Saturday 10 May 2014

Hidcote.... Part 1......







 
Hidcote garden is in the North Cotswolds. Created by American horticulturist Major Lawrence Johnstone it surely is right up there with the best we've visited anywhere.

There are about 12 full time and 50 volunteer gardeners and the presentation of everything on show is flawless.

Sit back and take a tour of some of the plantings and landscaping. You won't need the average gardeners kit, a knapsack sprayer with the mandatory fill of Paraquat here.




 










 








 





 













The thousands of tulips are removed and binned each year to be replaced with new plantings. This prevents disease spreading in the soil.






 


 






















 
 




 
Nice Summer house for a rest and a brew...



A cheap but effective frame for roses...






 

 




Hundreds of yards of hedging clipped to perfection..



 


 

 








 

 









 






 

 






 



Just a stepping stone.... to part 2.....
 

Sunday 4 May 2014

Roll Up... Roll Up....



We rolled up to the Thame country show the other day. A large arena surrounded by all sorts of stalls then the customary fun rides and exhibition stuff as well.

A warm day and large crowd, and a large crowd of dogs, made for a real relaxed country scene.

There were  a couple of events we hadn't seen before.....


One event was called.....




Horse boarding... tow a maniac on a large skate board with rubber wheels behind a horse....

 



Contestants had to....



Negotiate a slalom type course using all of the arena...... on a timed run...

 
The more experienced had a .....




Longer course with more corners and weaving....

Along the straights....
 


The horses  were at full gallop so when one crashed it was a goody....

Then there was......



Chainsaw sculpture.... start with a length of Red Cedar.....


With the chainsaw....


 

Mark out your intentions.... well this dude did....


A light touch needed.....




For the thatched cottage and mushroom....

 

They were on a timer... about 40 minutes to create....


 


And with about 5 to go you get the picture....

Just a bit of a.....



Slap around the face with some sand paper... and a touch of colour using a propane torch.....
 
Then with seconds to go...




Jobs done.... pretty tricky stuff with just a chain saw.... then they auctioned them off...
 

 
The carvers had their own spaces set up and a lot of pieces for sale....




Why did the bear S - - - in the woods?.... I guess he heard the chainsaw starting....


And if you need a.....




Garden seat and a book to read..... this will do fine... each end is all one piece only the seat is separate.....

The second event we'd never seen before was.....





Ferret racing... Here he's parading the starters before the race... Yepp.. they sold tickets just like at the races and if you picked the winner you got paid out...

4 ferrets are.....




 
Getting ready to enter the starting stalls/pipe..... the winner was Trizzle in the blue pipe.. it was a photo finish.. but there were to many heads in the way....

Did you know ferrets can be useful besides chucking down a hole to chase out a rabbit.
When Diana and Charlie got married there were so many miles of TV and power cables to be run around the surrounding area to broadcast it world wide and a lot of the ducting was inaccessible that they used The old Ferret trick to tow a leader line thru so the cables could then be tied on and pulled thru... True.As......