OPEN GARDEN UPDATE SPINDLES HAMPSHIRE.

those cakes are very nearly as good as your garden! no wonder so many people want to visit!!!

and that is an amazing amount of money ~ well done! thats fantastic

Well done you, thats great.
Word must of got round what a great garden it is :-)

Sticki and Willi (sounds like a comedy duo!!) thanks, eldest daughter makes the cupcakes and I make the others.

great team work!!

Your garden is beautiful, even in the rain :o)

I reckon half your visitors pay to access the cakes,especially on a wet day,they certainly are a bonus.love all of it.
B

i wouldnt blame them brian

Wowee! I've never ever in my life seen such an amazing cake stall as that!! Wonderful! You really do a beautiful job of your open days Dotty. The garden .....just heavenly! I know what you mean...there are always things that can be improved, but I think it will only be little tweaks in your place A! :D Congratulations! :DDDDDD

WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!! Congratulations DD2! Your garden is absolutely beautiful! Well done! :))))))))

congrats! Dotty on raising that much money. Your cakes look fantastic. Despite the weather your garden looks well on the rain. Lots of hard work but worth the effort. Well done!

Just wish I was closer Dotty :o))

I`m sitting here drooling, well done Dd..An amazing amount raised, hope you had some cake yourselves, they look delicious and the garden speaks for itself...

Congratulations DD - a great success. The garden looks lovely and the cakes . . . well the cakes all look delicious! Must have be a nerve-wracking time, especially with the recent rotten weather. Well done indeed. :-)

Well done you two. What an amazing total you acheived. The garden looks fabulous, as do the lovely cakes, and I know they are good !! Congratulations.

so Glad all went well apart from the wet monday Dotty,
think i would have just sat eating them cakes and drinking tea lol, great pics and your garden looks fab as always, well done on the amount you raised to :o))

Beautiful cakes and garden:)

San, me and you and Annie would have stuffed ourselves together..but we would eventually have got around to viewing the plants too....eventually! ;)

lol karen very true haha, im trying to lose a stone boohoo, since last op and giving the cigs up im starting to balloon lol, people say i dont look big but thats cause im tall, but carrying the extra weight is hard work, gone from size 12 to 16 last two years :o((
Dont know what diet means but will have to learn haha

I can recommend WeightWatchers San. Their new programme is much improved over their old one - though slightly more complicated to follow. I've lost 18lb so far. Last week I treat myself to some scales that tell me how many points are in everything I weigh....great tool, much quicker than looking stuff up in books or online! Still haven't dropped a size yet, but on the way!

thats great karen and good for you, scales sound good to, my sister-in-law goes to slimming world and has lost over 2 stone and brother eats what she eats to and has lost over 2 stone to, both look great.
i will try something, eat healthy but like cakes etc :o((

Credit to you Dotty. You did so very well indeed, especially with this wet weather. Everything looked so very nice and the cakes, well.........you made me feel hungry LOL!!!
Your hard work paid off, so it was all worth it.........Bless You :-)

Looks like you had a good day even though it rained, like all say you did so well.

DD, if you had been exibiting you would have run away with all the prizes gardening and baking - give yourselves a gold medal you deserve it.

Congratulations DD thats an amazing amount of money to raise. Sounds like you did pretty well with the weather (despite Monday). Ooooh those cakes look yummy, think the others are right, people will come from far and wide for those cakes.

On the subject of weightloss a couple of the girls at work have been doing weightwatchers and going to the meetings. They have both lost loads of weight and are looking really really great.

Thank you all so much for all the lovely comments, it was worth the hard work and the worry before hand, but we did manage to get our youngest visitor yet...16 Peter gave her one of his succulents to help start her collection, we do need more young people on board, we are lucky all our girls enjoy gardening (thought we might have put them off, dragging them round GCs when they were small!!)
The world would be a happier and a better place if we spent a little time nurturing, be it a flower or a vegetable, don't you agree?

Completely agree. Don't know about the rest of you but working in the garden relaxes me and typically cheers me up no end. Although must admit this crappy weather gets me down now more then ever now I'm stuck inside lol. Would be great to see more youngsters getting into gardening. Having said that it looks like my old primary school have a poly tunnel. Would love to know what they use it for.

