Poundbury Gardens flourishes

For all you budding florists and enthusiastic flower arrangers out there – here’s a date for your diary.

Horticulture and floristry expert, Tina Marsh, will be at Poundbury Gardens on Saturday 25th February from 11am, taking bookings for her forthcoming spring workshops on everything from perfect bridal accessories to the intricate art of hand-tying flowers and foliage. So if you’re looking to impress your friends with intricate fine wired buttonholes, corsages and bouquets – pop along next Saturday and put your name down.

James

Spring time chit chat!

We recently started our series of spring talks. We had over 100 people attend the first ones so thank you for the support – hopefully we gave you something useful to take away with you.

She’ll hate me for doing it but here’s Fran telling all about shrub pruning at the first talk!

Next up Seed Sowing on 14th February at Brimsmore Gardens

Steve

Join us (and half a million other people) for the Big Garden Birdwatch

This Saturday and Sunday is the RSPB’s Big Garden Bird Watch and we want you to join us and get involved. As well as our own bird experts in our garden centres we’ve also called in the help of a couple of our friends from the RSPB who will be at Castle and Poundbury Gardens over the weekend to give you help and advice on spotting birds and keeping them happy and healthy.

Last year over 600,000 people recorded a massive 10,262,501 birds in their gardens which was a staggering result – importantly this provided much needed information on how smaller birds were recovering after the harsh winter we had just endured. This year the climate has been completely different and the milder weather has had an effect on sightings so we’d like to see proof of the types of birds you see! Upload your photos to our facebook page and challenge your friends to see who can take the best snap. We’ve got plenty of counting forms in our Garden Centres for you to collect or you can download them from here www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch and remember to submit your results here too.

Happy watching
Fran

Summer comes early

This morning’s first proper frost got me looking around our garden and noticing how the mild weather recently has confused the flowering season. In our garden we have Scabiosa Pink Mist already in full flower which looks beautiful with a bit of frost on it as we wouldn’t usually see it until the summer. There’s also more confusion with the Solanum Jasmineoides blossoming much earlier than it should in late spring.

I am now going to watch as these plants correct themselves, or at least try to, and see their performance as they get back into their normal flowering patterns over the coming months – this could mean that they will flower for much longer than usual. They look lovely so I can’t complain about that!

Don’t forget there’s still a chance to grab a bargain in our Christmas Clearance event at Brimsmore Gardens which is running this weekend.

Mike

Santa’s Little Helper

If you popped into Castle Gardens over the festive season you may well have entered our Christmas Poster Design Competition. Well, we had a great response from lots of budding artists in the area who got busy with felt tips and pencils whilst they waited to visit Father Christmas, it was tough, but we’ve selected a winner and congratulations must go to Emilie Bonay aged 8 who won first prize for her poster design which included Father Christmas and one of his reindeers.

The winning design will be used around the centre next year – first stop Castle Gardens…next stop the Tate!

Here are a few snaps of Emilie along with her sister when they came into the centre this week to collect their prize which was of course a Christmas stocking full of presents!

Steve

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Looking back

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Well the time has nearly come to hang up our spades, and there’s just time to wrap a few last presents and hang the last bauble before we have to start wrapping our pigs in blankets and basting the turkey.

It’s been a busy but fantastic year – we’ve seen the sales of bird food soar at all three centres; we’ve helped develop a Millennium garden in Charlton Horethorne and have given the Templecombe station volunteers a helping hand on the way to entering the national Best Railway Station Awards; we’ve had a Birthday at Poundbury and at The Green Shed and celebrated Bees at Castle Gardens. We’ve had our second Wildlife Friendly Gardening competition and won the national Christmas Display competition for the third year – phew!

So here’s to a successful 2012 – come back and see us soon as we have some great offers in January look out for our news as celebrations are being planned for some very special Gardens Group Birthdays in 2012.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Mike and the whole team at The Gardens Group

Ruby’s arrived

We’re pleased to announce that Ruby the Route Master has arrived at Brimsmore Gardens, we’ve spruced her up and transformed her into our Father Christmas Grotto!

The grotto will be at Brimsmore Gardens right up until Christmas Eve so please do pop in to see her – and Father Christmas of course!

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Adam

Smile for the camera

Today, we had a visit from Jane at the Blackmore Vale Magazine who took lots of pictures.

To find out why, pick up a copy this Friday!

Drum roll please… Castle Gardens takes top prize for its Christmas displays

It has been announced that Castle Gardens in Sherborne has once again beaten garden centres across the region to win the Christmas Display competition for the South Thames Area, awarded by the Garden Centre Association.

Castle Gardens was given first prize for its spectacular themed display which includes scenes from Downton Abbey, Tinsel Town and a Teddy Bears Picnic.

Congratulations to the whole team, your hard work and dedication has really paid off.

Next stop, the national finals… Mike

Baubles are sparkling

It’s been a tense week in the garden centres as we’ve had judges in from the Garden Centre Association inspecting every last bauble in our three Christmas displays for the annual awards, which are due to be announced next week. The team worked hard to ensure every bauble was sparking, every light was twinkling and that the displays looked more dazzling than they have ever looked before – keep your fingers crossed and check back next week to see how we got on.

 

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Also this week we’ve had a visit from 54 members of New Milton and Barton-on-Sea Flower Club. They had a talk from Tony Das, Assistant Manager of the house-plants department, on ‘House-plants for Christmas’, they had lunch and toured the Christmas displays – there were a few funny noises coming from displays so it certainly sounded like they enjoyed themselves.

 

Next on the agenda is the Light up a Life event at Castle Gardens on Wednesday 30th November from 6.00pm, it is free to come along and six trees will be lit to remember loved ones and to raise funds for the Weldmar Hospice Trust so do pop by.

 

Mike