At Nic’s, together with Maggy, Chris and Richard the Joiner.  Nic has been up since the crack of dawn setting out a full scale plan of the show garden in the field beside her house.  Richard has made a ply-wood model of the Apiary.  The idea is to make sure that we have got all the proportions right, especially the size and the height of the Apiary and Pergola.   Another wet and blowy day and it was quite a struggle to get the plywood into position. But Richard has done a great job- the proportions are perfect.  Now Maggy has the exact size of her mosaic and can start making it.

Jonathan

At JA Jones with Mike Vickers.   The obelisks were delivered on Monday 13. Stan, the painter, worked flat out to get them finished and they were delivered on the 20^th.  It turns out that the sweet peas are not as far advanced as we had been led to believe, so the frantic rush wasn’t in fact required.  Here are pictures of the sweet peas in their pots.  They will be placed under the obelisks and then carefully trained up the sides.

The espalier apple trees which will form the border for the garden and the ornamental apple trees for the orchard have arrived- they couldn’t look better. They are pictured here, with Mike Vickers.

Jonathan

At the Joinery Shop in Kendal to check up on progress with the obelisks.  The design features a dozen obelisks, nearly 6ft in height which will be features in the flower beds and will be swathed in sweet peas.  The sweet peas are being raised by JA Jones in Southport and we have promised to deliver the obelisks to them by 17^th April.  They will need to be painted before then.

Richard, the joiner,  is pictured here with one of the obelisks. It looks splendid (so does Richard). Unfortunately it is the only one which has been finished.  We need 14 in all, with two spare.The deadline had been tomorrow (Friday).  It will now be Monday.   Richard has four men working flat out on the job, he tells me.

Jonathan

At Nic’s studio with Maggy and Chris.  Maggy presented her preliminary sketches for the mosaics. Two designs are required- a large semi-circular design which will sit in front of the Apiary and a smaller square design, which will go under a garden bench at the end of one of the three paths.  Maggy has prepared several ideas, but the one which we all like best for the large design has a series of concentric circles, which echo features of the Apiary, with a border containing a number of ceramic bees. 

Jonathan