Ratty's Refuge BLOG
09 May 2008 17:32
Find out what's been happening in the lead-up to The River & Rowing Museum's Ratty's Refuge Garden at Chelsea...garden designer Angela Potter reveals all in the Garden Designer's blog...
07/04/08
The week began with a meeting at the River & Rowing Museum where Ann and I were updated on all the latest news about the information leaflet for the garden and the arrangments we are making for manning the garden at Chelsea.
Sylvia and I have been preparing a planting plan for the BBC gardening website and we had to meet the deadline for submission this week. After another long night in front of the computer it was done at last.
Ian Forster from British Wildflower Plants in Norwich sent us some fabulous pictures of the native plants they are growing for us, but we were concerned to see that the marsh marigold appears to be doing too well!! When I spoke to Ian he reassured me that the offending flower is going to be removed this afternoon, and any plants getting ahead of themselves will be put in a cool store to hold them back.
On Thursday I went to visit Deepdale Nursery where our willows and Viburnum opulus are being carefully looked after. The higher temperatures over the last few days have finally encouraged some leaves to grow. What a pity about the snow! I feel very protective of the willows, as it took us literally MONTHS of searching right across Europe, to find pollarded willows of just the right height for River and Rowing Museum's Ratty's Refuge. When I did find the right ones, Meike Overbeck from Deepdale Nursery warned me that they only had three. I jumped in the car immediately and went to see them. I had to choose just the two we need because our budget did not stretch to three in order to have a spare. Imagine my shock yesterday when she told me that the other one had died!! If I had chosen the other one what a predicament we would have been in now....
In the evening after the trip to Deepdale I had a long meeting with Richard Delahaye our landscape contractor. It is going to be quite a feat to get this garden built on time, we can see some very long hard days up ahead.
The best bit of advice I have had this week is to 'make sure you remember to take a big box to Chelsea with everything in it that you don't know you are going to need......' I know this is going to bother me for weeks!
31/03/08
This week we continued with detailed planning for River and Rowing Museum's Ratty's Refuge and tackled more of the construction details. We have now charted the build of the garden like a military operation and continue to work our way through the mountain of RHS forms that have deadlines looming. With only six weeks to go until the build starts, the project is starting to feel more 'real' as the bills are starting to come in, and we realise there's no going back now!
Luckily the cold weather seems to have released its grip and our plants have put on good growth this week, as confirmed by an email from Ian Forster from British Wildflower Plants. Work on the information leaflet that will be handed out at Chelsea continues, and we are looking forward to seeing the proof soon.
On Sunday Ann and I were invited onto BBC Radio Cambridgshire's Sunday gardening programme with Sue Dougan. Last year we were invited on because we were involved with another Chelsea garden, so we knew what to expect. We enjoyed talking about the project with Sue and Richard Gant who is Head Gardener at Madingley Hall, Cambridge. We were able to answer listeners questions as to how to deal with gardens near to ponds and streams to create a possible habitat for water voles. Ratty certainly seems to have captured the imagination of the people of Cambridgeshire. Sue said she would like to keep in touch with the progress of the garden and as they are going to be at Chelsea, they will interview us again there.
25/03/08
With only six weeks to go until we start building River and Rowing Museum's Ratty's Refuge at Chelsea, we are hard at work on the schedule that we will need to meet to get everything finished on time, and last weekend we had an all-day meeting with Heritage Landscapes. The garden has a ten metre length of rendered wall which is going to take six tradesmen four days to complete! As we can't start to plant the garden until the wall is finished, we can see the pressure is going to be on already. On Monday we had an appointment with the Capel Manor College photographer to take the team photo we will need for the brochure to be handed out at Chelsea and also for the college website. The problem here was the arctic temperatures - it's difficult trying not to look cold when your teeth are chattering!
Sylvia and I continued our travels round the nurseries with a visit to see our ferns. At first glance when we saw three benches covered with our plants we thought 'will we really need all these?' But then we saw the next greenhouse. Another Chelsea garden has ordered 700 of the same variety of fern to make sure they have enough! We stuck with our order. As Ratty's Refuge is being translated to the grounds of the River and Rowing Museum, at least we know all the ferns are going to find a good home, even if they don't make it to Chelsea.
Sylvia and I are also hard at work on the planting design for Ratty's Refuge and also for a border design for the BBC Gardening website based on the theme of our garden. The cold weather remains a worry as one nursery has already emailed to say they are not sure if they are going to be able to grow our plants to the size we asked for. As the snow fell at Easter, I looked out of the window and thought of our pollarded willows not far away at Deepdale nursery - all those new leaves in bud...We are watching the weather forcasts daily and hoping for some warmth!
18/03/08
It has been another busy week planning the Chelsea garden. Sylvia and I drove to the nurseries on Thursday to see if our plants have started growing! It was a 200 mile round trip and the weather was freezing. We went to see our native species at British Wildflower Plants, including all of the grasses that will be used to form the bank at the back of the garden. Staff at the nursery are spending one afternoon a week 'grooming' the plants to make sure they are in perfect condition - and they certainly looked fantastic on Thursday.
Ian Forster from British Wildflower Plants took us to visit 3D Creations at Gorleston near Great Yarmouth. This fascinating company makes film and theatre sets among other things. Ian Westbrook is going to make us a water vole hole out of fibreglass for the garden. More on this soon!
Other progress this week - John Heron from Maine Deck is starting the structural drawings for the deck and grid elements for the garden. Ann and I have finally chosen the image of a water vole from a stunning selection sent to us by Andrew Parkinson. The image will be enlarged to become a focal point in the garden.
Angela Potter
English Eden Garden Design
