Weekly catch up with garden and propagation

This week in the Garden

with Malin

It’s been a mega productive week in the garden with great help from interns Bernadetto, Hassan and Lily! We finished digging over a big bed adjacent to the pond that was getting out of hand with vinca, ivy and bindweed.

The surface was scraped off with the digger a few weeks ago while we had the ponds dredged, but we still wanted to make sure we got all the roots out of the soil. Once we finished clearing, we mulched the whole area with our own compost and then we got the reward of planting it up with lots of lovely plants! It is rare to have the opportunity to plant in a moisture retentive soil, so we had lots of fun choosing plants for these conditions - hopefully they will thrive on the bank of the pond.

The soil is wetter and more clay close to the pond and drier at the other end of the bed, so the plant choices had to be adapted depending on what area of the bed they were going in. Closer to the pond edge we went for Astilboides tabularis, Actaea simplex ‘Pink Spike’, Astilbe ‘Isa Hall’ and Rodgersia pinnata ‘Superba’. In the slightly drier areas we went for plants like Hesperantha coccinea ‘Zeal Salmon’, Astrantia ‘Roma’, Anemone x hybrida ‘Homorine Jobert’ and Pachyphragma macrophyllum. Last but not least we added back bulbs that had been dug up in the weeding process, lots of Leucojum aestivum, Fritillaria meleagris and snowdrops. All the planting was finished just in time before a couple of rainy days at the end of this week.

Next job on our list will be to create a spooky pumpkin trail around the garden for next week’s half term activities, so I better put my phone away and go back to pumpkin carving! Come and see us in the garden!

This week in Propagation

with Rob

Emily, with Annie's assistance, spent Monday constructing our Pumpkin Throne! It's always my favourite part of the year when erected. The colours, the seedheads, and of course, the pumpkins, I find all aesthetically gorgeous. But perhaps more than anything, I love the Pumpkin Throne for what it symbolises. When the beauty of mortal certainty, as promised, has been fulfilled. Where a season of change and of acceptance teaches us the necessity of letting go, and to have the courage to hope for its return. Maybe this is something captured in horticulture above all else.

We all very much enjoyed the annual staff pumpkin carving! You'll find many of these stunning and hideous works throughout the site over the next couple of weeks.

Richard was excited to see the progress of our Paris polyphylla. From seed, this exotic perennial takes many years. Good job we're patient for anything more unusual. I've included a photo Emily dug out from her archives of the very seedhead these young plants originated. It's from 2018! Stocks are growing, so if you want one, like us, please be patient. They'll arrive precisely when they mean to.

Emily was delighted to welcome Hassan to Seedling Corner. The pair got busy seed cleaning, shaking up some Stipa ichu, which Head of Horticulture Steve describes as 'Elegantly arching narrow green foliage topped by wispy silver plumes and by frothy seed heads later on.'  A real stunner!

Emily got her pokie-stick out to shift a heap of Oxalis obtusa into plugs. We'll wait for them to fill out these trays before they're potted on. Charming salmon pink will be gifted in the late winter, through spring, before their summer and autumn dormancy.

Elsewhere, Kathy has been adding to her cistus strip. Mel, Kirsten and Tina have been providing TLC to our plants who like to overwinter in the tunnel. Whilst, Pete, Kiran, Jack and Debs have had their hands full with our Winter Sale. A huge thanks to all those who are taking advantage of 40% off plants.