Post Comment Love 26 - 29 May

Hello there, and welcome back to this week’s #PoCoLo - a friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week, please remember this, posts which are older will be removed from the linky. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked and share some of that love. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here this week we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

We’ve our final bank holiday of the month on Monday, so the linky will stay open for an extra day closing at 11pm on Monday, giving you extra time to link up.

We’ve had one of those weeks where we’ve been ploughing through tasks, none of which seem particularly photo worthy. We’ve had some family meet-ups with more to follow, which is good for my car as well as my soul. As is the gardening, and being able to potter and pick off jobs a few a day, rather than our previous blitz it style. Like anything though, once you start paying attention to something you notice the smallest changes, and it’s great to notice these in our garden. Usually as I wander up and down I have my phone in my hand, ready to capture what I see - and I’m particularly pleased with this capture of the new growth on the yew tree.

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Three from the Design Arcade

* I was provided a pair of press tickets to the Grand Designs Live so I’m marking posts from my visit as 'Ad’ - as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

One of my favourite parts of Grand Designs Live is the Design Arcade. Last year it’s where we met the Card Boys and where we bought our new light so it has pretty good credentials!

Though the show overall seemed smaller than it had been in previous years, and (sob!) there were no room sets, the standard in the Design Arcade was as good as ever. Like any show the participants vary year to year, but noticeably this year at Grand Designs Live there were less ‘big’ and well known companies and more new to us brands, which is not such a bad thing.

But back to the Design Arcade, and what caught my eye this year:

1 Luxury Wallpaper by Avalana Designs

It was the swan wallpaper that caught my eye, and then the wallpapered background of the stand. The detail, the colours and in the case of the flowers, their size. Aren’t they fabulous?

On their website there’s also bedding and furnishings that complement each other, and while once my thing for bedding was ‘crisp and white’ over the past few years I’ve definitely changed my style to incorporate much more colour, so there could be the very real chance of a purchase in the hopefully not too distant future.

And it’s still the swans that are calling me…

2 Scented Candles by The Wick & Wax Co.

I love a candle or two, but it was the ‘Made in Stamford’ that caught my attention as that’s one of the places we’ve been visiting more regularly in our house search. Even though we’ve ruled it out as somewhere to live, it’s very much still on the somewhere to visit regularly list.

On their website there’s information about the luxury candles which are handcrafted in small batches and promises a ‘touch of luxury with a clearer conscience’ - I’m looking forward to seeing more of this company, and smelling their wares at shows which I hope will soon be classed as more local, and exploring their scents to work out which to buy. I don’t know about you, but sometimes the choice is just overwhelming - and not just for candles.

3 Door Signs by These Fair Hands

Now you might be thinking these are like any other door signs you might have seen, but they probably aren’t. These ones are made by from Corian, which is stone like and hard wearing, and you’ve most likely heard it used for kitchen worktops. But it’s also weatherproof which makes it ideal for door signs, which by their very nature are outside and subject to the elements.

On their website you can see the full range of door signs and more - and on the intro page, they say they don’t do standard - every piece they make is different, but beautiful.

This is another future potential purchase for me, and it’s the more modern designs, such as the 93 Lakewood Road sign, that appeal most, but the work in all of them is exceptional.

So some great finds, and some potential future purchases from me which is ok as for the first time ever I think, we left the show empty handed but armed instead with buckets of inspiration.

Through a hedge into The Secret Garden

* I was provided a pair of tickets to the Gardeners’ World Spring Fair and therefore are marking posts from my visit as 'Ad’ - as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

The Secret Garden by Hillier was a central feature of this year’s Spring Fair, inspired by The Secret Garden. It promised to be enclosed by high hedges, and the entrance was through part of this hedge, the design was said to encourage visitors to get up close and personal with the plants displayed, and that was the case, as much as you can at these kind of events.

Unsurprisingly it was a popular feature of the show and it was pretty busy when we visited but generally people gave each other space to enjoy and explore the garden which was absolutely full of plants.

On the right as we entered was the border containing the Himalayan Birch trees and hostas, which was getting much less attention than the border opposite. This area was designed to be more contemporary and included the low-maintenance brilliant white trunked trees. The hostas among the trees represented a ‘sea of foliage’ as a contrast to the colours opposite.

It was nice, but quite understated and in complete contrast to the larger section of the garden, which as you can see, was a lot more interesting.

The border full of herbaceous perennials and shrubs start with whites and purples and go through the spectrum of colours, the idea for the design was to move through the softer, delicate colours to intense and vibrant shades to depict the sun’s movement during the day.

One of the plants stealing the show was the bright pink Judas tree - isn’t it stunning? I think we’ll see more of these, and I’ve already spotted that some of the RHS Chelsea gardens are using them. I know I’d be happy to have one in my garden!

Along the back border the colours changed to the more intense and vibrant colours, with fiery reds and oranges and yellows, representing a bright sunset, and a beautiful end to the day.

Looking back at these photos it’s much more obvious than I remember at the time, though this is most likely because of sharing the space with more people than you would normally share a garden with, so it was much harder to look at the garden as a whole. However the photos allow that, and the planting is really rather special.

My other hot tip is shallow pots complete with pebbles and water - we saw these in more than one garden at the Spring Fair, and it’s something that’s easy to replicate at home, so I think we’ll see more simple water features in our gardens, and that can only be a good thing.