Earlier this year we had some work done to extend our garden at home.
We originally had a brick wall separating our front and back garden. I call it ‘front garden’ but it was actually an ugly unused grass area that we maintained by mowing, but never used it for anything. We toyed with the idea of knocking down the wall to make the back garden bigger, and eventually decided to take the plunge and go for it. Especially since our daughter Emelia was growing – we needed more outdoor space for her to play.
As the wall came down and the space started to open up, I began visualising a design for the new garden in my head, and thinking about the new layout – what would go where etc.
In a way it was a good thing that the whole process took a fair few months as it gave me the opportunity to really think about the new garden design, and not rush into something that I might have later regretted.
I knew I wanted to brighten up the new space with some colour, so flower beds were on my mind. Although I have rather loosely ‘gardened’ before (in other words winged it), I didn’t really have a clue where to start with flower beds. So I did a little search online and came across The Rose Press Garden.
The attractive colourful designs were what drew me in initially. But then, having browsed The Rose Press Garden’s Instagram account I was just hooked. From there, I instantly felt like I ‘knew’ Lizzie, the founder and owner of this beautiful flower filled business. She appears on a lot of her stories with honest help and advice, makes how-to gardening videos, and her goal is to make gardening fun, modern and easy. Her passion for what she does really shines through, and I just knew I wanted to support her business. You know when you know that someone is your type of person?!
Lizzie runs a monthly subscription for packs of flower seeds and bulbs. When I saw it I signed up straight away and have since been receiving little letterbox size parcels of goodness for the last 8 months. Much of the said goodness has been grown, nurtured, and planted in my garden by me, all with the help of Lizzie’s beautiful information cards that come with the subscription.
The process of growing something which starts off as a tiny seed, germinates, and then transforms into a beautiful flower is amazing. I have found it so rewarding, too. Not only have I had a garden full of flowers this year, I have also had constant vases full of them in the house, and picked my own home grown bouquets for friends birthdays from the garden.
I have also had a wonderful ever-changing choice of flowery backdrops for photographing my work in the garden this year.
To compliment my new flower growing obsession, to house all of my little seedlings I needed more than just windowsills, so I bought a wooden frame mini greenhouse which has been so fun to use. Emelia loves helping me water everything.
The whole flower growing hobby has not just been rewarding for me, but also for Emelia. As well as help me water the plants, she has watched them grow and change and bloom. At 2 years old, she often mentions “Mummy’s flowers” in her little conversations which fills my heart!
I usually have seedlings growing on the studio windowsill as well. Emelia likes to pop her head in through the window and has a look to check if they are growing.
As the autumn starting to set in this year, Emelia helped me harvest some sunflower seeds and nigella seeds from the gone over dried flowers. This activity kept her occupied for a long period of time, she absolutely loved it. We then hung some of the old sunflower heads in the garden as bird feeders.
Because of the new flowers, our garden is now bee friendly, encouraging bees to collect pollen from the many different varieties of blooms and to help the environment.
I am so excited for the next steps of my garden in the new year, all with the help of my monthly subscription from the Rose Press Garden. I feel so much more confident in the garden now, rather than just winging it.
We have been out planting bulbs to our hearts content lately, mostly on Sunday mornings in our pj’s! We can’t wait to see the bulbs flower in the spring.
I have not been paid to write this, and it is not an ad. I just wanted to share my garden story and hope that it could inspire others 🙂
