Bulbs galore!

Well today our bulbs, bags and stamps arrived!

We have a whole variety of daffodils from pheasants eye to minnow.  We also have varieties of crocuses and hyacinths including heat treated hyacinths!  We dedicated a whole morning bagging up the bulbs and creating the labels for each bag just to find that we managed to run out of bags! Luckily more are on order and we can finish this job before our big Macmillan event on Saturday 28th!

Photos of the bulbs in the displays are to follow!

Autumnal Stock!

Well today was a busy day changing the nursery displays to our autumnal stock!  We need to take back the summer stock to our poly tunnels, greenbouses and cold frames before we could bring out the new stock and prepare it for sale.  After running what felt like 300 wheel burrows full of plants back to the nursery growing areas we then had to carefully find a home for it all and prepare the less hardy plants for the first frosts. 

Photos to follow!

Once we had put these away we then had to load up the wheel burrows again and start carting out the new stock and arranging it on the displays!  Laura was once again on hand to label up the plants and run the plants out to the displays.  I've included below some pictures of our delightful pansies, we have some beautiful morpheus, sangria, sorbet, deep and pale blue, pale purple, orange and yellow pansies ready for sale now.

 

After the pansies were out we needed to bring out our other autumnal stock, these plants ranged from Ornamental grasses to Photinias (little red robin and the red robin), Heleniums to heathers and Heucheras to name but a few!

More photos to follow!

Minestead Summer Fete

After the success we had at the Bartley Horticulture Society Fair we were invited to come along to the Minestead Summer Fair which we were very keen to go along too!  After stuffing the cars full again of plants, apples, tables and the gazebo we were on our way!

The weather was very interchangeable, one minute we had glorious hot sunshine and the next was a torrential down pour with some distant rumbles of thunder thrown in for good measure!  Luckily people were not put off by the weather and came to see us!  We sold many of our plants - the semps were very popular with the children!  We also had some rather strange customers too...some lovely New Forest cows decided to wonder in and have a sniff of our plants!

Our Bramley apple tree has been very successful this year and we sold out of apples within the first hour - luckily we were close to home and Laura shot off in her car to quickly pick some more!  Within 30 mins Laura was back with 3 enormous bags full - they were so full they were almost bursting at the seams! As it had quietened down we started weighing out the bags and putting them back out on display.  It seemed that we could not replenish the stock fast enough before we sold it again!  Just as we thought we were going to sell out again the event came to a close - I believe we came close to selling nearly 30kgs of apples if not more!!

Our cut flowers were also very popular so in between the bagging up and selling of apples, the storing of plant orders and selling of plants we were putting together some hand posies and some small bouquets!  Safe to say when it cam to home time our cars were decidedly much less full than when we arrived!

Please see some pictures below of our stall!

Preparations!

Well our next big event is sneaking up on us...the big Macmillan coffee and cake morning!  Macmillan is a charity that is very personal to us all here at Whinwhistle and when we heard about this years event we decided we absolutely must get involved!

After ordering our pack and setting the date we realised that we had a lot to organise from the construction of benches to ordering refreshments, organising the raffle and child tombola, making the cakes to preparing the nursery for some tours and arranging the parking in the field!  Not forgetting to arrange the marketing!

Luckily I was able to arrange getting two big banners made up which we have proudly mounted outside the nursery , we have also had some flyers included in our local papers as well as advertising on our web site and on Facebook.

Photos of the banners to follow!

Bramley Apples!

After all the glorious sunshine and rain this year our apple trees have gone absolutely crazy! We have lots of Bramley apples, golden delicious and galas! We've kept the edible ones for ourselves but decided to sell the Bramleys and they have been going like hot cakes!  I've popped some pictures below of our trees!

Bee hunting!

As we now have our beehive I wanted to share some pictures of the types of honey bees we have in the garden.  As it would happen it seems the bees have gone to ground and actullay finding them is proving difficult!  Thankfully though I have managed to capture a couple so have included these below for you to see:

Below are some pictures of bees captured previously:

Bees!

As our first year cutting garden is noticeably attracting many bees, we decided to take the advice of our local bee keeper Tim Moore.  Tim found the perfect quiet spot in a private area of the garden to site a decoy hive, which hopefully will attract a swarm who will take up residence.

Our bee hive

Honey bees like to occupy vacant previously occupied hives.  Tim has created a very desireable residence from parts of old hives.  To allow a colony time to establish and thrive can take three years so we will not expect a harvest too soon.  Fortunately we can watch the hives progress from our sitting room window and with Tim's guidance hope to be able to update the blog with a hive of activity!

