In the latest #wildflowerhour podcast, we launch our new junior section, #herbologyhunt, by talking to young botanists from the ages of 5-18 about why they like hunting for wild flowers.
Listen to find out – and when you get to the end, download our spotter sheet for January and make it your new year’s resolution to get children into wild flowers. More details on #herbologyhunt tomorrow.
Rather excitingly, we are going to be launching a junior section of #wildflowerhour next week. It’s called #herbology and will be all about the magic of hunting for wild flowers.
More on that soon. But firstly, we need your help.
The great thing about #wildflowerhour is the way it brings people together into a community, and we want #herbology to be the same happy group effort.
So we are going to illustrate the monthly spotter sheets that we will be launching with photos from #wildflowerhour members.
The January spotter sheet will have Shepherd’s-purse, Gorse, Groundsel, Chickweed and Daisy on it, so we are looking for pictures of all five of these plants. Every photo we use in these entirely free resources will feature a credit for the photographer and also make you a part of bringing up a new generation of botanists.
All you need to do is post a photo and tag our Instagram, comment on our Facebook page, or tweet at us.
Can you name all the flowers in this beautiful old botanical illustration? Post your answers in the comments below, reply on our Instagram, comment on our Facebook page, or tweet at us. Answers tomorrow.
I vividly recall the moment that I accidently discovered #wildflowerhour. A dismal Sunday evening was instantly transformed into awe, delight and enchantment as tweets of our beautiful wildflowers seemingly cascaded all around me for a magical, colourful hour!
The discovery of #wildflowerhour happened at a key point in my life. Earlier in 2016 our much loved family dog Lewis succumbed to old age. The daily walk which had been an intrinsic part of our routine for fifteen and a half years now became an unbearable reminder of what we had lost.
Joyfully #wildflowerhour catapulted into our existance and provided my family with a much needed new focus for our outdoor rambles. My husband jokingly renamed it ‘wildpowerhour’ now shortened to ‘powerhour’. My two children cry ‘What can we find for Mum’s power hour!!’ A powerful hour indeed which has enriched my life in so many ways.
hear some of them on our latest podcast
That first winter I noticed amateur and experienced botanists reflecting on the season and posting pictures of their best botanical finds. This provided new wonderment: plants I didn’t know existed and best of all locations of where they could be found! This helped me to look forward to 2017: would I be able to find these wonders too? #Wildflowerhour really is the gift that just keeps on giving. So this has been the inspiration behind the hashtag #favouritefind. You, the wonderful wildflowerhour community have responded so amazingly. It has been a delight to read the special plant stories that have formed your favourite finds of 2017 – and you can hear some of them on our latest podcast. Thank you!
Favourite find – Curated tweets by wildflower_hour
You can find amazing wild flowers anywhere. You don’t need to travel far and wide, you don’t need a membership fee and you don’t even need to know what they are to find them: all you need to do is look.
But there is something magical about a nature reserve, especially one that another botanist suggested you visit in order to find a certain flower. We asked #wildflowerhour members to tell us their favourite nature reserves in Britain and Ireland. Here’s what they came up with:
Tell us your own favourite spots by tweeting @wildflower_hour, posting it on Instagram and tagging @wildflowerhour or posting it on our Facebook page.
To wish you ‘happy Christmas’, here is ‘the best of 2017’ – the most popular posts published in 2017 in the Middlesized Garden, plus my favourite photographs.
And there are two last minute gift suggestions – Francine Raymond’s new book, The Garden Farmer, is reviewed at the end of the post. And for that late gift delivery, see Tree2MyDoor’s review, also at the end of the post.
The most popular post published in Spring 2017 was ‘How to Create An Irrestistibly Romantic Garden.’
Hearts and flowers – the most popular spring post was about creating a romantic garden.
And my favourite photograph of our own garden is this:
Taken in April, with the tulips and euphorbia. Something to look forward to.
