Wild flowers, bridges, water tanks and 20 tons of gravel

I love this view on the way to work every day, a 15 minute comute through lovely countryside is just what I need in
the morning

Hello how are you? I am tired but happy, is that fair balance? I knew it would be tough working six to seven days a week getting the nursery business up and running again, but it is a satisfying and happy tired, we are achieving so much and getting so much positive feed back it more than makes up for lack of time off at the moment.

Following on from my last blog, we had a birthday boy in the house last Thursday, hard to believe my youngest is now 14, where does the time go? 

Bracken getting in on the birthday cake excitement

Then on Saturday there was great excitement as our new bridge was installed at the nursery. This gives a great entrance to the nursery and a real focal point in the car park. I have always wanted my own Monet bridge and now I have one, I am so pleased with it and love the colour.

Our new bridge, before I started clearing the bankings to plant up

Both sides cleared and started to be planted up, lots of large foliage plants,
 flowers and plants for moist soils will make this a lush water feature

The bridge leads you over the stream and up to the nursery

The weather has been very mixed, you can tell it is summer in Scotland. But mainly it has been heavy rain at night, perfect for watering plants and dry during the day, but we have had some heavy day time showers, luckily there is plenty potting to do in the shed. It is still strange working nearly every day and not having weekends off, but I am loving being at the nursery and creating something special.

Speaking of time off, our day off this week was on Tuesday. We seem to be developing a theme! When David has no work to do he comes and helps at the nursery, which is great as we can work on our business together and when I have a day off I go on a bat survey with him in his business! 

Once we'd finished with the bat work we meandered home through the borders, via Melrose for lunch, where we also found a fantastic antique shop, and yes I did buy some things for the nursery shop. We stopped at Innerleithen and Peebles to hand in some leaflets to the tourist offices there, spreading the word about our nursery supplying tough plants for Scottish gardens. Then we headed home for dinner, a lovely day out in the sunshine and great company.

Does anyone else think the wild flowers have been particularly good this year? The Ox Eye daisies are plentiful and combine beautifully with pink campion and Ragged Robin. Bright orange Fox and cubs grow happily with lots of different grasses on the bankings and pink and white fox gloves tower above. There are bees, hover flies, buterflies and all sorts of other insects enjoying the organic farmland here at Whitmuir.

Wild flowers on the terraces at the nursery

Fox and cubs on the terrace

Stately foxgloves

Ragged Robin

Centaurea

I have also been sorting out items for selling in our wee shop at the nursery. Antiques, garden related items and notebooks with plants and flowers on the covers, baskets for herbs and nice gifts.

A lovely wee vase and stone ware jar

Basket with herbs makes a nice feature on a window sill or patio

Stoneware jars and bakers twine for sale

At home I haven't had much time to do any gardening. The grass gets cut in an evening when I have the energy, or not. The prairy garden  (and see here) is coming on, I planted some Verbena bonariensis in it this week which looks great. The plants are all growing and I must take some photos for the next blog, hopefully I will remember. We have had giant rhubarb from the garden, seriously the stems are almost 3ft long and as thick as a small arm! We should be able to harvest our first lot of potatoes soon, everything is as usual so small and whether we will get a crop is open to debate. The squashes and courgettes in the greenhouse have flowers on as do the tomatoes. But the weather has taken a cold turn so this will slow everything down again. My plant collection in their moving troughs however are thriving in their more sheltered aspect (compared to the last garden at Easter Mosshat).

A great colour combination, Astrantia 'Roma', hybrid Dactolorhyza,
Geranium 'Mrs Kendal Clark and Meconopsis

Phyteuma sceuchzeri

Another great colour combo, Luzula nivea and
Centranthus ruber var. Coccineus in the front garden

Today we had 20 tons of gravel for the nursery sales area and two 1000 litre water tanks delivered! This means, along with the pumps we have installed, we are now self sufficient for water supply as the nursery isn't on the mains and the farm supply is limited. We will also have strong arms by the time we have barrowed all that gravel and levelled it out. If anyone has a spare wheel barrow and is at a loose end over the next few days we, would love to have your help.

Anyway that's another week caught up, hope I haven't blethered too much, enjoy your weekend when it comes. I'll be at the nursery, if you make a visit we will make you welcome, except on Tuesday when I have a day off again.

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and at www.quercusgardenplants.co.uk