Snapdragon's garden

Light evenings . . .long holidays

The late bedtimes and long evenings of the summer holidays are nicely stretching the days so that I don't feel bad about having to put in some work most days.
Yesterday I beavered away making 4 large embroidered cushions which were commissioned by a Country Living reader after she saw my small scented cushions in the magazine.
Then - there was still time to go out for a cycle
From Callander to Kilmahog (good pub) along the railway line.
I was able to indulge my love of rust
and lichen
To bask in the beer garden and then to get back to Callander in time for fish and chips from Eat Mhor Fish.
Definately a chip shop worth traveling to.
This morning I went to the florist wholesaler Country Baskets with Karon to see Jane Means, the gift wrap guru, demonstrate wrapping presents
It was definitely worth the trip - I always wrap orders in tissue and ribbon anyway - but now with some of her simple but very effective ideas, things can get a lot more spectacular and pre-Christmas I shall be offering a proper gift wrapping service.
Now, back home - the shed roof is now red and beautiful and we are all going to wash the Morris ambulance that is the girls' den so that they can decide what colour to paint it.
Photos of that another time,

Flower workshop at Inchyra House

Today was the first of 2 workshops that I am leading at Inchyra House in Perthshire. Inchyra is the beautiful Georgian mansion, family home to Caroline Hoyer Millar who runs the mail order company Twice.  It has that welcoming, calming feel that proper family homes have.
This summer Caroline has branched out into hosting a series of courses and I was privileged to be asked to teach one showing people how to get the most from their garden flowers.  Today was all about learning about how to cut, condition, put together bunches and wrap them professionally.
One of the things that I love about courses is that you get to meet such interesting people - and that applies as much when you are teaching as when you are attending.  The group today were really lovely - as usual I was too busy yacking away to get proper photos but here is a blurry one of people getting stuck into making a tied bouquet from flowers picked from my garden.
Caroline was a great hostess - providing a wonderful lunch of asparagus and goats cheese tart and allowing us to visit her walled garden to admire the roses and peonies
I am doing another day tomorrow teaching the same subject and then Caroline and I are getting together to firm up some ideas for an October workshop.
Can't wait.
I think Caroline took some better photos, so I shall have to see if I can cadge some,
J
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Women in Business

On Thursday it is the local Women in Business meeting at the Buchanan Arms in Drymen (7pm - all businesswomen very very welcome just let either Katrina Gardner (01360 661 317) or me (01360 660 903) know so that we can give the Buchanan an idea of numbers). 
There was to be a talk about website design but the chap that was giving the talk has had to pull out so instead I shall be chatting about blogs, how they work and some of the ways they can be used in a business.  I've come in at very short notice so there won't be a formal presentation, just a chance to bat the subject about a bit over a glass of wine.
I am also going to be suggesting creating a Women in Business blog - showcasing all the fantastic talent in the area and linking through to people's sites, blogs and e-mails.
If I was starting out now, with the advances there have been in weblog templates, I don't think I would necessarily bother with a website - I could do it all with a blog much cheaper. 
Walking back from the caravan this evening I spotted the first sweet pea . . .these are photos from last year.

Extra workshop in Perthshire and Craft Fair in Gartacharn

Two things.
First there were so many people contacting Caroline about the cut flower workshop in June that we have decided to do an extra day - the 19th.  More details available here.

Secondly there is a coffee morning/craft fair this Saturday in Gartacharn - 10-30-3.  It is in aid of Help the Aged and I shall be there along with others.
I shall have some of these gorgeous allium"purple sensation" and my new range of embroidered notebooks, brooches and cushions.
Thirdly - I shall be with Stirling Enterprise in Killin on 28th talking about blogging as part of a business.  Anyone who is interested in coming along (its free) get in touch with STEP

J
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Workshop in Perthshire

This afternoon I have been on the phone to Caroline from the business Twice who asked me a while ago if I would do a workshop on cutting garden flowers at her house in Perthshire.
The course has now begun filling up, so it is definitely going ahead and I am very excited about the day.  I just love meeting people and showing what can be done with the flowers growing in their gardens.
The course is one of three that are going to be held in June at Inchyra House, a beautiful Georgian house in Perthshire The other two courses are to be on foraging - led by Xa Milne and Fiona Houston who wrote a great series of articles about foraging for the Saturday telegraph which have recently been published as a book - Seaweed and eat it
- and decorating with colour - in which the colour consultant Joa Studhome will help people to devise foolproof colour schemes for their homes.
I find that many people are nervous of picking flowers from their own garden and making up bouquets, so I shall be showing them the best ways to harvest, condition and look after flowers and how to give a really professional finish to a gift bouquet.  It will be a really hands on course, limited to 10 so that I can properly show people what to do.   Everyone will leave with a booklet of tips so that they can use their new skills at home and a beautiful hand-tied bouquet they have made themselves.
The courses cost £85 including lunch, wine and coffee - further details here 

The Mulberry Dyer

The courses at Alt-y-bela take place in an old barn - old, uneven and dark with shuttered windows, burning candles and a wood burning stove.  With the pots of dye material bubbling away it gave the whole an alchemical atmosphere.
The dyeing course was run by Debra Bamford, aka The Mulberry Dyer, and as she specialises in historically correct dyes, working with museums and historical re-enactment societies, it was exactly the right venue.
First we talked about all the preparation work that Debs had done before the course - the mordanting of our pieces of wool and silk - scrubbing them up and treating them with alum so that they were ready to take the dyes.