Bartley Horticulture Society 102nd Annual Flower Show

Today we were invited to hold a stall at the Bartley Horticulture Societies 102nd Annual Flower Show at Copythorne Village Hall.  My son's girlfriend, Laura, decided to come along and give me a hand on the stall, so we got up bright and early on Saturday and began to pack up for the day.

I decided to pack a selection of flowers that I already have out for sale and include a bucket of cut stems so we could show a selection of the plants/services we offer.

Car number 1 packed to the brim!

 

No room for any passengers unfortunately!

Car number 2 was just as full!

 

Barely space for anything else!

 

Even the passenger seat in car number 2 wasn't spare!

The cut flowers smelt divine!

 

The big blooms certainly brightened up the cars

 

The last bucket of flowers was just as nice as the others

 

A picture of us setting up

The finished stall!

The show opened at 1.30pm so after packing the cars to the brim with plants, tables, boxes and the all important gazebo we were off!  We decided to arrive at 11am so to give us plenty of time to set up!  The weather was quite blustery at times and I was grateful for the gazebo but thankfully the rain held off.  I've put some pictures below of us packing the cars and the set up of the stall.

We had a very sucessful time at the show and met some lovely people - some who we had seen at our grand opening and some new faces who have expressed their intentions to come and see the nursery.  All in all we had a lovely time at the show and very much hope we will be back there next year!

Party posies

My niece Katy who helped us serve teas, coffees and cakes on our grand opening recently contacted me to see if I would be able to help her employer (Rachel) with some posies for a party of 45.  Rachel also helped us by providing the delicious cup cakes for our grand opening so I was more than happy to lend her a hand.  Rachel's cafe has a very unique serving decor with mis-matching cups, saucers, plates and teapots being used to serve customers.  We felt that it would be a great idea to build on this for the party! So we collected 14 teapots/jam jars from the cafe and I began to fill them with little posies to be placed on the tables.  I've included some pictures below:

The Grand Opening!

Well today we had our grand opening and I have to say I was completely taken back by the number of people who came to see our nursery and how much poisitve feedback we recieved.

When I think back to when the idea began to circulate about opening a nursery and then to look around today and see how far we have come, its very humbling. I certainly would not be where I am now without the help of my husband Chris and son Tom.  They have dug up new paths, constructed a new greehouse and raised beds along with a million other things!  I have to say a very big thank you to them both. 

The last 48 hours have been so stressful with final touches being made to the nursery paths, plant displays, deliveries of cupcakes and drinks, running errands out in the car all around Southampton and the New Forest - its safe to say that we were all fairly exhausted and in desperate need of a good nights sleep before we opened today.

Thankfully the weather was kind to us and we were all able to sleep well before rising bright eyed and bushy tailed ready for the grand opening.  I had been thinking for a long time who I would have to open the nursery, and when it came down to it, there was really only the one person who I felt should...my husband Chris.  He has put up with me for the last year changing my mind, creating extra work, investing a lot of time and money in the nursery, along with the very late night talks and decisions in bed when all he wanted to do was sleep so I felt it should be him who cuts the ribbon.

Chris and I getting ready to cut the ribbon!

I was also lucky enough to have my sister Alison, brother in law Nigel and niece Katy help me on the day as well as my sons girlfriend Laura.  They spent the day serving everyone refreshments, helping with the shop and parking while I was able to meet and talk with as many visitors as possible.

Katy serving the refreshments

Tom and Nigel seeking shelter under the parasol in the field whilst helping with the parking

Laura and Tom adding the final touches to the displays

Last but not least I must also thank my friend Chris who documentsed our open day with his camera.  The day ran very smoothly albeit fairly warm! I met with some wonderful people throughout the day and am very much looking forward to having my doors open in the future for more events!

Getting Online!

Well despite today being one of the most loveliest days of the year so far, I have been busy sorting out the website and our Facebook page.

As our grand opening is fast approaching (July 20th 2013 at 10am!) I have been very keen to ensure that these pages are up to date ready for the ribbon cutting!

I've managed to get some new pictures of the nursery taken, of which I have included some below:

A panoramic of just part of the nursery...

The front of the nursery with our current  plants on sale!

A couple of pictures showing our pergola 

Last but not least some pictures showing some lovely colour 

 Whilst I have been busy indoors my husband Chris and son Tom have been very hard at work extending the driveway and clearing out one of the raised beds ready for the next lot of plants.  I'll update this blog with more images of this and any changes as soon as I can!