A rare day out..

You may remember last year we were lucky enough to be given some free tickets to the Malvern Spring gardening show by a lovely neighbour.I was only watching Gardeners world and thinking how good it looked again last night and a pity that our nice neighbours had moved, when stinky George produced an envelope with two tickets in for the show." from 'thingy' " he says, "who used to live next door, they called round yesterday" (they have since moved to a new house but still own the house next door)
WHOOPEE !
So off Pete and I trundled in my old truck to visit the show only 10 minutes from our home.
There was definately a bit of a vintage/reclamation theme going on this year if you ask me, maybe I'm wrong,but there were more sellers with antique gardinalia and vintage garden bits and bobs and more lovely show gardens featuring old tools and vintage sheds than last year.Lots of alliums, which I always admire, and plenty of themed colourful gardens, I love the combination of dusky dark leaves and vivid oranges that seemed to be used this year...(sorry,the photos are a bit blurry,oops!)

but then again, I love purple flowers and circles used in the garden too, whether its alliums or box balls..or stone balls!But you can't beat a bit of vintage in my eyes, I just love this cute potting shed, with it's old tin signs and antique tools..This lovely greenhouse was just my cup of tea too!I did manage to get some nice old bits and bobs, only a few plants as I thought they were a bit pricey to be honest.Some much needed planters for my lollipop Bays; which have been crammed into their original pots for far too long and fell over if you sneezed near them! an old enamel bucket in the most delicious shade of blue and some Camassias to plant in them, this bargain of a big galvanised trough (£7!) which will weather down nicelyand yet another bargain item, a rusty metal obelisk for my clematis to climb up.It certainly pays to make an offer to the sellers, especially on the last day! last but not least I had to visit The Allotment shop again where I found this little packet of replica gardening ephemera.. It's just fab! I have no idea what I'll do with it all yet, but what a cute and interesting collection of vintage papers, pamphlets,cigarette cards, posters and seed packets.There's all sorts of bits and bobs in there!

You may like to check out the company that makes them...

www.mempackcompany.com

(I think I might get the seaside holiday one aswell)
So anyway that was a rare day out for us and a really good one, so for now, if you'll excuse me I have some balls of my own to trim...(box ones of course)