Master My Garden Podcast
Master My Garden Podcast
-EP250 Plants Supports With A Difference With Rosie Campell Rosabell Plant Supports
Get ready to uncover the secrets behind crafting garden structures that are both beautiful and resilient with none other than Rosie Campbell from Rosabell Plant Supports. Rosie, a true innovator in the field, shares her journey from needing durable plant supports for her own garden to creating a thriving business that provides high-quality, mild steel garden structures designed to withstand the harsh Irish climate. You'll learn how investing in robust, aesthetically pleasing arches, trellises, and obelisks can offer a long-term solution for your garden's needs.
Let your imagination wander through a picturesque garden nestled between the mountains and the sea in County Down. Transforming this space into a lush, cottage-style haven over 20 years involved overcoming challenges like strong winds and evolving the garden with sturdy plant supports. We'll discuss the trials and joys of gardening, and how a simple change, like swapping tarmac for gravel, improved rainwater management and transformed the garden's aesthetic appeal.
Explore the creative blend of art and utility with Rosie's unique garden accessories, from whimsical metal flowers to bespoke birdbaths. Discover how her creative process, from crafting clay models to replicating them in resin, results in unique garden pieces that add charm and practicality. We also touch on exciting new projects, including modern cloches inspired by Victorian designs, illustrating a constant evolution of ideas aimed at enhancing outdoor spaces. This episode is an essential listen for any gardening enthusiast looking to marry function with beauty.
You can see all of the Rosabell range here:
https://www.rosabellplantsupports.co.uk
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Until next week
Happy gardening
John
How's it going, everybody? And welcome to episode 250 of Mastering Garden Podcast. Now, this week's episode is a slightly unusual one in terms of what we normally cover on the podcast, but I think it's one that you're going to enjoy. So back in June I was speaking at Buds and Blossoms and I came across a range of metal plant supports birdbaths, arches, trellises, obelisks that I thought were gorgeous At the time. When I passed by, there happened to be nobody, just on the stand at that very second. I said I'd call back and then a bit of rain came so I didn't get back.
Speaker 1:So delighted to be joined this week by Rosie Campbell from Roosevelt Plant Supports and based in County Down, I believe and they're absolutely gorgeous. So there's somebody with a very, very creative eye here, because obviously there's lots of plant supports out there, lots of obelisks out there, of varying types of qualities and and strengths, but these ones really catch the eye with nice little features on them, little bits of coloring and little bits of birds on certain things, and just just really stand out pieces and I thought it was worth having a chat to, to chat about the range and and so on. So, rosie, you're very, very welcome to master my garden podcast thank you very much, john.
Speaker 2:I'm delighted to be here and talk about our products.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, yeah. So, as I say, it caught my eye. It caught my eye at buds and blossoms and it was my first time to kind of see the range. I think I had seen something online previously, but not not spend a whole lot of time looking at it, but in the flesh that day they really caught my eye. And there was a big range of stuff obviously obelisks and arches and whatever else but they stood out as being something different that I hadn't seen before and, yeah, caught my eye. So I said it was worth having a chat. So tell us about Rooseveltabelle and and right.
Speaker 2:Well, I suppose the name to start with it's just really a mashup of my own name, rosie Campbell, and my husband's surname. Um, when we've? We really only started it as a response to the needs of our own garden. Um, we just couldn't find anything decent when it came to the likes of half arches or you know an arch, something that was really robust in the garden. Um, so I marked, jokingly, said one day I could make better than that. I bought one online and I says, okay, then you, you make better.
Speaker 2:And he did go ahead um, so then I'm a member of a wee garden group myself and the girls at the house, and they all loved it and go, could your mom make me this or could he make me that? So, just kind of, there was no real plan to start it, but it just sort of happened, I suppose, and evolved and, um, our product range just keeps evolving as well and as well I think it's a hobby for us too, something that we're really passionate about it, because we love our own garden and we want to put stuff in the garden that's functional, but it looks really well as well and that lasts, obviously in our lovely Irish climate with all the rain and the wind. So, yeah, that's how it came to be about three years now, and we've just loved every minute of it, to be honest be honest, yeah, what you say there is that, um, you know they stand out in that they're.