One of my very favourite posts in summer was 11 charming small garden ideas on a budget. It’s a tiny garden in a newly built estate, and it has bags of character. The owners, Jack and Carolyn Wahlberg, have filled it with charity shop finds, imaginatively displayed.
It was in Faversham Open Gardens last year, and we’re hoping it will be in again in 2018. Make a date in your diary for Faversham Open Garden & Garden Market Day on Sunday 24th June, when 30+ small and middlesized town gardens will be open.
This was one of my favourite gardens to visit in 2017. It’s Jack and Caroline Wahlberg’s and is a tiny garden furnished with charity shop buys.
The most popular post published in summer 2017 was The best plants for amazingly low maintenance pots.
However, I personally also love this one – Which hedge is right for your garden? I got up at 4.30am to go to Doddington Place Gardens to photograph their hedges for the post. I now really understand about getting up early if you want to photograph gardens – there’s a magical quality to photographs taken in that hour after dawn.
I love the soft dawn light of this photograph, taken at Doddington Place Gardens just after dawn in June.
Doddington Place Gardens is open from April to October, and it also has an excellent garden blog.
The most popular post published between August and October was How to style your garden – smart tips and finishing touches, with advice from the very stylish garden writer, Francine Raymond. Don’t miss her new book, The Garden Farmer, reviewed later on in this post.
Francine’s style tips for middlesized gardens
And my favourite photos were of dahlias, of course!
The peach dahlia, Henriette, in the main border from the end of July until the first frosts. From the post ‘Don’t dig up your dahlias for winter – here’s what to do instead.’
Starting ‘winter’ at the beginning of October makes the review of Monty Don’s new book Down To Earth the most popular post published on the Middlesized Garden, and therefore, ‘the best of 2017’ for the end of the year.
Here he is talking about Down to Earth on video (note: links to Amazon are affiliate links. You can click through to buy, and I may get a small fee, but it won’t affect the price you pay):
I’m not sure why I love this photograph so much, as it’s nothing special – just frost and shapes, seen from one of our bedroom windows.
Sunday Telegraph writer, Francine Raymond, has a new book out, published just in time for Christmas. Called The Garden Farmer, it’s about having a beautifully productive garden and would be a good book for anyone considering keeping hens, ducks or even quail. Francine’s own garden is ‘middle-sized’ so the advice is practical and realistic. There are also recipes and general tips about living in and enjoying your garden.
See inside the book and find out more about it in the full review here:
If you’re looking for a last-minute gift, then take a look at Tree2MyDoor’s tree and plant delivery service. You can order up until lunchtime (midday) on Thursday 21st December for delivery on Friday 22nd December. Their range and quality is good – Tree2MyDoor sent me a white rose in a pot in the summer. It flowered for a long time, in spite of mild neglect and is now clearly gathering its energies for another burst next year.
There’s a good range of trees on offer, such as holly, bay, olive, native trees, acers and more, or plants in pots, such as amaryllis or rose. For the newly fashionable urban gardener, there are also ‘trees for balconies’ and indoor trees.
Happy Christmas. This is the last post of 2017, so hope to see you in 2018.
The post The best of 2017 in middlesized gardening… appeared first on The Middle-Sized Garden.
Why would you spend 17 years hunting for a plant you’ve never seen? In the latest episode of the Wild Flower (Half) Hour podcast, Isabel Hardman interviews Sean Cole of the Ghost Orchid Project to find out what drives him to search for Britain’s most elusive plant.
We also hear about some of your favourite wild flower finds from this year, and hear from award-winning botanist Brian Laney about how hitting the ground with a fork helps him save rare plants from extinction.
You can listen to this podcast on iTunes, Acast, and a range of other platforms. If the podcast isn’t on your preferred platform, please let us know so we can sort it out. And please do leave us a review if you like the podcast: it helps spread the wild flower love even further.
Can you name all the plants in this lovely old botanical illustration by John Sowerby? Post your answers in the comments below, reply on our Instagram, comment on our Facebook page, or tweet at us. Answers tomorrow.
