Blue Daisy Blog

Having never been to RHS Wisley before I wasn't sure what to expect, I was hoping it would be pretty amazing and inspiring - it was that and a whole lot more!  After a full day there we'd only really seen half of it so we just had to go back the next day!!  I know, you're probably thinking how on earth did it take you so long to get around it....well plain and simple for me, there was so much to see.  I could easily write lots on the different areas we walked through but instead I'll just tell you my three favourite areas.

For all those who felt inspired by Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall winning his first ever ribbon at his local fruit and flower show now's your chance to give it a go yourself!

The Earlsdon Flower Show is on September 4th this year and anyone can enter any of the 70+ classes that are available.  And don't worry if you're not a flower grower either - if you bake a mean cake or make your own jams and/or chutney there are classes for you to enter and there's also a brilliant class for the kids - who can make the best animal out of fruit and/or vegetables? Don't feel like you have to enter though either, you can just turn up and have a fun couple of hours!

The show is at St Barbara's church hall on the corner of Rochester Road and Beechwood Avenue and entry is free.  Viewing starts at 2.30pm and prizes and trophies will be presented at 4.30pm.  If you want to know what the classes are they're here:

I recently read an interesting article by Frank Ronan in Gardens Illustrated (May 2010) called ‘Live and Let Grow’ which has inspired me to write another lawn related blog.  It is something that I really like the idea of and have recently seen some great examples.  Some people can be quite obsessed about their lawns ensuring they are highly manicured, if you recognise yourself the following may be quite a scary concept for you!

I think most of you know by now that I'm studying the HNC in Garden Design at Pershore Horticultural College which is a two year course.  My results for the first year were published this week and I can't tell you how pleased I am ... 3 distinctions and 2 merits and one of those merits was 0.1 from being another distinction!  It really is just the best news and well worth all those really long nights and weekends studying.

We're now on summer holiday but there is no time to relax and enjoy, Blue Daisy is getting busier all the time and I have an assignment to do over the holiday period too ... no rest for the wicked!

We return to college in September, I'm looking forward to it as I've met some great people and just love learning - although I'm not looking forward to the pressure of assignments again!

Some of our customers have dogs and they often ask us how they can avoid those dead patches that show up on their lawn after their dog has urinated.  Bitches create more damage as they tend to use the same spot over and over again, where as dogs tend to mark many spots.  So, we did some research and found some fairly routine solutions and some, well not quite so routine ... let's just call them a little bit different that work for some people.  See what you think....