Jon and I paid a visit to northern England and Scotland in January. Yes, we chose to go to garden nirvana in the coldest, darkest, rainiest, most dormant time of the year. Not surprisingly, every single public garden was closed, but the trip was not a total wash from a gardening perspective, because I discovered Garden Boutique, a delightful web shop created by the English garden designer, Alice Bowe.

Alice has a great aesthetic and her site is filled with all sorts of useful, pretty things for the garden. Since returning home, I’ve zeroed in on a couple of favorites:

I normally don’t really like garden ornaments, but I think that these crowns would look awesome centered in a pot with dwarf pea vines (like ‘Tom Thumb’) twining through them and maybe some nasturtiums circling around the rest of the container. 

We own a total of five chairs (including my office chair and the two bistro chairs on our deck), which makes for some interesting seating arrangements at dinner parties. I really want to have a few of these vintage English folding chairs to set around at barbecues and to use indoors in a pinch.

Another English shop that I’m in love with is Baileys (housemartin turned me on to them). They carry a carefully edited line of vintage, recycled, and sustainable goods for the house and garden. Basically I wish my life looked like their website, but since it doesn’t, I like to spend my lunch hour ogling their collection of lovely wire baskets and vintage garden tools. Sigh, if only the exchange rate was in our favor…

Clockwise from left: Vintage tools. Restored vintage tools aren’t just for decoration in my book, a lot of the time they are sturdier and work better than new tools. Wooden pot maker. This cool tool allows you to recycle newspaper into seedling pots. The biodegradable pots are perfect for giving squash and zinnias a head start indoors. Twine in a tin. I use tons of sisal twine in my garden, especially when building trellises. I like it better than plastic baling twine because I can throw everything, twine, plants and all into the compost at the end of the season. This little innovation really helps prevent the twine from becoming a hopelessly tangled mess. Crate on wheels. There is usually a pile of muddy wellies, tools, and garden gloves next to our back door. Containing my mess in this crate would look so much better!

Clockwise from top left to right. Wire egg basket. We’ve had four pet hens for almost a year now, and I still don’t have an egg gathering basket. I definitely wouldn’t mind keeping this one on my kitchen counter. Birch Trug. Plastic tub trugs are great because they are indestructible and you can carry everything from compost to plant starts in them, but this wooden trug would look so nice swinging from my arm in the garden or at the farmer’s market. Cow pitcher. When I was a kid my dad would pour me a bowl of cereal and give me my milk in a cow pitcher just like this one! It’s a great memory, and I’d love to give one of these to all of the kids in my life. Confit jar and spoon. One of my big gardening/cooking goals for the year is to to learn to can. These jars would make perfect drinking glasses when the homemade jam is gone!

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