A little media interest

I would just like to bring to your attention a small news. In this month's RHS Garden magazine (April 2011), the editorial board of the magazine chose to use my show garden as a news piece to front an update about the Malvern Spring Gardening show! Please see scanned pages for the magazine. I'm chuffed to bits.

The circle of life

Cheesy title, I know. What do you expect when you just finish watching another episode of Glee :-) Anyway, back to business. The garden continues to progress. Over the weekend, Ian (Tim's dad) has managed to complete the circular display that will be placed at the bottom of the garden. As you can see in the picture, it looks pretty impressive. I am very impressed with the quality of work by Ian. All the components of the garden look fantastic, often better than what I was expecting. My only worry now is to how they will look like when they are all pieced together, as well as how to transport them in one piece to the show ground. Any ideas on how to transport a wall measuring 3.5x2.5m?

I have also managed to borrow some “suiseki” inspired stones from British Bonsai that will be placed on the display. I say “suiseki” inspired because they are not suiseki stones per se. They are slates that have been modified to look like mountainous mountains in China. I think they look slightly more dramatic than most suiseki stones. Real suiseki stones require a more intimate setting than an open garden. So I think the stones that I have will provide the necessary atmosphere. I have taken a few snapshots of these stones for you. In relation to this, I was also wondering if I should include a bonsai in the circular display. I initially only wanted suiseki stones in the display, but now that I have thought about it a little more, I would like to include a bonsai in the display. The trouble is, I don’t have any show quality bonsais that are of “chuhin” size (about 25cm or more tall). I have put out a request to borrow one from British Bonsai today, so let’s wait and see if Ian from British Bonsai would be interested.

Talking about transportation, I have also managed to rope in some help from Rebecca and Simon. Rebecca is Tim’s cousin and Simon, her partner, would be able to provide some help in transporting the components. Simon and his dad run a dispatch service in the West Country. This has yet to be confirmed as it depends on whether their route on the days that I need them would match. But I am hopeful.

Today I have also received a list of plants that 3 Shires would be able to provide me. It’s a slightly different from my original plan. So I will try to revise my plant list tonight, to see how to swap those I previously wanted with what is available. I have to factor in many parameters, but it is a thoroughly interesting process. I would need to consider what kind of plants they are, when do they flower, what colour flower, and how to grow them. From the list, I managed to pick one very interesting alpine. Further details will be provided in the next update as my commute is nearing its end.

Great wall

Finally an update! Some or none of you might be wondering what Keni has been up to these past few weeks of complete silence on his blog. Well among other things, there is my day job that has been draining all my energy leaving me none whatsoever to do anything during the evenings and the usual house chores. The day job also brought me to a couple of places for business meetings. Frankfurt 3 weeks ago and very recently a 5 days meeting in Singapore. It was so hectic and stressful, not fun at all. Oh well.

I have also been busy trying to swap my 4x4 Suzuki Jimny with a more practical car for my near future frequent commute to Malvern. I have finally found a diesel estate and last weekend, we finally swapped them. So now I am averaging 50pmg on the motorways compared to about 33mpg with my Jimny. So, some savings there in these austere times.

All my spare times have been spent travelling up to North Devon to Tim's parents. His dad is helping me with the construction of all the hard-landscaping materials for the show garden. Previous weekend, we managed to get good deals with Build Center Ilfracombe for the timber products. So we got almost everything we need to build any wooden objects in my garden (see pics).

Using these timber, we managed to knocked up a frame of the moon gate and the wall in a matter of hours! Thanks to Tim's dad, Ian. It was magical to see the construction of the moon gate:

It took us two weekends to complete the moongate. It was exhausting, sawing, sanding and nailing and all other stuff. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was so much more fun than sitting in an office typing away. I learnt so much about carpentry, mitre joints etc.

Last weekend, we also started with the circular display. But we ran out of timber, so it will have to wait until the coming weekend. We are now worried on how to transport the huge wall from North Devon to Malvern?! ANy ideas?