Well, that was a happy, colourful #wildflowerhour! Thanks to everyone who took part. This week’s star image came from Angelika Smith.
Herb-Robert, ‘Geranium robertianum’ – my little pink friend just goes on & on! Warwickshire #Wildflowerhour pic.twitter.com/XONMiqh6g6
— Angelika Smith (@AngelikaHTCG) December 10, 2017
Don’t forget that we are running a competition at the moment to have your favourite wild flower find from this year turned into an original botanical illustration. More information here.
And the wonderful people at Plantlife have generously offered all #wildflowerhour members a 50% discount on annual membership: just use the code WFHOUR when you check out here.
In our latest podcast, Isabel Hardman interviews Zoe Devlin on her new book, gets a lesson from Kevin Widdowson on identifying wild flowers by their fruits, and 22 year old botanist Joshua Styles on his mission to save rare plants in the North West from extinction.
Here are some highlights from this week:
What are your best blogging tips of the year? I’ll tell you mine, if you tell me yours.
Britmums is a blogging collective. Although it’s mainly for parenting bloggers, it has some great resources and a fab BML (BritMumsLive) conference every year. I find that most of the advice given by panellists is appropriate to all lifestyle blogs. Currently Britmums have a linky running where you can share your post on the best blogging tips of the year.
If you’re wondering what a ‘linky’ is, it’s a series of linked posts, usually on a single topic, from lots of different blogs. You can submit your own post, and it’s a way of promoting your blog to people who wouldn’t normally see it. And it’s a way of finding interesting posts, you yourself wouldn’t otherwise see.
2017 was the year that blogging ‘came back’ in a big way. A few years ago, people said that ‘blogging was dead’ because people were moving to Instagram, Pinterest and more.
As indeed, they did. But all the social media channels do suddenly change the rules. Instagrammers and Pinners suddenly noticed that they’d lost a big chunk of their audience, apparently overnight, due to an ‘algorithm change’. It’s Instagram or Pinterest’s platform. Their territory, their rules.
But your blog (if you own the domain name and pay for hosting) is your very own. No-one can take you down unless you break the law. If you have a free blog, it belongs to the company that hosts it, such as WordPress, Wix or Blogger (Google) but they don’t seem to change the rules in quite the same way that Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and others do. If you’ve got X hundred people on your mailing list, they are your readers. It’s between you and them.
If you have a website or a blog, you need to find out what works and what doesn’t with Google Analytics.
I was in the bottom division in Maths at school. The Maths teacher told me that if there was a division below that, I would have been there. In those days it was called Maths O level and I struggled to pass it. I am not being cute about this. Now that we have established that I am neither numerically literate nor young – if I can understand Google Analytics, anyone can.
Google runs free online Google Analytics courses. But if the sight of any sum in double figures throws you into a panic, then invest in some personal tuition (not from your son/nephew etc). Find a professional who is Google Certified.
I had a one-to-one session of Google Analytics from Mark Jennings at Stormchasers Digital in Rochester. I also won a place at one of their all-day workshops, when I was a finalist in the Kent Creative Live awards, which they sponsor.
Mark explains things very clearly (he needs to, with me). And actually, it’s fascinating. One of the best blogging tips he gave me was to highlight my links in a stronger contrast colour. This immediately increased the number of people reading more than one post.
Google Analytics shows you how many readers visited your pages, so I can see that the Middlesized Garden has had just over half a million page views since this time last year.
It also shows where they came from -most Middlesized Garden readers come from search engines or are subscribers, but I get nearly 20,000 page views a year from Pinterest. But only 64 views a year from Instagram! Do I up my Instagram game or spend less time on it?
Analytics can also show you where readers go after they’ve read one post. This is interesting because some posts are successful and people go on to read more posts. Others may be equally popular but don’t seem to inspire readers to go any further.
Analytics tell you how long your pages take to load, what other interests your readers have (homes, interiors, travel, food in my case) and more.
