13th August - Carisbrooke Flower Farm

After no rain for weeks, we experienced an unscheduled thunderstorm for our trip to Carisbrooke.  However, nobody was complaining!  The large ‘back garden’ of the house is divided up into rectangular beds containing a huge variety of flowering plants in just about every colour imaginable.  A quite extensive system of soaker hoses are in place plus a lot of woodchips or cardboard being used as weed suppressants: Claire is also trialling wool for this purpose.

Dahlias seemed to be a particular speciality from the large dinner plate sized to very tiny pom poms with a lot of cactus varieties in between.  We all enjoyed tea and cake (under the gazebos) followed by a short talk by Claire on how she came to start the business.  With no professional background in either floristry or horticulture, a passion for flowers had developed from a hobby into the now thriving enterprise.  As well as supplying flowers for local private and public events Claire also gives demonstrations (see Calendar, Nov. 10^th) and holds workshops.

Lin inspecting the dahlias!

Yes - it really was this big!

The always welcome tea.

Claire giving her talk to the Group with Sheila looking on.