Speaker 1:They're strong and robust and not everything that you see, you know in in garden centers and so on is, and particularly things like rose arches, like it's. It's rare that you'll buy a rose arch that's really fit for purpose, or fit for purpose over a long term.
Speaker 2:Uh, well, that's yeah, that's what we aim to make it, because, I mean, your standard in the garden centers are kind of wire that's coated and, you know, in a in that black pvc or green um, and they're very flimsy, you know. So our stuff is made of mild steel and um, we either it can be left to rust, it it'll never rust through because it's solid, bar or um, and a lot of people like that look in the garden because it kind of blends in then um, or it can have it galvanized and powder coated, which means you're totally finished with it, you know and it can be really any color under the sun that you want it to be, you know.
Speaker 2:So, um, that's just what we in for you. We don't. We want a good quality product that you don't have to buy again in two years or three years. You know, it might be a bit more expensive than something in the garden center, but it's like you know when you think of your use of all you're going to get out of it. It isn't really you know, yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1:We spoke, we spoke of things like this on the podcast before um. You know, whether it is expensive or not, it's a it's. It's a funny thing because if, if you have like a 20 euro product or a 25 euro product and it lasts for four years, and then you have to start again and you have to buy two or three, and there's if you have to pay 200 for a product that lasts the guts of a lifetime, then this is it, yeah, there is no comparison no, there is no comparison.
Speaker 2:And um, even in our own garden we bought things in the past and they've literally just disintegrated, maybe after a year, likes of a wee obelisk, that's, you know I, I always like those ones.
Speaker 2:You know that that's the cream vintage look yeah and literally within a year it's it's totally rusted through and it's falling apart. So, um, we sort of started really just with one or two products and then you know, as you make more and people like them, then maybe somebody will request something in particular. Just sort of build it up. For the last two or three years we were very fortunate to be able to become members of the Isna, the Irish Specialist Nursery Association. We're very fortunate to be able to become members of it. Now they are a specialist nursery association so we can attend all of their plant fairs, which is great because you're out there with real die-hard gardeners who love their garden and want decent plants and decent quality stuff for the garden.
Speaker 2:So that was a great boost for us, I think, and a way for us really to get across the whole country instead of we're based up here in Northern Ireland but we do be the length and breadth of the country each year. So that was something very useful. And we also do a few craft fairs then as well, come the end of the year. Now, with smaller things, we do bird baths and things like that. You know which anybody can really have in their garden. If you've only got a pot, you can put some of our things in them if you don't even have a garden patio.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and for sure. Every year on the podcast I cover christmas gifts for gardeners of that year and, it's funny, the list typically ends up being somewhat similar with an odd little thing coming into it. But that's something that struck me, the likes of the bird baths. They're a beautiful christmas gift and not something that has been on before uh, on the podcast before.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, really nice, really nice idea for christmas gift I would say the bird baths are one of our best sellers really. Um, everybody seems to like them. You know we have three different designs, um, and they always sell well, especially now. Yet the we craft furs and just for for us, say for gardeners, or just even. You know people who only have a small garden and they're popular, you know, because they, like they do bring the birds in. Um, people like that. We don't have a feeder as such, it's just a bird bath.
Speaker 2:But yeah, we do do smaller stakes and more decorative things. I sort it became conscious when we started doing the isna plant first, um, but quite some of our things are quite large and you want something that people can carry away on the day as well. So we started doing the more decorative sticks, like the poppy heads and, you know, seed heads, that that you can actually use as a rod to support a plant or um, with spirals that you can twine around a single stem or they can in the wintertime they can just solely be, you know, like a statement or a focal point in your garden. That's adding a bit of interest and they also, you know, sell really well on Christmas as well for gardeners, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd imagine, before we start to kind of get into the range and drill into bestsellers and all that sort of thing, you mentioned that the original idea came from a need within your own garden. Um, tell us a little bit, a little bit about your own garden, because because by the sounds of it, it sounds like you're you're in a garden club yes, well, I think I've always loved gardening.
