For monthly gardening advice take a look at our gardening page on the Herts & Essex Observer website:

http://www.hertsandessexobserver.co.uk/Leisure-Lifestyle/Gardening/

Come and join us at the Bishop’s Stortford Country Show in aid of the Isabel Hospice. It’s on at ‘Coopers of Stortford’ in the centre of the town on Saturday August 14^th from 12-4pm.

Woolcott and Smith will be auctioning a gardening consultation and will be part of the judging panel.  

The show will include Produce classes such as
The Longest Runner Bean
The Biggest Onion
Best Tasting Jam
Best Tasting Chutney
Best Tasting Victoria Sponge Cake
Best Dressed Potato (Under 14’s)

There will also be a dog competition – The dog the judge would most like to take home.

An Auction, Raffle will also take place on the day and refreshments will be on sale by Lussmans.

It promises to be a fun day so come along and support your local Hospice.

The August 2010 Issue has a special section on ‘Brilliant Ideas for Small Gardens’. A garden that we did for a client in Baker Street is featured on pages 46-47, entitled ‘Curious and Curiouser’. Check out Rachel Warne’s fabulous photos.

A garden originally designed  by garden designer’s Adam Woolcott and Jonathan Smith for the Chelsea Flower Show in 2008 has been re-built in Mayow Park, Lewisham, South London.  The ‘Good Gifts Garden’, which won a gold medal, showcased a1950’s picnic on the beach and featured a rockpool and seaside wild flowers.

With the support of the social enterprise organisation Envirowork Lewisham, the garden has now been lovingly recreated by long term unemployed local people and passionate amateur gardeners in the Lewisham and Sydenham area.

The Woolcott and Smith seaside garden is part of a larger community garden project in Mayow Park. It features raised beds growing fruit and vegetables together with shrubs and flowers and aims to encourage local people to get involved with gardening.The gardens were officially opened by the Mayor of Lewisham Sir Steve Bullock on Wednesday 2^nd June 2010 and will be open to residents, community groups and schools for educational visits and training workshops.

Woolcott and Smith, who attended the opening were absolutely thrilled and delighted with what the Envirowork’s team had done with the garden. Adam said ‘What the team have done is remarkable, the garden still has the same seaside feel’ and Jon added ‘it’s great to see the garden in a permanent location where it can be enjoyed by everyone’.

The Mayow Park  Community Garden is part of the Mayor’s campaign to create 60 community food growing gardens throughout Lewisham by 2012.

It’s Show time once again. Adam and Jon paid a visit to the world famous Chelsea Flower Show last week. Read their review for the Herts & Essex Observer in the ‘Press Coverage’ section of this website. (It’s under ‘Herts and Essex Observer June 2010′).

Tune in to Adam and Jon for a Bank Holiday Gardening Special on Gill Gauntlett’s ‘Greenhouse Show’ on BBC Three Counties Radio. Chelsea chat and plenty of tips to make your garden wonderful this season.

Monday 31st May 2010 - 7am-10am

(95.5FM, 103.8FM, 104.5FM)

Dates for your diary; Adam and Jon are appearing on BBC Gardener’s World on Good Friday (2nd April 2010). It’s a special and it is on from 8.30-9.30pm on BBC2. Adam and Jon present a film from their own garden in Bishop’s Stortford in leafy Hertfordshire. Their gardens were filmed in August last year and show some spectacular summer colour, the perfect remedy for the current dreadful April weather.

Also on Good Friday, you can hear Adam and Jon answering your gardening questions on Gill Gauntlett’s ‘Greenhouse Show’ from 2pm-5pm on BBC Three Counties Radio

Tune in to Woolcott & Smith on Gauntlett’s Gourmet Show on the BBC’s Three Counties Radio (95.5FM, 103.8FM, 104.5FM) on Saturday, 29 August, 26 September, 24 October, 21 November and 19 December from 11 am to 2 pm and pick up the latest gardening tips and tricks.

This week we visited Hampton Court for the first time in a few years. There was lots to see and we had a fabulous day helped in part to our new friend Mr Caipirinha (fab Brazilian cocktail). Here are a few brief highlights.

What’s Hot…….

 Philippa Pearson’s garden for Sadolin Woodcare (Silver-Gilt).  We really loved this, a bright combination of vivid perennials and wild flowers, right up our street. If a garden can be happy then this is positively ecstatic, a real mood lifter. The clashing bright colours almost shouldn’t work, but to our eye and many others it worked a charm, as did the different heights of planting and the covered seating area complete with living roof. We stood there transfixed for ages.

We also liked the Southend-On-Sea Borough Council exhibit, entitled ‘Pastures Bye’ (Silver Gilt) which had a nice feeling to it and some great nostalgic detail (see below).

 Also quite interesting and thought provoking were the Six Wives of Henry VIII gardens, one garden representing each wife. Particularly well ‘executed’ (ha,ha !) was our friend Anthea Guthrie’s garden, ‘Anne Boleyn’s Garden for a Witch’. We liked the peacock feathers and deep red cornflowers, although Anthea did tell us that the crows played havoc with her corn.

What’s Not……..

There was a strange sinister black pyramid exhibit decorated with red flowers that seemed to be leaking tar all over the grass and poisoning the ground around it. I didn’t want to take a picture of it as it left me totally cold and angry that it was even there in the first place. Maybe I’m just not into conceptual art – ho, hum, a place for everything I suppose.

What’s Fun……..

The Grow Your Own ‘hanging bra-skets’ exhibit made us smile, using old bras, knickers and underpants as hanging baskets, although we weren’t sure about the stains on some of the Y-fronts.

Also great was the kids scarecrow exhibition, taking its inspiration from Henry VIII, there were some very well done Anne-Boleyns complete with detachable heads.

A courtyard garden designed and installed by Woolcott and Smith at Chiltern Street Studios in fashionable Marylebone in central London continues to flourish. The Studio was launched by Whistles founder Lucille Lewin as an independent fashion house and fashion showroom and has been used for many fashion launches and events, for such names as Calvin Klein and Ghost.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

In keeping with the ambience of the studio, the garden was designed to complement the studio and offer an attractive outdoor space that could be used for entertaining and as a backdrop for photography and events. Our brief from Lucille was quite specific in a number of ways as she wanted something quite unique and interesting that would make a statement. Taking inspiration from the work of artist Maria Grossman, the courtyard design evolved to become part art installation and part real garden. Entitled ‘Botanical Enigma’, the main feature was a large raised bed made of reclaimed brick with an old fireplace placed in the centre of it with old cast iron window frames, gothic arches and wooden mantelpiece. The backdrop of the garden was created by cladding the back wall with old reclaimed floor boards and other features including a planted up Victorian lavatory cistern, Victorian doors and vintage gardening tools and ornaments. A second raised bed, our ‘Wunderkammer’ feature, built against another wall, was a separate garden containing a ‘Cabinet of Wonders’; old shelves with antique apothecary bottles and botanical curiosities.

The planting had to be for shade and we used many large ivies and ferns and a large cycad to create the effect of an almost sinister space. Also included was Eucomis bicolor, Liriope muscari, Fatsia japonica, Leucothoe fontaneisiana ‘Scarletta’, Pseudopanax crassifolius, Hedera erecta, Polygonatum biflorum, Ruscus aculeatus  and numerous sedges. Amongst the more rare and unusual plants used were the fabulous Trochodendron aralioides and the delicate climber Muelenbeckia complexa.

(The garden was featured in the Saturday Times magazine 3^rd January 2009 when it was first installed )