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 hige labor of love, because we have had about

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

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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.