Judging Day tomorrow...

Ok - so that was bloody hard work...I'd like to say never again will I do a show garden but....who knows?

Tomorrow is judgment day when the RHS judges come and give us (or not) a medal for our gardens prior to the show opening on Wednesday. I'm trying not to mind what they think (but obviously I do), as the garden has turned out how I wanted and I like it...hopefully Charlie (my husband) will like it too as it going in our garden after the show.

After a bit of a dodgy week last week, losing a whole load of my plants, I am done - apart from leaf polishing (really???) and scrubbing the paving first thing tomorrow morning before we get kicked off site while the judges titivate.

Better photographs to come tomorrow when I've removed the delightful rabbit proofing orange fencing...but here's how it looks now.

Planting tomorrow and disaster has struck...

The show garden build is going well so far and the extensive planning has definitely paid off. The contractors did an exemplary job and their handywork has been much admired. The weather has been changing daily between 27 degrees and torrential rain but so far has not caused any delays.

However, I am due to take my plants up tomorrow and finally get them in the ground but disaster struck this evening. After a busy day up in Birmingham I went home to check the plants. I had thought my chard were suffering from leaf scald (which was strange anyway as I have been pretty meticulous about not watering them in the sun shine) - but today I got back and noticed that the leaves on ALL the chard, beetroot and (what had been stunning) red veined sorrel had all gone a delightful yellowy-brown colour. Closer inspection of the leaves revealed that each had a tiny maggot in - I knew it had all been going to smoothly and something like this was bound to happen.

After a few phone calls and a search on the internet, I deduce that they have all been attacked by leafminers. I've thrown the lot of them and am gutted as they were all very decorative plants...but the show must go on, as they say and I'm hoping I have enough other plants to get by...blinking (holding my tongue on strong language)..blinking.........very cross.

Building - Day one

Today was the first morning up at the NEC. The NEC is huge and I felt pretty pleased just to find my site.

The team from Simply Green Landscapes arrived and we set to work getting the site marked out and excavated. To be honest, with 4 strapping guys on site I felt like a bit of a spare part so aside from lifting a load of turf, I spent most of the day running errands - back and forth to the builder's merchants, whom, I am sure, will get quite used to me asking for obscure things.

I'm currently searching for some handles to go on my glass cold frame doors - the type you can slide on to the glass - sort of sprung loaded with a handle bit sticking out....as you can tell I have no idea what they are called and describing them has got me nowhere so far. If anyone reading this has any idea what I'm on about -please let me know.

Today was actually the most stress free day that I've had in the last month or so. The sun was shining and although there were a few issues that cropped up, nothing was insurmountable and at least I felt useful in being the decision maker.

So far so good - and looking forward to day 2......

Filming for Gardener's World

The BBC team from Gardener's World got in touch with me a couple of weeks ago saying they were interested in covering the background and build up of my show garden.

This was pretty unexpected - I thought there may be some coverage during the show but had no idea that this kind of feature would happen. So we had a ten hour day of filming today which was fun, exciting and exhausting.

I'm fortunate to live close by to my tutor Duncan Heather who is the director at the Oxford College of Garden Design so we were able to do the majority of the filming in his stunning garden. When I initially thought of studying Garden design, I went to meet Duncan at his house, and was so inspired by what he and his wife Carol have created. They have impeccable taste and the garden is truly awe inspiring. It has been beautifully thought out and is a very relaxing space to be in. Sculpture is planted discretely amongst the trees, plants and woods, there's an exquisite formal pond, picture perfect walled kitchen garden and a wilder beech wood.

We then moved onto my rather underdeveloped (as yet) garden to film all the plants I'm growing for the show and on to my carpenter's workshop to see my bar unit. Then back to catch the evening light at Duncan's, a few more walking shots around the garden, a glass of Rose, and home again - back to reality and still lots to do with 2 days left until the build starts.

I'm looking forward to seeing the film crew again up at the show with the finished article - it's got to look good now...

I need bees....

I had some great advice recently - I need to self pollinate my strawberries as they are in a polytunnel and the cold weather means bees are scarce....Great - as if I didn't have enough to do. So out I went with a little paint brush to brush pollen from flower to flower. Easier said than done - pollen may be small but I was expecting my paint brush to come away from each flower bulging with pollen as the bees legs do....it didn't happen - evolution did a good job at making bees legs magnificent pollen catchers.

Shortly after I spotted a bee in the garden and thought maybe I could catch it so I could place it gently on a flower in the polytunnel - I failed in this first attempt but will keep on trying otherwise I run the risk of irregular shaped starwberries... heaven forbid...I've heard the RHS are hard task masters - I need perfect berries.

I spent some of my University days studying honey bees in Portugal looking at their tendencies to be right or left handed - I can't quite remember the results but I have fond memories of lying in fields of lavender watching bees and have had a soft spot for them ever since. I have just bought a 'bee box' for the garden - got to look out for these important little creatures. See the Plight of the Honey Bee.

MAY FROST???

Gotta love Facebook - a friend just posted an update that he's bringing in his veg as there is going to be a frost tonight. A quick look at the weather revealed a prediction of -3 degrees.....it's MAY....this is not supposed to happen. I just googled all my vegetables that are not in the polytunnels and it looks like they're all frost hardy so they will have to stay put - besides I really just want to go to bed....fingers crossed.

Structure

I went to see my wall and bar last week that my lovely carpenter, Gene Walters of Phoenix Carpentry, has been creating for me. It was a slightly nervous moment before I saw what he'd done as you never quite know if it will look like it does in your head and on plan as it does in the flesh. I was thrilled with what I saw - his attention to detail is superb.

It threw up the odd problem here and there as the seed tray I had designed to fit into the worktop was too big - so another meeting with my metal worker Richard Heron from Heron Metal Crafts was called to make a few amendments. He will be making a curved aluminium door to enclose the stogare area. Still a work in progress but looking good.

The large curved wall is a pretty bold statement and will be even more so when painted with matt black 'blackboard' paint. If time permits - only 2 weeks to go so may be pushing my luck - I've asked my sister to come up with some artwork for the wall to temper the large block of black. Having seen these 2 major components of the garden has made the whole show garden experience suddenly seem very real.