Beginning of an idea, how I got the show garden bug.

Last May I had a wonderful idea, why not build a show garden at Malvern.  I had built two previous gardens at the show and enjoyed the whole process immensley.  This year I wanted to do something different, grow as many plants as possible and build the garden for under £1,000.  All I needed was some innocent soul to work with me, preferably one with a large amount of indoor space to keep the plants.
After many glasses of white wine I persuaded my friend Sue that this could be her moment of fame, foolishly she agreed.  Not only did she have a large greenhouse but a large polytunnel as well.

She runs a cattery called The Owl and the Pussycats, so there was the idea for our garden.  We soon sketched out ideas on scraps of paper and I went away to draw up a scale plan.  In order to have time to grow our own plants we knew we had to start before we submitted ourplans to the RHS and Malvern.  So armed with seed trays, compost and boundless enthusiasm we sowed, foxgloves and honesty seeds, split up large clumps of iris and various grasses, potted on self sown aquilegia and sisyrinchium, dug up ferns and cow parsley from our gardens and held plant swaps with our friends, families and neighbours.

Our design was, thankfully accepted and we have spent the winter cosseting the plants through severe frost, snow and hail. 

We also decided to make our own willow fencing, having never done this before we went for the  free form design!  Well no one can tell us it's wrong, it's just art darling.  We just had to make a living willow boat as well, hope it actually grows before May.

Let's hope we have some warmer weather soon, some of our plants are starting to flower, others are still sulking and we are getting through a lot of wine.  Look out for the next exciting episode, when we build a mock up of the garden.