Great that the school is encouraging the young children to garden. Several years ago when we had our quarter acre garden when we lived down the road, a couple of classes from the local junior school visited the garden and I explained to them all about the insects that visit the plants, about composting, and what grows in the greenhouse. It was lovely.

Samjp we have just had another tropical downpour, thank goodness most of this is ending up in the sea!! it is unbelievable, one good day, 6 bad.
Lindak how lovely for the children to visit your garden, most kids enjoy learning about insects, and growing to eat.

Glad it went well despite the weather, your garden always looks so good, as do the cakes.

Thanks Dawn, it was a pity about the weather, still we cannot do anything about that!!

Lots of work, Dotty.
Your gardens are looking pretty.
I hope you're now having a well deserved rest :o)

Trying TT but there is always work to be done in a garden, as you know. Just wish it would stop raining.

Yes, a remarkable amount of rain ...
... making everything grow twice as fast it seems !

What a wonderful garden you have and all those yummy cakes which you lived nearer I would have loved to come and see your garden, eat your cakes and meet you too;0)

Pansy what a lovely thing to say, and you be most welcome too......

Late finding this but just wanted to add my congratulations. You did so well to raise so much money but I'm not surprised as both cakes and garden look superb. Wish I could grow eremerus; I tried corms ( I think) and plants this year but the corms didn't grow and the plants were fine one day, then cut off at ground level the next, by what, I don't know. Very disappointing. Love the aeoniums too.

TDB eremurus can be difficult to get going I must say.... how odd you lost them in that way!! never heard of that happening to them. Thanks very much for your congratulations, a distant memory now!! very busy improving the garden at the moment....

It was very odd. It looked as though someone had sliced them clean off with a sharp knife and all the leaves were lying on the soil! Couldn't work out what was to blame.
It doesn't look as if your garden needs much improving to me, but have fun anyway. Gardens are never 'finished', are they? Thank goodness, or what would we do with ourselves?

TDB that is most peculiar.......dirty work afoot!! I can assure you are garden is far from perfect, and it will as you say never be finished!

Wow again for this year Dd, I just LOVE your garden, You and your OH work so hard, enjoyable hard :) the times ive worked in the garden this year esp early on was extra hard work because of the weather and my garden is not a patch on yours, so i understand what you have both put into it and well worth it, you both deserve a medal, a gold one :)))
Now im hungry, i want one or two of those cakes, the strawberry one's Mmmmm.
The plant in the last pic, it looks like sedum on stalks (to me) what is it? I love it..

Thanks YDD and me your garden, because you grow the sort of plants I like, tropicals etc....and I am not listening to you lol (re your garden not being a patch on ours!!) it is beautiful...
The black plants are Aeoniums zwartkop, tender I am afraid, so we have to bring them inside for the winter......sorry but all the cakes have gone!! hows your grape vine doing? cannot recall if I saw it, usually knackered by the time I come on here, we are lifting paving, a nightmare, OH put it down to last!! and moving our three sheds, and trying to disguise the wheelie bins lol getting far too old for all this malarkey, reckon it will take us a month at least..
Thanks again for all your lovely comments...

Oh this brings back some lovely memories DD! Tho the cakes look even better this year. Just a shame you didnt have the same lovely hot sunny day that we enjoyed last year. However, gardeners are a hardy lot and Im sure they all enjoyed it. We did, very much!

Hi Tet yes it was a shame about the weather, and it was lovely meeting you both, such a beautiful day......made so many changes this year, still at it even now!! at the moment rain has stopped play!!

Maybe next year DD. We seem to have real luck with weather so we could bring it with us!

Like Tet, this blog brought back so many happy memories Dd of when we came to visit with Cinders last year, and I was busy doing my David Bailey bit with the camera..lol You have an incredible garden that is a pure joy to visit, as are you and your OH. Thank you for sharing your garden with so many of us my friend\0/x

Tet please do, we need some good weather next year, and we have made so many changes you wont recognize the place!!
Flori, David Baily indeed and we have the DVD to prove it, so pleased you all enjoyed your visit, we loved meeting all you lovely people, you are welcome to visit us any time you like....x

Be careful what you wish for......lol

No problems.........x