Then we moved onto the fun bit - the pots of simmering plants - dyer's broom; madder; walnut leaves; safflower and alkanet - and we learned how to dye, how to modify, how to overdye and what happens if you add stale piss to the dyebath.
We also learned how everyone's temperament had as much effect on the final result as did the individual dyes - the final colours were all quite different depending on how impatient we were with the dyebaths.
The thing that amazed me was quite how vibrant the colours were - particularly fleece dyed with dyer's broom which could have been used to make one of those high visibility jackets.  Debs told us how yellow stockings were by men worn to indicate that they were young free and single - so there you go!
One of the joys of  going on courses, completely aside from the learning of a new skill, is the people you meet.  Somehow, when everyone is concentrating and sharing ideas it gels and there is no awkwardness.  I am actually quite a shy person, I don't relish introducing myself to new people, yet here, where I knew no-one prior to the day, I felt welcome and relaxed and chatty. The photo shows Arne and Chris (who has a wholesale plant nursery and a fantastic knowledge of plants) deliberating over cloth!
Here is the washing line strung up with some of the threads and fleece that we dyed (all carefully labeled).
The whole of the day was held together and made joyous by Arne's assistant, Kristy, one of the most understatedly and sunnily capable people I have ever met.
It was also made memorable by the truly delicious lunch, cakes and coffee (someone who had been on a previous course at Alt-y-bela had claimed before I went that the lunch alone was worth the fee - they may have a point)
In conclusion - it was a fantastic day - I learned loads of useful stuff, I met great people, I saw an emerging garden, I ate a delicious lunch, I drank white wine in the sunshine.  I came away feeling very privileged.
Definitely worth the 8 hour drive.
The Mulberry dyer is doing another course at Alt-y-bela just before Christmas - contact kristy@arne-maynard.com for details. 

Alt-y-bela

When you are looking forward to something as much as I was looking forward to my trip to Wales you often set yourself up for disappointment.
Not in this case - I loved my trip from start to finish, despite the ridiculous amount of driving involved. 

I loved it so much that I am going to split posting about it into 3.
One of the main motivations of going to Wales was to see the garden that Arne Maynard is creating around his renaissance house Alt-y-bela near Usk in Monmouthshire -   over the 15 years that I have been interested in gardens I have found myself consistently drawn to gardens which turn out to have been designed by him and I thought that it would be great to see this garden right at the beginning of its creation.
Alt-y-bela is at the base of a valley - somehow managing to be a sun trap, rather than gloomy as so many valley bases are.  I stayed at a B&B on the valley slopes and walked down via the old drovers road - so this is how I approached the house through a magical wood of white wood anenomes. 

The front of the house is the only part which is gardened at the moment - a curving stone wall separates a small garden area from the drive and tall airy espaliered apple trees enclose it - there is a long curving, rough hewn oak bench for basking on and a bed of thyme and old lizard tulips in a gritty bed.  Everything is pared down and beautiful.

The trees - in full blossom this week - were light and airy and I expect that they will continue to look great right the way through the year - particularly when the branches are jewelled with the small russet apples.

On the other side of the yard was an auricula theatre, full of old terracotta pots of these gorgeous flowers - each precise, doll-like, perfect.

The back garden and the drive area is all still mud.  Beautifully sculpted into curving terraces, but mud none-the-less.  Arne's vision, laid before us in sweeping gestures, is of a high octane meadow, with astrantia, dark leaved cow parsley and geranium phaem flowering amidst fine meadow grasses (the mix in the neighbouring field has been analyzed and recreated).
It was wonderful to be there at this stage, and I shall definitely return to see the vision realised.  I love people with passion.

Happy Tuesday

Today saw the kind of activity that is unusual away from the pre-Christmas period.

Suddenly there was a rush of things to make up, orders to send out,- but by far the most exciting is that the first of the trial flower deliveries is winging its way to London.
It may not work, I may be back to the drawing board to redesign the packaging, many things could go wrong - but at the moment I am sending all my positive energy with it - I so hope that this all works.
This photo shows the bouquet in its box.
From tomorrow I am away for a few days - and when I am not thinking positive thoughts about the delivery, I am thinking  excited thoughts about where I am going.
I am going here to meet this man and to learn about plant dyes and I am so excited.  I am so excited and such a fan that I will no doubt end up speechless and giggly and back at school.

Business blogs

I have been asked by Stirling Enterprise to talk about using blogging as part of a business.  The actual talk will be on Wednesday morning and I am getting my ideas together.
I would be very interested in hearing other people's views on blogs that are parts of businesses - both from the readers and writers points of view.
Thanks - here is a gratuitous photo of one of my chicken helpers,
J
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Think Pink

Today is the Think Pink charity ball at Oran Mor in Glasgow- it is a charity raising money to further breast cancer research and has been set up by a local woman.
I volunteered to provide the flowers for the tables and grew a range of pink tulips especially.
The weather has been so cold here that the tulips are really behind so I dug them out of the garden a couple of weeks ago, potted them up and put them on the heated mat in the greenhouse.  Thankfully it worked and mixed with scented white narcissi, lime green hellebores and dark wallflowers the table centres are full of spring freshness.
As the flowers in their dogwood vases will be raffled off tonight I included some blooms  that are yet to come fully out so that people get some joy out of them when they take them home.
I am sure it will be a great night and that a lot of money will be raised forthis great cause.  I shall not be dancing the night away however but rather helping at the school beetle drive, aiding 5 year olds with their adding up.