Blossom at Rowallane

On a sunny Tuesday, after a trip to the dentist, me and George along with my mum and her friend Lorna headed to Rowallane to have a walk round.  Mum, George and I had been there back in March to look around the Spring Ground there but when we were there then spring hadn't really sprung and there wasn't much out in bloom.  A month definitely makes a big difference!  The place was full of blossom this time!

Gorgeous apple trees.

I thought this was some sort of big snowdrop but it's actually called summer snowflake.

After watching Gardener's world feature on magnolias the other week I really fancy getting one for our garden, although I'd say it's take a good few years before it was this big!

The branches and blooms made a lovely pattern against the blue skies.

Masses of forget me nots.

Rowallane is well known for its masses of Rhododendrons.  I particularly liked this one, it looks quite like the one in our garden, although our one is no where near blooming yet. 

I think these are woodland anemones.

The courtyard was looking very nice in the sunshine...

So one of us stopped to have a bit of a picnic!

It was a lovely day out although be warned, at this time of the year the cafe isn't open on a Tuesday and for some reason they have closed the shop :-(

Rhododendron, the Liberace of garden plants

New printable seed packet....

In order to improve on the various crumpled envelopes I have seeds stored in I though I would make a printable seed packet to do the trick.  

Simply print out the image on A4 paper and cut round the edges.  Fold the flaps and use glue or doublesided tape to fix in place the bottom and side flap.  I’ve left the top flap unglued and simple folded it in but you could fix it with some fancy MT masking tape or a removable glue dot or something.

There are two to choose from the coloured version or a black and white version that you could use to print on to coloured paper - you could have coloured coded packets for flowers or vegetables or even for where they are from in your garden!

As well as making them for yourself you could print some and fill them with seeds to give as Christmas presents..

Anyway enjoy!  To get the downloadable files just head over to the Longshot Press main site here!

roll on summer...

while looking through my photographs of flowers for some mother’s day card inspiration I realised how much I want it to be summer already.  

roll on summer for a cold beer in the garden on a lovely warm evening!

now back to those mother’s day cards…