Speaker 2:My father was a garden, just could have done anything in the garden. He just had that sort of magic touch, but he only had a small garden. But you know, he was the sort of man he made his own greenhouse out of old windows and I think that's probably where my love of gardening came from as a child. But then you know yourself, you get married, you have kids and you have a job and you don't have much time for this or the other. But I say, about six or seven years ago I just said to my man I want to go out to Rosie the garden and he says, oh God, you know, he knows what that means inside the house. So it's like, all right, ok, we'll see where this goes.
Speaker 2:So we started in the environs of our own garden, which was literally at that stage, just grass hedges, a few pots at the door, because we never really had the time and the kids started ahead of uni. You thought, you know, you kind of get your life back a bit and it was like God, I've got that time now. And, yeah, famous last words, we actually now broke out of the garden and we're in a veiled roundhouse. We're in County Down. We're very fortunate to live between the mountains and the sea, beautiful views either way, but we also have the wind. As I say, it's the cost of those views I always say is the wind. So we need robust things in our garden, we need robust structures, and that's really the response. It was just the need of our own garden. It started with a half arch, was the first thing that Mark made for me Trellis. We sort of just moved on from there, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and within your garden, just to describe it, is it all types of plants? How big has it gone now?
Speaker 2:Well, it's about three quarters of an acre now now. Well, it's about three quarters of an acre now. I would say, oh, wow, yeah. So I like the cottage garden, feel, I suppose. So it's mostly herbaceous and perennial, you know plants.
Speaker 2:I like to grow a lot from seed, and so I would do that every year, and there's just real stalwarts that are great, that fill up holes in your borders. And again, what we've been trying to do is I think we've lived in this house about 20 years now we build ourselves, so let's build up the shelter built around it. You know, we've lined trees with various hedges and with some things that worked in the past. There's some things that we've lost. With the beasts from the east, we lost a hedge, so, yeah, that we've lost. With the beast from the east, we lost a hedge. So, um, yeah, we've just been. So there's been no master plan. It's just sort of grown and involved, as, yeah, as if we've had more time and visited more gardens and you get new inspiration and you might try different things. So, yeah, don't think we're going to go any further than that, but we're going to keep it busy for another while.
Speaker 2:Uh, before we move off, regarding what hedge died in the in the um, it was, uh um what hedge died, and it was an ellie agnes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the agnes yeah, no, because uh, last week's episode was about hedges and yeah, it was just interesting to hear that because yeah, it only to the side of the prevailing wind.
Speaker 2:So the other side we still have it. So yeah, it's. Yeah, it's just been. It's challenging. Do you know? It is challenging, the weather's challenging. I suppose it's challenging for everybody, but ours is always wind and rain this last while. But we've done a lot around the house to help with the runoff of rain and we took our drive up people thought we're mad took the tarmac up and we put gravel down. I've always wanted to do it. Mark finally conceded and it was the best thing we ever did. You know, there's such a difference around our house from the way the water used to fill. We just have none.
Speaker 2:None of that now yeah and now I'm threatening to grow stuff in it and he's worried In the driveway. Oh, aye, yeah, yeah yeah, so why not?
Speaker 1:Why not?
Speaker 2:Aye, yep, there'll be a few packets of St Sprinkle, that's all they know. Nothing about, to their fear.
Speaker 1:The more on them the next year.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in terms of, in terms of the range, then. So, uh, you know it has. If you want to run through it yourself and tell us everything there's a lot of bits in it now isn't there there's a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we do. In my mind there's two sorts of plant support. You have really functional um support that you just want to disappear in your garden, um. And then you have supports I suppose that you want to add maybe a bit of structure to your garden, add a focal point, a bit of a flourish that's going to be there in the wintertime or even in the summertime. But to me they are functional as well, but they're also maybe structural, architectural, and they're adding an interest to your garden. The more functional ones are just your standard D-hoops. I mean, you get them in garden centres and covered in green PVC or black PVC, but we do them in a heavier bar and they just rust down to a natural rust finish. And then we have another. What would be a step up from that. We call it the Muckross support. It was actually an old design we saw at Muckross House in Killarney a couple of years ago when we were on holidays and it has two hips on it and you can actually tie them together and make you know, a circle.
