Spring is sprung

30 Apr '07 8:57 pm

Went for a stroll around my garden this morning. While the vibrant spring yellows are being replaced by the softer tones of early summer. The garden has an air of expectancy to everything yet I have never before seen Dahlias in flower bud before May!

1 May '07 9:04 am

I'm jealous - guessing by the photo of your walk, it appears you may have the kind of garden I was trying for!

Lovely!!

1 May '07 9:59 am

Michael and his family have an amazing garden ,Julia -Do visit and admire ,and especially find the before ,during and after photos .It will inspire you so much ,and there is a lot of technical knowledge to be imparted to help you .I love the curved paths and the gorgeous brickwork......www.winsfordwalledgarden.com
Dixie

1 May '07 1:30 pm

Julia, I went to visit Michael in North Devon last year, and his garden was amazing. A walled garden has a real anbience in the English landscape, it's hard to describe. In New Zealand we only play with bricks, doing silly things with them. Michael, post some more pix to show off to Julia! And warm greetings and hugs to your favourite garden plants and your family.

1 May '07 4:05 pm

We've been talking about going to England, probably summer of 08. Lia gets over fairly often but I've never been and there are so many great gardens to see. How enlightened of you to allow dogs. Too bad we couldn't come with ours, but at least there is the prospect of having them around.

Dixie, I didn't find any 'before' pictures of the garden.

Michael, are there any pictures showing the development of the garden at your site?

I think we had better start saving up now. Time to cash in Lia's frequent flyer miles I'd say. We spent the summer in France and Italy at least 12 years ago and boy did we rack up the debt. When we know dates for sure I'll want to rack everyone's brains for gardens to visit. Michael, be seeing you in a year. I hope business is good; don't retire or anything until we get there.

1 May '07 5:24 pm

On WWG first page ,go to 'Garden Development 'in the centre .Selected Topics are down the side,as well as across the top .
You will see that Michael doesn't call himself 'Muddy Wellies' for nothing !
With blue slate sold by the precious INCH over here ,that story makes one gasp ,and there is much more too!
How wonderful to have the opportunity to go there .
Dixie

1 May '07 8:10 pm

Thank you everyone. Mark wrote
"Michael, are there any pictures showing the development of the garden at your site?"

Dixie is correct, just have a look at the 'Garden Development' link, but also check out 'Plants' for specific growing advice based upon my own growing experience.

Then of course there is the "Victorian Gardens" sub-site which I initially began as a section to describe the historic side of my gardens. The "Victorian Walled Garden" story was recently discovered and published by a US web magazine.
http://www.victorianamagazine.com/April2007/

But such is the evolutionary nature of my new website that I feel sure that 'Victorian Gardens' may well be changed to "World Gardens" or some such and focus upon other people's gardening-related stories. One example is by our very own and modest "Dixie" who is keen to describe . . . . You don't need me to explain, why don't you go and see what she says herself in "Garden Gate: A kiwi viewpoint", perhaps someone here has a similar story.

Moosey is very kind and highly supportive. When Moosey arrived here last year it was quite early and as I showed her the expanses of bare earth and equally bare trees and shrubs I kept apologising for the view! (I think gardeners do this the world over). I do drop in from time to time to read you all and keep in touch, and I will post some photos here occasionally but I'm sure you will all appreciate that I have to focus on getting my own garden site up and running.

Spring is sprung

Spring is sprung

Springing

Michael's garden

Wow! I want to stay there too.

Garden development

Before Pictures and Dixie's own