Creighton Open Gardens 2024

And just like that, the 2024 Creighton Open Gardens is all over! Although this year was far less prep than last year (click here to see what my garden looked like in the lead up to and over the weekend of the 2023 year), there was still a lot that I got done and it was wonderful seeing how well i had planned (as much as one can haha) the timing of everything. My roses were in full bloom, my ranunculus were sadly all over, and my ‘Pinks’ (the mini dianthus pictured in the top photo) were almoooost over, but still made a stunning show for the weekend.

Something else that happened for the weekend was the launch of our new homemade ice-cream!

What a fun way to test out an idea I’ve had for a while. It was so well received (we sold over 100 tubs of ice cream!) that we have continued and are now stocking a few stores around KZN (The Lemon Tree in Underbugr & Aziko in Balito).

We started with Granadilla (lovingly picked by my boys from our very own Granadilla vine!) and Strawberry (homegrown by the lovely Kim Hodson just up the road in Underbush). It’s made with homemade condensed milk (this is the key to it’s delicious flavor) and is 100% natural! The only added sugar is during the condensed milk making, we use cream from the local milk processing plant in our town, and the milk is from our own cows. The only added flavouring is REAL fruit…it’s udderly delicious!

Since we started FatCow Creamery 3 months ago, things have really taken off. I”ve introduced 2 new flavord (Vanilla & Chocolate) and now sell 1 litre tubs which have been VERY well received. It’s all very exciting…so watch this space!

New Garden Beds:

Behind our house is the, what we call, Owl Shed (where we got married back in 2012!) and now that it has been fenced off from the cows, I decided I needed to create a bit of a feature. One of the other local garden fundis was selling ‘slipped’ Iceberg roses for R25 a pop…what a steal, how could I resist. I bought 25 and added a Petria to either side for balance and a bit of purple colour, and the beds are doing so well! It’ not so easy to get into their wth my mower and hose pipe, but the extra walking is great exercise.

Our guineapigs helped to keep my lawn neat & tidy (wow can they graze!!!) and the Arum Lilies in the Food Forest really stole the show. The forest setting of the stream and the lillies was so very beautiful. My amazing husband organized new wooden coops for the ducks, guinepigs (and the newly added Black & Lavender Orpington chickens from my husband’s cousin who lives just down the road and ho actually incubates my duck eggs for me!).

Creighton Open Gardens - October 2024

The Saturday was over cast and cool, which was the perfect weather for visitors to tour the gardens (it wasn’t the perfect weather to sell ice-cream cream…but the novelty certainly won over people and we sold the majority of our stock!). It was a really lovely weekend, and I loved sharing my passion for gardening with fellow flower enthusiasts.

Here are the photos from the weekend:

The view of our Food Forest from the top Pasture (looking down at our main house)

If you’d like to have a peek into how things looked last year (and in the year leading up to the first ever Creighton Open Gardens) then click here to read my first post.

Thanks for reading!

Roxy

x

Creighton Open Gardens 2023

Whew! A whole year in the making and it’s been and gone in a flash. And we are about to have our SECOND Open Gardens in the time it has taken me to actually get this post written…sorry!

When Leigh Stokes (creative & artist friend next door) suggested the idea of hosting the first ever Creighton Open Gardens a year ago, I was like…yes, great idea! And then I was terrified…it meant opening up my garden to a bunch of strangers and letting them walk around and critique all of my efforts. But I have to say, the weekend was wonderful! And my garden has never looked as good as it does right now. They always say there is no better way to whip your garden and home into tip top shape than to host an event. And that’s exactly what happened.

We moved into our current home, Bedford Farm…the original Hutton homestead (which my in-laws had renovated in order to turn it into a guesthouse as my husband and I didn’t have any plans to move into it in the near future because we were very content in the little cottage) just over 4 years ago. I was pregnant with our second child, Aaron, and had only been back in South Africa for about 2 years. We lived in South Korea before that (click here to read more about those adventures). Since then we’ve added another little boy to the clan, Mason, and I the garden has become my happy place.

There was one main garden bed in the garden, and my mom-in-law had moved the 8 white Iceberg roses from in front of the house, to a new bed on the side of the house. I wanted to share some progress photos, as well as before photos so you can get an idea of the progression over the past 4 years.

We also created a Food Forest out of one of the pastures behind our house. This has been a huge labor of love, because we have had a sum total of about 4 blueberries and an onion over the years. Oh, and mountains of bolted Chinese cabbage, which always goes straight to seed and has yet to give us one cabbage yet! We initially planted this in order to make our own Korean Kimchi (which we still do make but always have to rely on what’s available in store when we are ever near large supermarkets in the big city).

The back garden overlooking the Barn Owl Shed (before & progress photos)

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Front Garden bed (progress photos)

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New side bed overlooking the cottage

We renovated this little cottage at the bottom of our garden a little over 2 years ago now, and it has been such a wonderful addition to our home. Not just because we only have 1 bathroom in our house (which included the toilet…there is very little privacy for anyone really), and no spare rooms (this is the problem with having so many off spring!) but now this is our guest cottage and it has turned into the most wonderful & private little space.

Please do take note of the gorgeous wall mural (done by another very talented friend and another neighbour…Savannah Stokes). You’ll see in the after photos how beautifully this came out, and what a change it made to such an ugly wall, that I just wasn’t able to get anything substantial to grown in front of and cover up in time for the Open Gardens.

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Hedge removed and bed opened up with new fence pole structure (before & progress photos)

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My Garden over the 2023 Creighton Open Gardens Weekend (14th & 15th October 2023)

I haven’t done too much since last year’s Open Garden in preparation for this one. I’ve mainly focussed on watering and maintaining the existing beds. I have dug up one new bed in front of my kitchen (at the back of the house) which I’ll share more photos of soon. Everything will be more established this year, and I’m just holding all my thumbs and toes that all the Spring flowers won’t be over by the time of the Open Gardens weekend, because things are all starting to bloom now…and we still have 6 weeks to go. EEEEK!

Rose care 101 - A quick run down of my top tips for growing & caring for roses

Whenever I post photos of my roses, I get lots of questions about rose care. I’m no expert, but I’ve learned a lot in the past few years, and I’m always happy to share what’s worked (and what hasn’t!) so here are my top tips for growing & caring for your garden roses.

• Roses (especially newly planted ones) need at least 4-6 hours of direct sunlight a day.

• Roses prefer direct watering (a hose pipe right at the roots) rather than a sprinkler. Roughly about 5 litres per rose a couple of times a week (more in summer & more often).

• Deadhead (remove the old flower heads) often! And try to cut at a join (between the leaf and stem).

• Feed your roses every 6ish weeks with a good rose food (I recommend and use Ludwigs Vigorosa).

• Spray your roses every 2-4 weeks (I don’t do this often enough 🙈😅) with a good rose protector/insect spray. I use ludwigsroses Insect Spray.

• Invest in a decent pair of gardening gloves to protect your hands. I also have a heavy duty elbow length pair for pruning, which really makes things easy and saves my poor hands and arms from those sharp thorns.

• My favourite place to buy roses...ludwigsroses for sure.

Roses are actually incredibly hardy, and often need very little care. Give newly planted roses a chance (at least a season or two!) to really settle before worrying if you’re no good at roses. It often takes roses a year or two to really come into their own. And if they don’t look happy, you can always move them (this is called transplanting). If you are going to transplant a rose, try and do this in Winter while the rose is dormant.

Let me know if you have any other questions! I’m always happy to talk roses. Leave me a comment below and I will get back to you.