Speaker 2:So they're great for, I think, herbaceous perennial that you haven't supported in time because you can put you know you're not trying to put a basket over it you can work in one half and the other half and actually tie them with a wee bit of string together.
Speaker 2:They're a great seller for us as well. We do a range of perennial baskets, so, like a peony basket, we've lobster pots. We can do any size. Um, we have a couple of obelisks again, um, just that I like for my own garden and for sweet pea. We call it the lapidus obelisk. It's a great big, tall obelisk and we have a shorter one, but we've done um so many different designs for people who want different heights and and different widths, just so we can tailor them to anything really.
Speaker 2:Um, pomatis obelisk is another one which is very popular that we only started doing this year because a few people had asked us for it. So we kept we we do try a thing and if we like it and we sell a few of it, then we'll keep it and we'll put it in the range and we'll put it on the website, because there's so many sort of products that you could have. If you look out there in the range you just have to nearly limit yourself for you. You know you wouldn't be able to cover them all yeah, so we have them and then we do.
Speaker 2:The largest thing we sell is the Moongate, which was something Mark really wanted to do. My husband, he is the welder I don't weld, he's the metal guy. So he had seen this a few times and I'd loved it myself for the garden, but you could only ever get them mainland UK or America or something. So we started doing them and they are. They're popular. I mean, they're a big ticket item in the garden as well, so not everybody is going to spend that, but if you have, you want to do a real focal point in your garden. They're fabulous. And in my own garden I had a walkway and I said I want it five and he was like no, no, no three you'll get three.
Speaker 2:I said no one, five. And then I had a garden a guy that I know he does, he's a consultant and he said it was just a private visit to my garden. And he said, oh no, rosie, you need five there. And I thought, yay, um, so mark was with me at that time, so we had to concede. So we literally only got the last two back from the powder coaters on monday, so we'll be able to finish that over the weekend.
Speaker 1:And we also. They're a class the moon gets. I saw those in the West.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they really they do make a real, I suppose, a statement in your garden, yeah, and size-wise they're just from memory.
Speaker 1:They're like a diameter of maybe two and a half meters or something like that at the widest height. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we do them galvanized and powder coated so you're totally finished with them. But he's also been devising one more like a flat bar with rivets. It's a wee bit, I suppose, that more traditional looking that can rust down and will be a bit cheaper and also will be um quicker in production because we manufacture everything and we just don't have loads of stock sitting, you know um. So it just means if somebody orders a moon gate with us, we are also at the liberty of the galvaniser and the powder coater, so we have to outsource that and that takes extra time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So the flat bar arch means we're totally in control of it and we can make it, and you know we don't have that extra time. Then we can tell, we can say something it'll be two weeks, it'll be three weeks and we'll be confident.
Speaker 1:It'll be confident, it'll be that you know, yeah, yeah if somebody wants something galvanized and powder coated, um, it could be another three weeks on top of that.
Speaker 2:That we can't control. You know, yeah, you're just waiting on someone else, and what do you? What do you got to plant on?
Speaker 2:your five moon gates oh well, now I already have plants in, because we codged together on the prototype um flat bar one and then we just used an arch on the end where the other two were missing, because we wanted to get the plants in over the summer. So I have wisteria on each floribonga alba. I have a variety of different clematis that will flower at different times each year. There's two clematis on each moon gate.
Speaker 2:I have a rose, a rose of penny lane, which is a lovely climbing rose, and a late flowering rose that's actually still flowering now and I have then, between the Moongates, I have planted a compact, high range, high range bonfire, which is fabulous, colour, now stunning, and I've under-planned it with Geranium Azure Rush. So it's a compact sort of version of Roseanne, which leaves me now, in the wintertime, lovely sort of areas there so I can start adding more snowdrops and really make a feature of the snow. I do have snowdrops in the garden, but this will be. I know there's only going to be snowdrops there. That's all I'm going to put in the bulb department.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to continue my collection there.
Speaker 1:And is it a pathway through?
Speaker 2:Yes, we have a paved pathway through. It's just like a sort of a natural mix of a red a red paving tile, like a bragging mix. It actually mimics the tiles we have in our house. They're rosemary redlands my name's on everyone um, so yeah, it looks really well.
