The plants are all here!

Today is delivery day for the trees, shrubs and perennials. I’m at Ladybrook Nursery by 7.35am to hand pick the best specimens to be delivered to Tatton. Its already tremendously hot even at this early hour and because of the cloud cover, the humidity is high. A hot and sweaty day to look forward to then!

I’m still having dilemmas over how many perennials I actually need and Paul, the owner of Ladybrook Nursery, advises me to take fewer as he can always drop off more if I run out rather than having too many leftover on site. It takes an hour to make my choices and then I’m off to pick up my friend Sandra who has kindly offered a day of her time to help me. She helped me with my last show garden so has some idea of what she’s let her in for. I say some idea. It’s such a hot day that everything we do seems to take twice as long and be twice as heavy to lift! Goodness knows how the guys from Greenbelt are coping in this relentless sun day after day.

 

Sandra has brought her own gazebo (and agreed to leave it for me to use, thank goodness) as it provides some shade to escape to when we start to overheat. We have cool bags packed with ice blocks, which work a treat so I can also offer the guys some ice cold drinks when they start to wilt. 

And after they’ve dug three very large holes for the trees, and lifted then into place. I’d been told the trees were in 110 litre pots but they are actually 160 litres so take all three of them to lug them around.

Elliott pegs out areas the same size as each planting bed so that Sandra and I can set out the plants in their correct positions. When they are finished the guys can transfer the plants straight into the beds exactly as we’ve laid them out. It takes us all day to set out the plants in this heat, and when we’re finished there are only a couple of dozen plants left over which makes my life easy as I can bundle them into my own car and take them back to the nursery, no hastle.

Elliott finished the bespoke stone bench today and looking the bee’s knees! In fact, the whole garden is looking tremendous, just how I have imagined it would look. Lots more of the paving has been completed and the trees are working beautifully against the creamy rendered walls. 

Towards the end of the day, as the light softens, and even though its not finished, everything looks so perfect it’s hard to imagine that it will all be gone in two weeks!!