Thursday 28 August 2014

Who will be coming to Open Day?


Boundary Cottage, Seaton Ross, York
Sunday 7th September 11am to 4pm


Boundary Cottage is scarcely a cottage and has very few boundaries. It is not in the village, just follow the large yellow signs.
It comes around again, my Open day on the first Sunday in September. It's a red letter day on my calendar when I show off my garden. Everyone rallies round. Marilyn and Dave drive up from Oxford to act as general factotums and organise the parking. Brenda has a long list of handy-man jobs for Dave, the only one in my family who is remotely competent. There are two changes this time. Brenda is doing the teas and Peter Williams is coming to sell his wonderful plants. He has a fantastic nursery as his passion is propagation and has hundreds of rare high quality plants that are desperate to find a good home. There will also be my usual five for £10 offer of my own smaller plants!

Hardy cyclamen are everywhere. There are sure to be some in my plant sale!

My brassicas are somewhat perforated. With little sign of caterpillars it is probably the snails. The super-sweetcorn called Lark is the best one to grow and is available from Mole Seeds and Marshalls.
I have cut the hedge with my wonderful new Husqvarna specially for you
I was a little disappointed to have only just over a hundred visitors on each of my two open days last year. This is why this year there is the only one. I have been opening my gardens nearly thirty years now and must admit how spoilt I used to be to get many hundreds of visitors when I lived in Bolton Percy which was nearer large centres of population. Now we watch approaching cars and hope some of them will stop!

Will anyone come?
Numbers vary greatly, very much depending on the weather. Poor Peter four years ago when he opened his own garden for the first time had four hundred visitors. Two years ago the weather was absolutely foul and his thirty visitors where mainly friends and relations! 
I have previously offered the opinion that he has one of the finest gardens in Yorkshire.

Brenda complains less about my shallow containers of alpines now that she has cleverly placed them
There may not be many of you but we love to meet you and talk about gardens and plants. We get many lovely surprises from who actually comes! Some folk come regularly. One lovely lady used to be  as regular as clockwork. We were always pleased to see her when she was always first to arrive with her husband and dog. She always made a beeline to the plant stall and he took off for a two hour walk in the country. She always remembered to reward him with something from the cake stand. Her husband I mean!

Cake will be served in our conservatory

When I started blogging I hoped it would help to promote my Open day. Silly me, most of you are too far away! My other innocent thought was that the Open day would promote my blog. That was rather naive of me too. We did however meet the lovely Little family last year who open their own garden and organise their own county yellow book scheme. Pauline now regularly makes very helpful contributions in my comment column.

Not many gardens sport hardy opuntias growing with a bog plant. The bog weed must be a blogweed!
Blogweeds are defined as weeds that arise in a bloggers’ garden when they are too busy writing!

We have bloggers who come too. Sue Garret and Martyn came last year and took many super pictures. Sue is quite a card. I apologise again Sue, for mistaking you for Zena Lovett and if you do come again there is a small clivia waiting for you!  

Sue might appreciate the problem with fallen bird seed from the bird feeder just over the wall on the edge of the farm field. These blogweeds are birdweeds!

It is always a thrill to meet returning visitors, former acquaintances, neighbours and clients. Perhaps best of all is to catch up with former students not seen for years. It is visitors who make the occasion.

I have just been pruning my golden Metasequoia glyptostroboides which has opened up the view.
Multi-million year fossils of this tree are found in the UK. Does this qualify it as a native plant?

The dicentra scandens has flowered profusely this year. Please help yourself to some seed

As my none dug soil is firm and settled you can walk anywhere. Please don’t stand on this rim or you will find yourself in the water.

All my tub plants are growing in soil
Please say hello or ask a question. If you just want to walk around or enjoy tea and cakes or look over the hedge at Cathi's garden we will not disturb you! Her rheas are still there but Spike is getting old and cantankerous and will have to be kept at a distance.
Twin-ponds. We have battled this year with water soldiers. Some remain as sentries. I sometimes need to drag out the duckweed.

All the pictures were taken ten days before Open day to give you a flavour.

If you want to know more about my garden put 'open garden' in the search box at the bottom of the blog. 


20 comments:

  1. We hope to come, Roger,. How can I resist with the offer of a clivia?. Were you serious about wanting a clump of our weed Cymbalaria muralis?

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    1. By the way as for being a card I hope it is a queen or an ace and not the knave.

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    2. sort of.... You can see I have a linaria in the picture of the alpines, but yours might be a different one. I also have a nice white one but I am now fretting as to where I have it, I have certainly lost it at Bolton Percy. If you came via A64 which takes same time as if you came along M62 from Wakefield you could drop in at Bolton Percy although the cemetery is probably a little tired and I am due a maintenance visit.

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    3. I'll bring a clump - you can always throw it away if it isn't what you want. You'll be able to pock me out as the women beating weeds.

      And here was I thinking Queen if Spades at the very least :)

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    4. Thanks for the linaria Sue. It was great to see you both. It is now planted in a 'rough area' where it will look nice covering the ground!
      Such gratitude! I guess you were winding me up including the epilobium in your gift tray.
      Perhaps we will get to see some of your pictures.

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    5. No joke - Martyn just grabbed a clump in the morning. It needed a rough area that's why I brought it for you. The cliovia on the other hand is basking in light on a windowsill.

      You will definitely see some photos on Wordless Wednesday - just a pity we couldn't grab a photo of the barn owl.

      Pity I missed Rick.

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    6. I am pretty sure he had gone when you arrived but only just - you might have passed him in car park. I would have made sure you met him if I could have

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    7. You were busy with your great pictures- all 57 of them!
      Readers can go to Sue Garrett blog to see them.

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    8. Not to mention the ones that we deleted - we are both trigger happy.

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  2. Not sure what we're up to on that weekend yet, but if we can get there we surely will. I believe we should all support events such as this, especially as they're for such a great cause, and great to see that dogs are allowed too. Archie will be on his best behaviour if we come, possibly, lol.

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    1. Sorry you did not manage it Jo. Sue and I were looking for Archie! Call some other time.

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    2. And you missed Brenda's cake, Jo

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  3. We are planning to visit on Sunday - on the way up to Durham to see new grandson James. Very much looking forward to seeing it all again and have some questions to ask!

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    1. Looking forward to seeing you both. Congratulations on James. Hope questions are easy ones!

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    2. Nice to see you both Pauline. Hope the 'garden sitting' goes well!

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  4. It was great to meet blogger Rick who came all the way from Cheshire. Hope you had a good ride back Rick

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    Replies
    1. Great to meet you too Roger, only wish I had more time, it would have been good to have taken a guided tour but obviously not practical on the day. I was particularly interested to see your philosophies in action, the garden is a credit to you.

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