Weekly catch up with garden and propagation

This week in Propagation

with Rob

It's been a decent week down in the growing department.

On Monday, we were fortunate to have a seedling identification lesson with Cathy from the gardening team. It was super! Kirsten was crowned chief brainbox, rattling off answers with a proficiency I've only ever witnessed when that bloke cheated on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Unfortunately, Kirsten only received applause.

We were super pleased to welcome Sarah and Alice into our midst, each spending time with resident propagation goddess Emily! Sarah got busy making a berry crumble, a special term coined by Em for rubbing out fresh seed of Rosa glauca. Sarah did a great job on the crumble. Worthy of a Paul Hollywood handshake.

Alice got to work on one of my favourite plants - eucomis! The sommelier presented a Sparkling Burgundy, which Alice cut and placed into trays.

In time, these leaf cuttings will form bulblets. It's a magical way of propagating. I have a fond memory of Paul at Pelham Plants teaching me this method at the Great Dixter Autumn Plant Fair, back in 2024.

Rich had some fun with Valeriana phu 'Aurea', also known as golden spikenard. Head of Horticulture Steve has this to say on the beauty, 'Spring foliage is clear yellow, a feature for weeks while daffodils come and go. By June foliage is green, supporting almost bare branching stems topped with clusters of fluffy, creamy-white flowers, making a graceful vertical.'

Kathy has started potting our broad range of cistus. I caught the moment Cistus albidus was making its way from the potting benches and into the polytunnel. We now wait patiently for those saucer-shaped, lilac-pink flowers it promises next year!

Hesperantha coccinea 'Major', the crimson flag lily caught my eye this week. They need good moisture and warmth to encourage such splendid flowering. On mild autumnal days like today we are then gifted these glistening rubies to treasure.

Until next time.

Rob

This week in the Garden

with Cathy

We have split our time this week between the Gravel Garden and the Water Garden, joined by two lovely interns; Alice from the Eden Project and Hassan from Chelsea Physic Garden.

We started the week in the Gravel Garden continuing to work through weeding out self seeders, cutting back plants that had gone over and pruning shrubs to create shapes and views through the borders. Identifying seedlings continued through each bed as we decided what was going to create the picture we wanted for the season ahead.

In the Water Garden, Ben and Ned were working hard to fill the ponds up after they had been emptied for the silt removal. Pipes and pumps were used to move water from the large reservoir, pumped up pond by pond, until the flow was restored through the garden. Last to be repaired was the lawn by the pond edge, where the digger had made tracks. The soil level was restored and then turf was lifted from an area near the stock tunnels and laid to repair the lawn edge.

We carried on digging over an area for replanting by the first pond, which has a lot of bindweed present. This will be replanted in the next few weeks and we had some fun making plant lists and picking up plants from the nursery to go in this area, which is damp by the pond edge and then sandy towards the bench, giving scope for lots of plant variety to go in.

Last week our Garden Manager, Malin, attended the Head Gardeners conference at @thenewtinsomerset. This was a brilliant opportunity to meet head gardeners from across the country to share skills and ideas around shrubs for future planting. A notebook full of inspiration came back to share with the team!