Southport Flower Show

IT was Gardening Girl’s first visit to Southport Flower Show.

The show, held over four days boasted everything from spectacular blooms to fruit and veg displays, artwork, crafts and family entertainment.

The site is huge and it took me several hours walking around capturing the floral splendor.

Keith Partington (pictured) was drawing in the customers with his magnificent tower of sunflowers.

The Amateur Gardeners Tent boasted amazing flower, fruit and vegetable displays.

Over in the Grand Marquee I snapped gladioli, scented oriental lilies and begonias.

In the Floral Art tent were inventive displays. Unsurprisingly this particular display caught my eye.

This representation of sushi also impressed me. Incidentally my photo homes in on the sushi part for artistic reasons. The actual display was much bigger.

These gorgeous hardy perennials and grasses demonstrating late summer flowering was created by Sue Beesley of Bluebell Cottage Gardens Nursery in Cheshire.

I also checked out these bonsai trees.

All this photo taking is hungry work. I decided to stop for a hog roast roll. Unfortunately everyone else had the same idea and there seemed to be only one stall selling them.

The show is not just confined to flower displays. I was very tempted by the novelty wooden solar-powered paperweight/calculator at the wood turners tent.

And over in the crafts marquee I was talked into buying some crystal goblets, made and hand painted in Jerusalem by a handsome Palestinian man.

The crowd was entertained with a thrilling jousting match between the black knight and the good guy Thatcher.

“You guys are getting bloodthirsty,” the compere remarked as the crowd urged Thatcher to chop off the black knight’s head.

Intelligent dogs and clowns on tricycles provided other entertainment in the arena.

I picked up some miniature daffodil bulbs for the garden before leaving.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

After my success in resurrecting half-dead orchids I have been searching the Internet for fellow fanatics.

I came across the website of the North of England Orchid Society with details of an annual orchid showcase.

Unfortunately I missed it by days but discovered that a smaller show was being staged deep in the Cheshire countryside.

After tapping the details into my sat nav I was taken through breathtaking countryside before ending up in a pretty village.

The venue was opposite the village pub packed with families and visitors to a farmers market.

As I walked into the community hall I could almost imagine tumbleweed rolling across the floor in front of me.

It was virtually deserted apart from four elderly orchid lovers standing behind their stalls.

The woman behind the entry desk looked up from her cup of tea blinking in surprise at finally encountering a visitor. “Oh no dear. You don’t have to pay to come in,” she smiled.

The show was small with only a few blooms but some truly spectacular specimens. 

The Best in Show was a huge towering orchid with matching vertical rows of jawdropping white blooms.

How would the winner would have managed such a feat I asked?

Heated greenhouses are the secret one craggy-faced stallholder confided. 

In Holland they can get better flowers because they don’t have to abide by the same horticultural rules as the British, he added.

As I browsed his stall he held up a pot which contained bunches of fat green pods.

I couldn’t help being reminded of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a creepy 1950s science-fiction movie where aliens grow doubles of the townspeople in pods. I knew I had to own it.

“It’s a Coelogyne cristata”, he explained. “Very easy to look after”.

Coelogyne cristata

As I was leaving the elderly woman by the door offered some words of advice. 

“Keep all your orchids in a tub on the floor. That way you can have more in a restricted space”. 

As I left the cries rang in my ears. “She’s got the bug all right. Join us.” Just what the alien invaders would have said.



Some other orchids I snapped up on the day.

Dendrobium nobile virginalis

Dendrobium Kingianum

Killing sunflowers

IT was like a nuclear wasteland.

Well maybe not that bad.

I hated the overgrown borders outside our back door, the slug infested hosta plants and selection of broken plant pots littering the floor.

It was time to branch out from saving orchids and do a mini makeover.

I had already acquired three nearly dead supermarket mini sunflowers at the bargain price of 35p.

I arranged them in plant holders on the trellis and began faithfully watering them, allowing the water to drain out.

They were doing well until I decided to save time by using a larger watering can. The water landed on the flowers causing them to curl up and die.

Heading off eagerly to the garden centre I had stopped at the traffic lights when a distracted mum cannoned into the back of my little Ford Ka.