If you’re already using Google Analytics but don’t know where to go after seeing how many people have read your blog this week, go to Behaviour/Site Content/Content Drilldown to find your posts listed in order of popularity. My favourite page.
Stormchasers Digital’s one day courses are £395. They are running some shorter, affordable introductory workshops in 2018, and they have an online video course for £20 a month.
This is another trend that has ‘come back.’ When blogging started, part of the excitement was the interaction between bloggers. Bloggers quoted each other, commented on each other’s posts and recommended lists of other blogs to follow. It was part of getting your own blog noticed.
Then, as blogging became a business, bloggers started to be more competitive. Why, after all, should you mention and link to another blog? Won’t your readers just go off and read that blog instead? Won’t it be like when your best friend dropped you in Year 8, and became Maisie’s best friend instead?
Well, Google likes to see you link out to other sites, if they’re good, reputable ones. It calculates that it makes you more useful to people.
Then there’s karma. The more you give, the more you get. Bloggers that share on social media are more likely to get shared back.
And when you’re not yourself writing a post, you’ve still got something to offer your social media followers. I actively look for other bloggers’ posts and tweets that I think Middlesized Garden readers would enjoy – and I find interesting things to read in the process. Win, win. (I think most garden blogger interaction is probably on Twitter rather than as comments on blogs…what do you think?)
And there’s being stronger together. Many bloggers are approached by PR companies for reviews or collaborations. What or when should we charge? How should we disclose our fees? And what about when someone steals your posts and puts them up on their own blog? It is all so much easier when bloggers share information or act together when necessary.
At the Fiskars’ Make a Terrarium Day with James Wong. Everyone was doing Instagram stories….
Also, you can learn a lot from other bloggers. That doesn’t mean copying them, it means picking up ideas and doing them in your own way. For example, at the Monty Don book launch, we were all taking photographs of the canapes, then Instagramming them. One clever blogger (sorry, can’t remember who, excellent cocktails) Instagrammed us all photographing the canapes. Nice twist – I’ll try to remember to take more ‘behind the scenes’ pix, too in future.
And when I noticed that the other bloggers at a Fiskars’ lunch were all doing Instagram stories, I tried it too. I’m not very good at it, though, so follow Hannah Bullivant’s Instagram or Julia Rebaudo on Stylonylon to see it done well.
Canapes at the Ham Yard Hotel for the Monty Don Down to Earth book launch. But the Instagram shot of us all photographing the canapes was much more fun!
Above all, it’s enormous fun to talk to people who do the things you do, and who understand the frustrations you may have.
Connect your social media channels and your blog in a joined-up way. Because we’re all so busy, that means working out a formula so that you don’t forget anything. It helps enormously if your blog name is also your Twitter name, the name of your Facebook Page, your Pinterest Page and so on. It should all lead back to your blog, and your blog should connect out to your social media wherever possible.
So every post gets a Pin (made with Canva.com). I also now include a YouTube video, where relevant. I’ll tweet the post several times, and put it on the Middlesized Garden Facebook Page once. I don’t personally find Instagram gets me a lot of readers, but I know other garden bloggers do. For successful Instagrammers, look at the Anxious Gardener, Higgledygarden, Mr Plant Geek
I looked at lots of other blogs to see how they were positioning their Pins. Some bloggers were putting a Pin near the beginning of the post, with the words ‘No time to read now? Pin for later.’
This seemed like good advice, but a bit distracting. I imagined everyone pinning for later and never reading the post. Then I spotted that Catherine from Growing Family puts her ‘Pin for later’ at the end of the post, which seemed to make much more sense. So I do that now, although I call it ‘Pin for reference’ as that’s how I think of Pins. Thank you, Catherine.
If you’re not in it, you can’t win it. Don’t wait for the perfect post or the magic number of readers. Just do it. The fact is that most people who enter awards don’t win, however wonderful they or their blogs are. Never enter an award with any expectation of winning. But, suddenly, you’ll find yourself short-listed when you least expect it.