Speaker 1:Well I'd imagine that's class. Yeah, yeah, especially when the five, when the five go in, they're gonna be class yeah, I'm excited by that.
Speaker 2:Now too. We're going to get them in on saturday morning now.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, and that's a nice, nice mix of plants to give you that you know different, different flowering something common.
Speaker 2:Yeah, every season I actually have laburnum standards then as well, sort of in between, sort of staggered in between, just standard trees.
Speaker 1:Um, I'll give a nice spring color yeah, brilliant and I suppose the other thing with that is that the quality of the arch, or or an arch of that quality, allows you to put several plants on it and you know that they're there for a long period of time, as opposed to you know, loading up something that's not yeah not maybe the best? And a couple years down the line, your plant is flying and then your arch is, it's gone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially these wooden ones, you know yeah yeah it's gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially if you use wooden ones, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, that that sounds class, so that's the, that's the moon arch.
Speaker 2:So obelisk you mentioned, we have um the lapis one, and then we have the dope, what we call. Don't want lots of our products, we um just name after the mountains because they're behind us. So it's yeah you know it's easy, easy that way. But again they're just the Clematis. One is just literally for Clematis. We just call it Clematis obeliscus because it makes it obvious for people.
Speaker 1:How high is that?
Speaker 2:It's about? I think it's about two and a half meters high as well. There's two, there's a medium and there is a large one as well. I just don't know offhand the actual name it doesn't matter, even roughly is good.
Speaker 1:And then you mentioned you had kind of one that was suitable for sweet peas. That's a kind of a, I guess yes, this is the one now.
Speaker 2:We put a bird on the top of it and a lot of people like it. But then some people just like a ball or an open cage on top of it and a lot of people like it. But then some people just like you know, like a ball or an open cage on top of it which you can do as well, and so actually, the Kamadas, obviously. Yeah, they're 2.1 meters high yeah and the shorter one is 1500 high and the sweet, the obvious, that we use for sweet pea again is 2.1 metres high.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the one with the bird on it was actually what caught my eye, and you had the flower stakes with a kind of a metal flower colourful metal flower on the top.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They really caught my eye.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do a few different. They're, I suppose, a bit of fun in the garden and they also can be functional if you want to stake a plant with them, um. But we've started doing a few of them and then a more, um, structural one is like a seed head, so it's like an allium seed head and they're really, really tall and we do them as a set of three and they actually, because the rod is so tall, actually there's a bit of a sway with it. So, um, they're really nice and that they will, you know, they'll move in the wind, you know. So, um, they're quite organic looking and I actually my, my husband's brother, who isn't a gardener, was in the garden with me, um, during the summer and he was like what's that he says, that's classic. And I said, god, I was trying to figure out what he's looking at and I was like that isn isn't a plant, that's like one of our flowers. I thought it was real, you know. But they are quite structural and they're fabulous.
Speaker 2:Now in the wintertime, when everything sort of dies back. The same with the smaller baskets, like we do with the penny baskets, which are quite nice, you know. Then, you know, in the borders, when everything sort of died down. And another sort of really popular one which is quite, I suppose it's pretty, is an onion basket which literally is the shape of an onion, and it's very good. You know, I grow gladioli through mine and they just sort of it nearly disappears a bit during the summer, but then it comes back now and I have it done in cream wrapped with copper wire, and I just love it, you know, especially in the winter. So things like that are very popular, that people can just carry away to at plant fairs.
Speaker 2:Poppy seed heads are really really popular. The wee sticks which we do a couple of different varieties now. We do cast iron one which will just rust, or you can again we galvanize and powder coat them in a few different finishes. Some people like a really sleek finish and they don't want things to rust. And then we also do a resin poppy head now, but that's like a vertigre effect and we do an artichoke head and that. So they're. They're popular.
Speaker 2:Things like that are very popular now, um craft fairs coming up to christmas as well yeah, they're just a little bit of extra interest, or yeah, something a wee bit different, you know um yeah, and you'll see, and you know you do get standard ones that you see in garden centers, you know. Just just a bit different, I suppose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure the bird bats then. So obviously you've said they're very popular for gifting. Have you ever looked at a feeding station type?
