Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Is it a date? See you there...

For those of you who have been watching Gardener’s World for some time, you will remember the wonderful Geoff Hamilton, at his Barnsdale Gardens. Sadly, Geoff died in 1996, but Barnsdale Gardens has been maintained and developed by the Hamilton family since then, with Nick Hamilton, Geoff’s son, running them.

I was lucky enough to visit Barnsdale in 2001, and I can vouch for the fact that there are so many fascinating gardens to look around and great ideas to take home with you, as well as a wonderful nursery.

This is a gorgeous veg plot (taken in 2001) at Barnsdale. The gardens are run organically, and the veg were looking very healthy.

I loved the statues in this new garden so much, I bought Myrtle a couple of years later.

Anyway, to the point of this blog post:
Nick Hamilton will be taking part in a Twitter chat on Thursday (27th May), between 8pm and 9pm. Anyone can sign up to Twitter and have the chance to ask Nick a question about any gardening problems that are currently keeping you awake at night. The event is sponsored by Lands End, and they have given me some freebies to pass on to you if you take part in the event.
I’ve got 50 packs of Nasturtium Jewel Mixed seeds to give away to any Twitterers who let me know that they have posted a question to Nick. I will also choose the best 5 questions to each receive a £25 Land’s End voucher.

To take part in the Twitter chat, just follow the instructions on their Facebook page:
A quick Twitter guide:

1. Twitter Account - If you haven't already signed up for your free Twitter account then go to http://www.twitter.com/ and follow the instructions.

2. Follow Lands’ End UK: http://www.twitter.com/LandsEnd_UK

3. During the chat to address Lands' End UK directly, be sure to use @LandsEnd_UK in your tweet along with your question/topic of discussion.

4. Hashtag # – A hashtag is a code used to mark a specific topic. The hashtag for Lands’ End UK session with Nick is #Barnsdale. You can search for #Barnsdale to participate and see all the relevant tweets.
To win some free goodies:
Just leave a comment on this blog post with the question that you asked Nick, and also email the question you asked to happymouffetard at gmail dot com (email solely so that I can contact you to pass on your freebies if you win, it will not be passed on to Land's End or anyone else!). Open to UK residents only, I'm afraid, for posting reasons. The judge's decision is final.

Don’t forget to keep refreshing the Twitter feed – the questions will be fast and furious. Look forward to seeing you on Twitter on Thursday at 8pm!

5 comments:

Joanne said...

Hi I agree Barnsdale garden is an absolute gem.

I visited in July 2008 must check back at the post I did of the gardens.

Twitter is something I just haven't got round to yet. i find so many things to do on the computer with blogging and Lyme Disease chat lines there isn't much time left.

Anna said...

Thanks for the info. HM :)

Yolanda Elizabet Heuzen said...

Geoff Hamilton is one of my garden hero's. He came to visit me for half an hour every Friday night for over 10 years and I still miss his visits. Loved his friendly chats about all things gardening and came to consider him a friend even though the relationship was somewhat one sided. ;-) He tought me so much about gardening and I admired his enthousiasm when he had to explain for the millionth time how to ...... and also his vast knowledge and love for nature. His Ornamental Kitchen Garden (1990) was the inspiration for my Bliss potager which I was finally able to built 5 years ago ( a dream come true).

So yes, I remember him, very much so, and Barnsdale is very high on my to visit list.

Gail said...

I think we in the states missed out on a great experience~gail

Rosie@leavesnbloom said...

I loved Geoff Hamilton on GW. I even had a garden design program for the computer that he promoted all those years ago too.

When he was alive I used to buy quite a few of his more unusual plants via his mail order service.