’t heard of. It was really looking rather lush and no signs of drought.

I was a little puzzled by the home page, as it were. The garden titles seem to have slipped. 

Thank you for the link, I enjoyed it a lot

[Lyn and Malcolm]

Thanks Eric
It was Hidcote which we and others in the group didn't like, not Kiftsgate as in your reply. It was scruffy looking, lots of bare patches of dirt in the flower beds, the back of the rockery was just that, rocks no plants, and as we entered the garden there were children abseiling the large tree, an organised thing for the children but not what you would expect in a garden visit. Very few plants were marked with names, we did find a folder on a chair in the "greenhouse2 with some of the names of the plants in there. As the garden is visited by people from all over the world, it was not a good example of a British Garden. One of our group said it was better now than they had seen it before ! It was our first visit to any of the gardens on the tour.
The only browser I have on my computers is Ie so cannot try the index page. Have looked and it is displaying ok for me, perhaps someone else could look and report back please. Thank you Eric for telling me. Are you using Firefox ?

[Eric Hardy]

Sorry Malcolm, that was a slip of the typing finger. I meant to type Hidcote. I have now corrected my last post. It was a very long time ago that we last visited and scruffy wasn't a description I would have given it then. I am surprised, it is very unlike the National Trust. Yes, I am using Firefox. If I had your email address I could send you a screen view. I was taken with the name "Hardy Plant Society" perhaps we should join 

How is Lyn's hand, by the way?

[Eric Hardy]

I have just had a thought, there is nothing to stop me posting it here, Malcolm

[NightHawk]

Great photos Malcolm.

I get the same layout as Eric when viewing in Firefox 3.6.17 (as per his screenshot here).  IE9 displays the pages correctly.

It's a nightmare getting your web pages to display correctly in all browsers, as I know from personal experience.  I used to opt for two of the most popular ones at the time and get the layout to display as closely as possible in each one.
It can take a lot of tweaking to get it right, so it's down to how badly the pages display, and how much time you want to spend to rectify it.

Laurie.

[Lyn and Malcolm]

I remade the index page then downloaded Firefox, all seems to be correct now.
Thank you Eric for reporting the error and Laurie for confirming the problem.

Eric
The stitches were taken out of Lyn's hand Yesterday, and it has healed well, no further action required.

Malcolm

[Eric Hardy]

Just tried it out again, Malcolm and, as you say, all is fine on Firefox 4.0.1

[ideasguy]

Thanks for cheering us up with such a fantastic show Malcolm. You were very busy with that camera on your tour. Thank you for sharing them with us on the forum.

Pleased to note that Lyn's injury has healed. I'm sure that garden of yours needs at least two to keep it its immaculate condition.
Size? Like they say, doesn't matter
Large gardens are usually too much for even the very enthusiastic plant lover. I can vouch for that. Smaller gardens are usualy much better cared for.

[Lyn and Malcolm]

The garden has taken a battering today, rain started about 6.30am this morning, it is still raining now 11.00pm. This afternoon we had 38mph gusts of wind too. I got soaked twice during the day having to add more supports to some of the plants. The temperature is warmer this evening than it was this afternoon which was 12.5c

All this rain after I had completed a project 4 days ago to divert water from our bath/shower to an existing 75 to 100 litre water butt, just in case we got a hosepipe ban. I would put a submersible pump in the water butt to pump the water through the hose.
Anyway the rain today has filled the butt which I had to drain empty because of all the detritus in the bottom of the butt that the pump could have pulled up from the bottom.

I guess we will be out in the garden pm tomorrow after it has dried up a bit to repair any damage.

Malcolm

[ideasguy]

Hope it hasnt caused any serious damage Malcolm.
Here, it was a dry but very cold and windy start. In the afternoon it was cold, wet, windy and miserable. It looked more like a late November day than mid-June.
I chose to work on the computer!

[Eric Hardy]

Now I bet you are glad that your garden is not the size of those you visited, Malcolm  . I am sure you have your work cut out tending all those plants of yours as it is. We had a similar day here but we did not have so much wind. I only ventured out to put out our dustbin and paper collection for this morning but I noticed one or two plants that were sagging from the weight of water. I also noticed a delphinium leaning over and needing attention but (I am showing my cloven hoof now ) I left it for today. By the evening Anthea asked me to start up the central heating and it is almost midsummer  . Looking out of my office window the outlook is much the same this morning. The weeds are loving it!

[Lyn and Malcolm]

Eric   Not only would we need lots of money to buy a house with space like those gardens we visited, but we would need almost as much money to buy the plants to fill the gardens. We also had the heating on last night, just as well because the F! motor racing was on for 5 hours 

George and Eric     Lyn spent all morning in her front garden this morning getting it back in shape after the rain and wind,while I was out earning a crust.
When I got home Lyn was just going off to a garden in Ferndown to earn a penny too. I mowed the lawns, which also picked up the fallen leaves, now after an afternoon of sunhine it all looks good again. My exotic garden survived better than the front as it was in the lee of the house, just one banana leaf broken off and a bit of sweeping up required. I had tied the standard Brugmansias to anything I could, with bungy cords before the weather came in.

Malcolm

[ideasguy]

Thats really good news that you have the garden recovering and back to its pristine condition again.
Such dedication Malcolm - you deserve a knighthood!