Next updates will see the complete wall and also all the raised bed. Stay tuned!

Location of my show garden on the showground

It has been ages since I updated the blog. I do apologise to those who; actually follow what I write here :-) The usual excuses for the lack of updates, full time job rendering Keni useless during the evenings.

Anyway, tonight I will show you a plan view (on your left) of where my garden will be situated at the Three Counties Agricultural Society (TCAS) showground at Malvern, UK.

The plan is orientated towards the west, and I have circled where my garden will be. As such, my garden will be facing west. To be honest I am quite pleased with the positioning of my garden. If you can see on the plan, Avenue F is a high-traffic path and I am very happy with the organisation's confidence in placing my garden on such an important path for the visitors. I just hope I do not disgrace them!

One of my main sponsor's booth, Bradstone, is just next to me, with the garden of a fellow contestant (Paul) behind my garden. The rest of the plot on the left side of the plan are other contestants of the Chris Beardshaw scholarship. On the right hand side of the plan, you can see the location of the "professional gardens", ie thos created by professionals with a professional budget. I actually met of these professionals, Hannah Genders, a Chelsea-award winning garden designer during one of briefings orga

nised by the TCAS. Hannah was very friendly, and I can't wait to see how her garden turns out.

I am also pleased to let you all know that almost all my plants are now sorted, and they will be sponsored by three garden centres/nurseries located around the West Countries. The alpines will be generously provided by the 3Shires Garden Centre, the marginals and a 'feature' tree peony will be supplied by Kelways Plants Ltd (a very very respectable plant nursery who has won countless Chelsea medals), and the bamboos will be provided by Desert to Jungle. I have spoken/met up with my generous sponsors and they have all been very encouraging.

I am over the moon that Kelways will be providing me with one flowering tree peony. These are very fickle plants and they are notorious for being difficult to show, but Kelways are very famous for displaying award winning peonies, so I think everything should goes to plan on that day. I have sketched out a couple of ideas on how I would display them:

or:

This weekend, I am busy sorting out and figuring out the amount of timber that I would need to build all the hard-landscaping features. So this will feature in my next update. Stay tuned!

Show garden bamboo

For this update, I have created another video blog. I managed to find an application that allowed me to show a presentation/image whilst I speak (called Manycam). Please check it out. In this video blog, I am talking about the choice of bamboo that I will be using in the show garden. These are varieties of Borinda, Fargesia and Semiarundinaria. It's a bit long, so I promise that next time I will try to be brief and get to the point. I find myself yapping endlessly sometimes. Hope you enjoy it, and please comment. As comments might help me make the videos more interesting and less boring :-)

Another day at work: en VO!!!

Aujourd'hui, je vais faire un effort pour mes amis francophones en faisant un posting en français. Vous allez vous régaler en voyant les fautes orthographes et grammaires partout...

Tout d'abord, je voudrais vous annoncer une petite nouvelles. Je viens de recevoir un email du patron d'une chaîne de pépinière anglaise concernant la possibilité d'un sponsorship! Rien n'est certain, mais c'est un début.

Bon, on commence par une discussion de l'évolution de mon design qui a été évoqué dans la communiqué datée 31 janvier. Sur la première image que vous voyez ci-droite, on peut constater qu'il y a des jardinières rectangulaires par terre. Ces jardinières seront construites en bois, peintes en blanc, et elles seront remplir par 3 'petit jardins' (jardin sablé, jardin alpines et jardin galets/caillous). La hauteur de ces jardinières seront irréguliere, pour donner une impression d'être dans un térrain montaigneux... j'espère en tout cas :-) Apart ça, il n'y plus beaucoup de changements. Je vous montre une autre image qui montre comment ces jardinières sont étendre au fond du jardin aussi:

Keni's first press release

The Three Counties Agriculture Society, the co-organiser of the Malvern Spring Gardening Show, has just released a communique regarding my show garden! Have fun reading it.