Speaker 2:You know, would you say that I have actually for friends in my gardening group In saying that we've done the shepherd's crooks. We do them so we can do like a multi-stemmed shepherd's crook, you know, with a few hooks on it oh, you do those you can hang your own soup balls or you can hang your own um.
Speaker 2:You know those wee wire mesh things that you get um. So I have done, actually a couple for for friends. Uh, we don't have them on the website yet, but a few and I and that we are had a week craft for last weekend and somebody was asking me. So, yeah, we must maybe make that a permanent product you know product now and put it on the website. And because at this time of year that's what people are looking for, my friend had one and she said just keeps blowing over on so I did her one and she says, no, definitely it doesn't blow over.
Speaker 2:We've learned how to stake things and there's a, there's a fit, as we call it, that you can put it on. It's nearly like a bird's foot with three prongs, and if you put that on a single rod just never blow over, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's asking is I have two, two bird feeders. Uh, right, where we look out and we always feed the birds and there's a phenomenal amount of of birds here. But recently I've two wooden bird tables. That one of them is not there that long and it was. It was an expensive bird table and it's basically in its in its last days and they don't last long they don't last and what.
Speaker 1:What also has been happening. They're not very tall, so I have two. I have three big feeders on it and my wife has taken to feeding a little fox well, not a little fox, a big fox that comes around almost every night and he gets. He gets the scraps and it's it's nice to see him coming around, but they're obviously extremely hungry at the moment. So what he's doing is jumping up and grabbing the bird feeder. He's taking numerous ones with peanuts in it and you'll find them down the field all chewed up and the peanuts gone out of them. So they're extremely hungry, obviously when they're when they're taking things like that, but they're too.
Speaker 1:They're also too low, and that's that's the thing I need something taller that will keep the feeders up higher, something metal that I will not ever be replacing, or at least won't be replacing for a long long time and that that's why I was asking there is a real demand for something quality like that, um, at a bit of a height.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I can help you with that, john.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. The one with the shepherd's hooks sounds like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the shepherd's crooks are nice now and Mark can do them any height and we have done one, I said for my friend Patricia, and she had like three crooks, you know, at different heights. She actually had one in the garden that she got to show it to me. She says it won't, it just won't stand up. You know, she would be quite exposed as well. And I says, right, she's the one a bit taller. Um, we, we made her one last year and she's delighted with it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so you have like, you have like three, three prongs out of it, but one, one center, one that goes deeper into the ground, say, yeah, and then there's three.
Speaker 2:There's like it's nearly like a bird's claw. There's like three feet on it, so they push well and you know it pushes well into the ground. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, you know yeah, because there is.
Speaker 1:There is some good, relatively good quality ones actually on the market, and I've seen it before. But what you have is you have the, the main stem, that comes down, that goes into the ground, and then you have a single kind of a single prong off that that's not good enough. No, no it just falls to one side, basically it does, yeah, yeah and typically falls to the side, where the where the wind is blown in the direction the wind is blown, and yeah.
Speaker 2:So we sort of learned that when we were doing the flower sticks. We just have a prong on it, but when you get into a heavier material it wouldn't stand up on my sister. It needs a better fit than that, you know. So I said like nearly like a double fit. So just any, we didn't, we need just nearly no. Now we'll make something by the gauge of it. Well, what sort of it's going to need, you know? To support it and stop it from flopping over, you know yeah, it makes sense, so it does you learn all the time?
Speaker 1:every day is a school day, definitely every day is a school day is really just so.
Speaker 2:Mark likes nothing than making something new or something different. You know, and we've been asked for different, such a range of things like it is so interesting. You know, there's a man recently he wanted a pawn cover. Um, that was a really interesting one. You know, it's just people always looking for something different and yeah um, I think he finds it challenging because his own job is so stressful. It's just he can go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he can work, work something out, but it's not yeah, it's not stressful work, it's uh no, it's creative work, kind of which is always good for the head anyway yeah, um when. So we mentioned birdbaths, obelisks, arches, plant supports. What else is in the range, because it is a big range, there's other, there's other things what else do we do?
