Our Cottage Garden

This garden is inspired by, and dedicated to, the late Mr. Alan Furness-Huson, a man who has guided my faltering steps into the wonderful world of gardening.

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This garden will open as part of the National Garden Scheme on Sunday the 24th of June 2012 at 2pm!

After two consecutive years as a semi-finalist in The Shropshire Star Garden of The Year Competition we became finalist for 2008, the 25th year of the competition's life!

The final judging took place on the 1st of August 2008. A very proud Head Gardener shows Mr Roy Lancaster around Holmcroft. The final placings 1,2,3rd were announced at The Shrewsbury Show on the 16th of August. We achieved 3rd place.

My BIG moment!

The head gardener with Roy Lancaster.

Felt more than a little silly as this photo was being taken. The judging was over in a flash and after all the hard work to get everything ready the under gardener and I just sat like a pair of zombies after they had all left!

Prepared for Judging!

Weather behaving for a change1

The night before the judging and not a leaf out of place. The Dobie who normally has the run of the garden was confined to barracks! The Under Gardener had worked his magic on the lawn edges and the first thing Mr. Lancaster commented on was the colour of the lawn. Did I tell you that the Under Gardener had all but killed off the lawn three weeks earlier, overdosed it on lawn sand and turned the whole thing black !!!!

Competition Photo

This is one of three pictures which were submitted to the Shropshire Star for the competition. Despite being sent recorded delivery they never arrived and we had to e-mail them through on the closing day of the competition!

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Described by one visitor as "a chocolate box cottage" we became the owners of this piece of English history in May 2004

Double click on pictures for a larger image.

December 2010

Oh boy is it cold!

Holmcroft in the 1970's

This picture was given to us by the nephew of the owner of the cottage for fifty years. We have an aerial picture taken only two years ago and it is already way out of date. I love this picture and have spent a long time pouring over it. Recently we had three people here who were evacuated to this part of the world during the war and they stayed in the cottage. They were able to tell us a good deal about the garden then and filled in some of the blanks for us!

The Willow Tree in September

When we arrive here in 2004 this willow tree was in some distress. It was shedding its leaves even in May. We had a specialist look at the tree and he confirmed that it was in trouble. Pollard the tree was the suggestion and that happened in February 2005 and just look at it now! The tree sits at the top of the steep bank which is front of the cottage and it is the centre piece of the refurbishment of that bank. The two stone pots were added in 07. There had been similar pots here some 30 or so years ago but they had been removed by a previous owner. These were a "snip" at a local auction and have been planted up as you can see with geraniums. There are plastic pots inside the stone one and they are changed three times a year so as to keep the planting looking fresh. To age the pots when we got them I painted them with cow manure. Very messy but it worked.

The Gravel Garden

The under gardener at work.

The under gardener said, when we came here, one of the most important aspects of this garden would be the ability to process everything that we removed from the garden. To this end he set about purchasing the equipment necessary to quickly compost down all that we take out of the garden. Here you see the two different kinds of shredders we use as well as the Hippo bag I put everything into till we have time to process it. This job is done about once a week at the change over period of each of the planting successions. The finely chopped material is then added to one of the many compost bins that we have.

Pride & Joy for the under gardener - compost!

As you can see we have many bins and they are all in use all the time. It never ceases to amaze me how it all rots down and ends up being a relatively small amount compared with what we take out of the garden. What is slightly out of shot here is the leaf bin. This is regularly turned out and added to the other bins when it has rotted down. The "tin man" as I call him disposes of the nasties such as leaf with black spot and bind weed. Some of the rubbish is considered by the under gardener as not suitable for HIS compost bins so finds its way to the local tip.

The gravel garden was much commended by Roy Lancaster when he judged the garden for the Shropshire Star "Garden of the year" competition. It has made quite an impact with many of our visitors and is the area of the garden that generates the most questions. It is continuing to mature very well and I am adding extra plants for summer 2010.

a passion for a cottage and a garden