From right: Garden Journalist of the Year 2017 finalists: Nick Bailey (winner), Annie Green-Armytage, me, Stephanie Mahon (Property Trade Press finalist) and Barbara Segall
This year, I was a finalist in the Property Press Awards Garden Journalist of the Year. As the other finalists were Monty Don, Joe Swift, Caroline Donald, Nick Bailey, Veronica Peerless, Annie Green Armytage and Barbara Segall, I didn’t expect to win, but it was huge fun to be short-listed alongside such names. Nick Bailey won it, and we all had another glass of champagne.
I did win one award this year, though, The Kent Creative Live Award for publishing, which I co-won with Faversham Life, a beautiful online magazine about Faversham.
And I’m nominated for UK Blog Awards 2018, so if you could bear to vote for me, I’d be extremely grateful. It’s in the Lifestyle section, which is usually dominated by homes and interiors blogs, so it would be great to see gardening get something. You could vote for Agents of Field, too, who are also nominated. Let’s get two gardening blogs up there! I’m tired of gardening playing second fiddle to homes/interiors/fashion.
All the pundits say that video is going to get bigger and bigger. Like many people, I’ve never been comfortable with seeing myself in photos or on screen, so initially I thought this would stop me vlogging (video blogging).
However, as with everything, it’s just a matter of practice. I’ve been working on the Middlesized Garden’s YouTube channel this year. Video definitely does offer an extra dimension to blogging. And the only way to get over feeling self-conscious in photos and video is try, try and try again. YouTube have lots of excellent video-making advice available free on YouTube Creator Academy.
And when I went to Britmums BML17, there was an excellent session given by YouTube experts. One of their best blogging tips was to do a video ‘challenge’, such as Vlogmas. Vlogmas means uploading a video every day in December, or until Christmas. I’m doing Vlogmas this year, and it’s very time-consuming. But it’s also exciting, and I’m learning so much. The videos are far from perfect, but that’s the whole point. See below for the latest one!
So what are your best blogging tips from the year? Let me know, either in the comments below or on Twitter or Facebook.
The post The best blogging tips of the year…. appeared first on The Middle-Sized Garden.
Can you name all the plants in this lovely old botanical illustration from W.Keble Martin’s botany book? Post your answers in the comments below, reply on our Instagram, comment on our Facebook page, or tweet at us. Answers tomorrow.
Did you know we have 52 different species of wild orchid growing in Britain and Ireland? If you thought that orchids only grew in tropical forests or on your windowsill, think again: our native flora is quite extraordinarily beautiful and diverse.
Today on our Instagram feed, we’re starting a very cool series of tutorials on how to recognise each one of those native orchids. We’ve started with one of the most famous – and scarce – members of this family: the Lady’s Slipper.
To watch the tutorial, you need to log in to Instagram and watch our story. We’ll save each instalment of the orchid series on our profile so you can catch up with it.
What an amazing #wildflowerhour we’ve had this week. The weather outside may be frightful, and there may be Christmas shopping to do, but so many of you are still getting out there and finding a delightful number of wild plants in bloom across Britain and Ireland.
This week’s star image comes from @barbus59. Highlights below – and they’re really good.
Red Campion, Silene dioica, Lower Higham, 031217 for #wildflowerhour #thewinterten pic.twitter.com/XWC9lK9ONX
— Kingfisher (@Barbus59) December 3, 2017
Don’t forget that we are running a competition at the moment to have your favourite wild flower find from this year turned into an original botanical illustration. More information here.
And the wonderful people at Plantlife have generously offered all #wildflowerhour members a 50% discount on annual membership: just use the code WFHOUR when you check out here.
Finally, our latest podcast is live! In this episode, Isabel Hardman interviews Zoe Devlin on her new book, gets a lesson from Kevin Widdowson on identifying wild flowers by their fruits, and 22 year old botanist Joshua Styles on his mission to save rare plants in the North West from extinction.