Speaker 2:well, we do, um, we've started more decorative things as well. Um, I am quite a sort of keen Snowdrop fan. We started doing, like, wee, resin flowers, small flowers in resin. We did the stakes for the garden, which are the poppy and the artichoke, and then I thought I wonder, could you do, you know, like a smaller flower, a decorative step even for your pots? You know, know, at the back door come christmas time, um, or I have actually a few flowers now inside, just in big pots in the hall, um, so I started to make resin flowers, um, and to do that I just make clay. Well, I make a clay flower out of clay that air dries and then I make a silicone mould which I can then replicate that flower in silicone all the time sorry, in resin all the time and do different colours.
Speaker 2:The smallest thing I made is snow dots. We made snow dots for last year, for Snow Dot Gala in Ballykeely. That went really well. I've added mascara, I do tulips and yeah, so I think it's to me. It's brought out my creative side that I've always loved. I've always loved art and nature and I did go to art college, but I never really pursued that and end up doing environmental management and things like that. So it's nearly like you've got a chance to go back to what you really wanted to do when you were a teenager and sort of experiment with it and, um, yeah, it's going really well. They're well received, because even a wee resin flower you could use a single flower in a indoor plant pot and use it as a support that way, or you could just use it decoratively in a stem.
Speaker 1:So we kind of have from the moon gate to the snow drop is the range you know, big to small, yeah, yeah no, it's an amazing range and, as I said, caught my eye and it's definitely something that will feature on Christmas gifts for gardeners this year, which is coming up in the next few weeks.
Speaker 2:We are looking at a new product, which is a cloche. I think if anybody's interested in garden at all, they've probably all seen the old antique Victorian cloches. And my husband, then his father, makes standard lights for the house and they have a light that's hexagonal. That to me always reminded me of a cloche. You know the top of it, so I'd sort of set the mark. You know you could modify something like that and make a really nice cloche for the garden. You know a modern day one. So this is a new project that we're sort of looking at now, at the minute, as well, you know.
Speaker 1:So that's it. That's an interesting one, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it'd be a good one clashes and plant covers I think, yeah, they definitely will go, yeah, for sure yeah, because we do do a wee one.
Speaker 2:It's a um, it's like a bell, an antique bell shaped cloche um which you can use functionally in the garden put a bit of netting around it if you want to keep pests off something or, you know, even veg, and then you can put fleece around it as well if you want to protect something in the winter.
Speaker 1:So we're always dreaming up a new product line, new ideas it's brilliant, yeah, and, as I say, it caught my eye at the show. If you're, you had your branded trailer there as well.
Speaker 2:Everything looked kind of yeah, it looks, looks yeah, with lots of fun doing the trailer. So we did um, yeah, because we were thinking of a van, but realistically don't need a van. I mean, we're only you know if we're going out to plant furs 12, 13 times a year mark has a couple of trailers to deliver things in, and I sort sort of had seamless wee trailer. I thought it could double as a store. When it comes home, we just need to hook it off, leave everything in it.
Speaker 2:The beauty of our products is they're not perishable, so you don't need to water them. You don't need to worry when you come home from a plant fire yeah yeah yeah, but so it worked out really really well because we didn't. We weren't into a van, it was just sitting there all the time. We needed road tax and insurance and yeah, yeah, it makes sense. So I thought I've saved a lot of money.
Speaker 2:Now I'm going to spend a bit blinging it up you know, so he's like oh, here we go, but yeah no, the design worked out really well. So actually I had designed my um my sister-in-law's van or they have a wee business there, wooden floors and she asked me to do the design for a. I designed my sister-in-law's van they have a wee business there wooden floors and she asked me to do the design for it a while back. So that's what made me really want to do my own when I finally got my own trailer.
Speaker 1:It looks absolutely brilliant. I know you have kind of the final craft fair of the year coming up and then next year you'll be back at all the planned fairs around Ireland again.
Speaker 2:Yes, so tell us what planned or what the final, yeah, the final one we do now is a large estate which is a sort of Guildford Lisbon direction, if you know anything about the north, and it's always a really really I think it's a magical one.
