Days Out & Days Out

I had a 'Day Out' yesterday which was fascinating. I was telephoned to see if I would like to accompany Michelle from Chris Beardshaw's office on a fact finding mission to look at trees. We set off at 6 am to travel to Bedfordshire to visit two of the leading tree growers in the country, the sheer size of the operations was very impressive. Huge trees 30-ft plus, grown in state of the art air-pots laid out in rows like an enormous chess board.

Not wanting to let this opportunity slip by I took along my camera for any cheeky shots that might arise, or just to take pictures of items of stock I wanted to 'log' mentally for later. There were some stunning pleached Pyrus along with the most enormous pleach Hormbeam I have even seen in or out of the ground.

Lunch was a disappointing, rather tasteless affair curtsey of Sainsbury's, my suggestion here might be, 'Try Something New Today', such as adding flavour to the sandwiches! However, this was more than made up for by the lovely tea (in a pot) and biscuit selection we were offered at stop number two, where again not only was the site immaculate but the scale mind blowing. I took notes furiously of the trees which caught my eye and pondered new and exciting ideas about the instantaneous scale of these wonders. In the picture the lady is holding a 5m fully extended measuring tape to give you an idea of scale. I have made a note of some trees which may make their way to Malvern for my Autumn garden fingers crossed, so all in all it was a rather useful day out.

The other piece of excitement was being asked by the Rococo Garden in Painswick if I would give a series of walking tours around the garden. For those of you who don't know much about the Rococo Garden, it is the last surving example of the short lived Rococo style of garden art in the world. Lately it has become very well known for its stunning displays of snowdrops at the beginning of the year, however it has a rather amazing history and restoration has been ongoing since a trust was set up to maintain it. My walk will last up to 2 hours and we will look at the design history, use of plants and the use of the numerous buildings around the

garden such as the pink and white Eagle House which I have included as a picture for you to help get a flavour of the garden. These walks will take place in June & July this year and hopefully, with the down pours this weekend on my mind, the weather will be rather much better.