Here are some highlights from this week:
And off we go! Enjoy sharing your pictures of the wild flowers you found in Britain and Ireland this week!
A reminder of our rules for those who've joined:
- We're about wild flowers in Britain and Ireland.
- No garden flowers please, they're lovely but there are other groups for this.
- Post pictures and ask for IDs any time.
- We are a non-profit group running to support the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, Plantlife and the Wildlife Trusts. Therefore this isn't a group for selling things.
Other than that, please enjoy the planty party that is #wildflowerhour!
I am looking for a melancholy thistle. Culpepper says that if you add it to wine, it will make man merry as a cricket.
Thanks for accepting me in the group, I've been following and contributing to wildflower hour for some time on Twitter. This is easier.
Why post only on Sunday from 8 to 9 pm? Why not at other times?
WANTED!!
Hibernating ladybird sightings. Research is being undertaken on ladybirds in Cork by UCC and Fota Wildlife Park. We are particularly looking for hibernation sites in cork. If you have any in your house or shed please email ladybird@fotawildlife.ie asap with details and photograph. Please can you share.There is also an Irish ladybird fb page if you are interested. Thank you.
The phrase ‘Christmas tablescape’ has emerged from Pinterest, along with ‘Christmas mantelscapes.’
This Christmas tablescape is on the piano in the hall. It looks so effective because there’s a strong repeated theme throughout – silver birch, pussy willow and berries.
A Christmas tablescape isn’t always about decorating a dining table. It’s a Christmas still life, on a coffee table, a hall table, or even the top of a piano or bookcase.
Faversham florist, Charlotte May, of Lotty’s Flowers, has decorated Denise and Adrian Riggs’ house with tablescapes and a mantelscape. Denise started it off by collecting her favourite ideas on Pinterest, to show Charlotte, and she also specified the colour theme, which was white.
The same theme echoed on the mantelpiece or ‘mantelscape’ as Pinterest would call it…
Denise wanted to be able to re-use some elements, such as stars and fake berries, from year to year. Others are fresh – such as the holly, eucalpytus and pussy willow – and can be varied to create different effects in other years.
The red berries in this vase are holly branches stripped of their leaves. You can buy them like this in florists’ or you could, possibly, strip your own holly branches of leaves.
The branches are in a clear glass vase with ‘water pearls’ at the base.
Water pearls are tiny dehydrated beads which swell when you drop them into water. They have a silky, slippery texture, when fully expanded. Use them with water in clear glass vases to hydrate fresh flowers or twigs.You can buy them at a florist – Lotty’s Flowers sells them, for example. You can also buy them as ‘water beads’ online from Amazon (where I’m an affiliate so if you buy, I may get a small fee but it won’t affect the price you pay.) Water beads are also available in a range of colours.
Water pearls re-hydrating
If you put a Christmas tablescape on a side table or a coffee table, the arrangement may be moved around by people using the table. So Charlotte used trays to anchor the display (see below). When arranging the objects, think in triangles – an overall triangle shape usually works well in still life.
Coffee table ‘Christmas tablescape’ on trays – keeps it all together.
By the way, if you like the white birch twig tea light holder, you can adapt the techniques in this Jam Jar Christmas post to make it yourself.
I love the pussy willow twig wreath. Check out this post on how to make a twig wreath for tips.
Charlotte May does wedding flowers as well as floral decorations for homes, and her florist shop in Faversham is a delight.
Lotty’s Flowers in Faversham
‘Vlogmas’ is a YouTube challenge. I’m joining the challenge by uploading a short Christmas or winter gardening video every day to YouTube, so do please come and cheer me on. My aim is to find people with inspiring ideas and tips, and then to film them. I’d love to hear all comments and suggestions. You can watch ‘#vlogmas 3 – what to do with your lawn moss for Christmas’ below, and subscribe to The Middlesized Garden YouTube channel to follow along. Thank you!
The post Christmas ideas – a white Christmas tablescape appeared first on The Middle-Sized Garden.