Speaker 2:It is for Christmas, but it's always a really really I think it's a magical one. It is for Christmas, but it's a beautiful estate. There's so many just different crafters there that you, until I started doing it, I'd never come across them. And it's a Monday and a Tuesday, which you think, my God, who's going out on a Monday and a Tuesday? But people really do attend it well, and it's always for um, a charity, you know a good charity every year. So, um, it's coming up now on the 4th and 5th of November and on the Monday it'll run from 10 to 8, so it's a long day, but it gives people a chance to come in after work as well, and on the Tuesday then it's from 10 to 6, so it's always well attended, um, if there's anybody in the vicinity, come along, um, and I'll be putting up on facebook um, sorry, on instagram shortly.
Speaker 2:I don't really do facebook's, but I will be putting it up on instagram, so that'll be our and your website is, you know, has everything you need to see the products and to get an idea of our website, you can see all the products and I would sort of update every month just whether we, you know, musing from the garden of what's happening in the garden this year, uh, at this this month, and um, sort of things that you can do and things that you can think of, and I think this time of the year is, if you want to do something structural in the garden, is the time to reassess and think this didn't work this year and next year. I need you know to support that or put an arch there or so. It's always a good time of year, I think, to reflect in your garden and think about um, you know what you, what plans you want for next year? Um, so, yes, this will be our final plant, fair or sorry, it's not planned for um craft fair craft fair.
Speaker 2:Um, and then we will be trying to modify our own with more plants for our own. See a mini digger coming in, definitely, but yeah, yeah yeah, very good.
Speaker 1:And your website? What's your? Website yes, wwwrosabelleplantsportscouk yeah, brilliant, I'll put the. I'll put, put the link to it in the show notes anyway, so people can find you, and I'll put your link to your Instagram in there as well. Yeah, so to sell.
Speaker 2:What we do is we do have some things on Etsy sometimes, but if people want something, if they just contact us directly, we'll be able. I mean, we can get things anywhere across the country like we've delivered to court before, so there's nowhere too far. We always enjoy even making a trip out of the delivery as well. So, um, yeah, anybody's interested in anything.
Speaker 1:We just email, give us a ring and I know you have kind of connections with a lot of the open gardens around the country and a lot of them are probably using your pieces and and so on as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, we have done it yeah, a good few bits for, um, you know, um, quite a few of the gardens that would be on the national garden, the open garden scheme and rhs ie partner gardens, you know. So we're slowly building up our profile, I think, and we've got to the stage now that people you know would say, oh god, I got a trellis of you last year. Can you make me this to you? Know, and we do do custom things, we enjoy doing that you know.
Speaker 2:We just don't want to be like a production line yeah, making the same thing all the time.
Speaker 1:So it's yeah, it's far, it's varied, yeah yeah, that's great, and uh, yeah, it gives you. As you say, it brings out the creative side as well.
Speaker 1:So yeah yeah, definitely caught my eye anyway, and I think anyone that has a look at them will see in the person you will see it's how great they really are. On the website, you get a fair idea of what the stuff is and the look of them and they look great and when you see it in person, like they are real quality, real quality. Thank you, john. Uh, really interesting chat and, yeah, as I say, great, great range of products, really nice and caught my eye and definitely something we'll feature on christmas gifts for gardeners in a couple weeks time as well. So, rosie, thank you very, very much for coming on.
Speaker 2:master, my garden podcast thank you very much, john. Lovely to speak with you, appreciate your time so that's been this week's episode.
Speaker 1:A huge thanks to rosie for coming on. Yes, as I say, slightly different to what we'd normally cover. We don't cover, you know, that, that type of an episode, but I just thought it really. You know, the range really stood out to me and I know that it's something that many of you gardeners will struggle with different types of supports and clashes and uh, obelisks and I suppose, to get something that's going to last and quality and then a little bit of creativity. Creativity in it as well makes them stand out, different colors and so on. So, yeah, really worth checking out and we'll feature it again on the Christmas Gifts for Gardeners. That's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening and until the next time, happy gardening, thank you.