Great British Garden Revival

Well it isn't every day you get the BBC coming to film at your garden so Tuesday this week was a bit of a surprise and really interesting to watch. The Beeb came to record Heale and mainly climbing plants for the new series of the Great British Garden Revival. It takes a long time to get a minute of footage in TV land and lots of retakes too. Joe Swift chatted to Michael whilst pruning an Akebia quinata and Michael was a pro throughout. The sheep wanted in on the action and bleated for ages until they settled down and realised all the kerfuffle wasn't to do with them!

All day long we tried to work where they weren't filming to give them a bit of space, so en masse we weeded the Lavender borders and moved up to the terrace gardens to the Robinia trees. I edged around some Honeysuckles which the crew wanted to film and we tried to second guess which direction they would go in!

Quite a surreal day all in all.

The garden is choc full right now and the most delightful change recently has to be the Roses and Nepeta which fill the length of the wall border all along the front of the house and croquet lawn, quite something.

Irises are just right this week, some are over and some are just opening. The borders are stuffed full with colour and the weeds keep coming. We spent time in the Miscanthus borders this week, weeding and edging and trying to avoid being scratched to death from the hairy beastly grass. It really does some damage to your skin.

Some of the gardens Magnolias are out like the wonderful (and rare apparently) Pyramidata and some are still to come and remain in bud.

This week I also got to try the monster that is the All Terrain Mower.  A petrol mower with gears and boy is it heavy. It sucks up anything in it's path and is great! We used it to cut meadow areas including down to the river. I didn't feel anything afterwards but the next day I knew I had used muscles that haven't been used for a while! And I only used it for a very short time. Dear oh dear...

Another great week, I remember Lambs, birds flitting around, jet planes and TV crews. Swans overhead, scratchy grass and mud. Wild grasses, the river and sunshine and showers.