Carol's Garden

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Carol's Garden

Home grown fresh scented garden & wild flowers with character
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W Cheshire

23/05/2026

Just appreciating our polytunnels. I’ll miss them when we leave here. Always important to allow space for some fruit and veg. And you can’t beat just-picked strawberries, still warm from the heat of the tunnel. No sprays, no chemicals, no work tbh. Just water, pick and eat 🍓

30/04/2026

I’d never grown Icelandic poppies before I started growing flowers to sell. There are lots of varieties I wouldn’t necessarily grow in a garden or even home cutting patch. Too expensive, too fussy, too tall, too much work, too much water etc etc. I’ve thought about this a lot as I’ve been planning my retreat from cutting flowers for a living. I look at stems as I cut. Will they make the new, selected list? Most won’t, but Iceland poppies do.
That heart-lifting colour and fragile texture, addictive peppery and unmistakable scent. I have a selection of green glass vases for them and I’ll always try to grow some of these absolute beauties. I may actually have had such a big vase of poppies in mind when we designed our new (not quite finished) kitchen.

28/04/2026

The top of our shrub and perennial field. Just shy of an acre, packed with trees, shrubs and hardy perennials. Too many, if I’m honest. Pretty much all bought as small or bare root plants, or grown from seed or cuttings. But all planted by us since 2016, specifically for cutting for sale. No lovely mature inherited shrubs. Except the beautiful oaks of course!
People ask me for suggestions for foliage or blossom but this is why I can’t really say. There are quick and easy plants, the ones everyone grows. But I’ve spent years searching out less common varieties, working out my successions, propagating the best examples, to give me something to cut in the colours, shapes and times of year that I think will sell. I don’t know how many varieties there are. There was an original plan, but I’ve tweaked and adapted it every year since then. So no short easy ‘top 3’ lists, sorry. And how dull would it be if everyone grew the same. 💚

27/04/2026

Big old order for a brand and industry event last week. Brief was for whites, yellows, every shade of foliage from yellow through acid green, to browns and grey. Lots of woody foliage, flowers too, picked ready for maximum impact in a big space and to complement bold imported flowers to be added in.
We have planted lots of shrubs and trees over the last 15 years - and especially when we took on an extra field specifically for woody and herbaceous perennials in 2016. So most of this came from that field - hardy, resilient plants, growing without inputs or irrigation. And perfect when we want to pull together an order like this at pretty short notice.

24/04/2026

When you haven’t picked the Icelandic poppies for 2 days….
Just lovely pastel colours from . Especially love the soft lemons ✨

22/04/2026

We picked loads of these today. I’ve always loved growing ‘ordinary’ ranunculus and they’ve been so popular and such fantastic cut flowers. I was never convinced about butterflies- too fussy and too shiny. How wrong can I be?! I tried a few given to me by NW king of butterflies, John , then I bought a much bigger batch last year. Late ordering, I didn’t get first pick of the colours. But then last summer, uncertain of my future here, I was late again and missed the cut on main wholesale suppliers. But Cel had Growers Packs which tempted me to invest more. Turned out that last year’s, left in the ground in the polytunnel all year, came back brilliantly and just as good as the new ones. So now I’ve got lots! 😂 Good thing they’re so popular ✂️✂️

10/04/2026

Still always trying new varieties for cutting. And I have a particular liking for Polemoniums which have a branching rather than upright habit. This is P carneum, the straight species, all grown from seed and it is gently seeding around of its own accord now. Short, yes, but stems get a bit longer later on, and it’s such a beautiful, pretty, soft blue. But even the short early stems look just lovely in bud vases, the edge of a bowl, or in a dainty bouquet. As with other Polemonium I’ve tried, they last forever too.
*available from this week too 😉

29/03/2026

Early morning shadows in the propagation tunnel. Tunnels are such interesting environments. No added heat, just protection from wind and rain, and warming from the ‘greenhouse effect’ of sunlight on a translucent surface. We use this little tunnel for propagation and grow a few small things - stocks and salads, mainly. And then for drying flowers and seedheads, later in summer. We don’t want it to get too hot. The hedge behind offers some useful shade, light and airy at this time of year, denser in summer. But we still throw shade netting over when the sun gets stronger. For now, there is just this light, flickering dappled shade.
Yesterday, I watched as a silhouette of a blackbird collected moss and twiggy bits, and dropped down to build a nest deeper in the hedge line. A hedge that we planted 14 years ago and is so full of life already.

27/03/2026

One of my favourite jobs is opening the tunnels on a chilly spring morning. I don’t get to do it very often because the doors are usually wide open the whole time, but we close them if the weather is very windy (in this case) or very cold. To walk in as the sun just rises over Rawhead, the first hint of warmth and the air full of birdsong. And plants full of spring energy and promise for the weeks ahead. That energy slowly rubbing off on me. 💚

20/03/2026

First butterflies of the year. Plus tulips, hellebores and wallflowers. Peach, lemon and cream. Good enough to eat, surely?*

* But not recommended! Hellebores and ranunculus are potentially toxic 😳 Just in case you were considering it.

Address

Harthill
Chester
CH39LF

Telephone

+447500113618

Website

http://carolsgarden.co.uk/

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