After exchanging details I faced a dilemma. Should I carry on to the garden centre to pick up the plants I wanted or take the sensible option and go home?

I drove to the garden centre where I picked up begonias, chrysanthemums, coleus, creepers and alpines.

As I left there was a slight problem when I realized that the boot would no longer lock. I spent a hair-raising journey home praying we didn’t go over any speed humps.

There followed a backbreaking afternoon of humping sacks of compost around, ripping out nasty looking foliage and replacing with colourful plants.

I planted out some containers remembering to place bits of broken polystyrene at the bottom to stop the holes from getting clogged with compost.

I even created my own hanging basket with creepers and snapdragons after slashing the plastic lining again to allow drainage before adding compost.

And the sunflowers are making a come-back with new yellow flowers starting to peep through the thick green leaves.

Although the result is beautiful I can’t help feeling that I can do things more cheaply next time.

Several gardening magazines are offering packets of free seeds which might be the way to go for a carer on a limited budget.

Today? I’m off to the doctor with whiplash injuries.

I am an orchid superhero.

I discovered that my local supermarket is an excellent place to pick up beautiful bargain orchids.

The new arrivals are truly spectacular and I am especially partial to the purple and yellow mini orchids. However supermarkets do not have a good track record for looking after their plants.

Since I became a fanatic a few months ago I have spotted several desperate specimens on the point of death. I hate to see orchids suffer so I feel compelled to buy them and try my best to restore them to health.

It was a couple of months ago when I spotted three orchids on the point of death. I went to customer services and bartered them down to one pound each. As I put the orchids in my trolley the jeering started from the staff. “I wouldn’t buy those love. They look like they’re not long for this world.” As I went through the checkout with my miserable looking plants the assistant commented that they looked like they were dead. “How will you bring them back to life?” she asked. I left the store to chuckles from male staff standing near the door.

Now all three orchids have shiny green leaves and stalks with prominent buds about to burst forth in the coming weeks. I have a dream of waiting until they are in their full glory and then taking them in to the supermarket to show all the doubters.

Today I was at the supermarket again and against my best judgment could not resist checking out the orchids. They had them outside in full sun – an instant killer for orchids. However as they were still in their plastic packaging it had shielded them partially from the rays.

There were some that were still lovely but once again my eye caught two dead looking plants that had been marked down for 35p. This time the assistants made no comment as I left the store also clutching two beautiful mini orchids in yellow and purple.

You may remember the film Death Becomes Her where two aging Hollywood divas become immortal. They look good in a weird sort of way but when anything touches them bits start falling off them. It was the same with the purple orchid. When I took it away from the store it had flowers and leaves. After I watered it all of the leaves but one fell off leaving a bare stalk. But I have faith it will survive. Watch this space.

What you know about gardening would fit on the back of a postage stamp my mother said.

I always thought I had the kiss of death where plants were concerned. A work colleague gave me a beautiful pot plant to celebrate a house warming. Within weeks it was dead.

Other pot plants I owned over the years succumbed to a similar fate regardless of how much I watered them.

It was when I inherited three orchids from my mother that things changed.

My mother suffered a major stroke, which left her with dementia and other serious health problems.

She was incapable of looking after her orchids, which had been her pride and joy.

At first it was a hassle to be left looking after them with all the other things I had to deal with.

The orchids were left to fend for themselves for months.

Then one day I was at a garden centre when I spotted a beautiful purple and white Phalaenopsis orchid.

I instantly fell in love. I just had to have that orchid. After a long conversation with the staff I took it home and took loving care of it.

That loving care then extended to the other three orchids I already owned but which had languished until now.

Once a week I would religiously water them under the tap for a couple of minutes before allowing them to drain off for the rest of the day.

I graduated to feeding them with specialized orchid spray every few days and even took to spraying them twice a day with water.

It was not long before I realised that my local supermarket sold orchids for a fraction of the price charged by the garden centre.

Every week I started snapping up bargain price orchids, all Phalaenopsis but of the most amazing colours – yellows with pink centres, whites with pink, deep purples, lime greens and mini orchids.

I now own 17 Phalaenopsis orchids which crowd the windowsills of my small northern semi-detached home.

There is something almost addictive about orchids.

Maybe I did inherit my mother’s green thumb after all.