Find out what the propagation and garden teams have been up to this week.
Weekly catch up with garden & propagation
POSTED 30th October 2025
Garden Team
It’s been an incredibly productive week in the garden. We organised our annual intern reunion and had nearly forty gardeners here on Saturday! The day was perfect, the sun was shining and we got loads of planting and splitting of perennials done in both the Reservoir Garden and on the stock beds. We finished the day with dinner in the Willow Room as the sun was setting between the trees in the Water Garden. A beautiful day with beautiful people!
The planting continued on Monday when the team was back to normal size, this time planting up the bank between the Gravel Garden drive and the Water Garden. In January we started clearing this area, removing big shrubs that had outgrown the space and breaking up the tarmac to make a gravel path instead. In spring we made a start on planting shrubs, but with very little rainfall we decided to hold off planting perennials as we didn’t want to spend all summer watering this area. Now that the weather is wetter, it was finally time to get some plants in the ground!
We’re aiming for a green tapestry kind of planting here, with ground covering perennials and contrasting foliage offering a merge from arid Gravel Garden to shadier Water Garden. Some plants that went in include;
Geranium macrorrhizum, Bergenia 'Abendglocken', Epimedium x versicolor 'Sulphureum', Pulmonaria ‘Sissinghurst White’, Teucrium scorodonia ‘Crispum Marginatum’ and Digitalis ferruginea among many others.
Epimedium x versicolor 'Sulphureum'
Pulmonaria ‘Sissinghurst White’
Teucrium scorodonia ‘Crispum Marginatum’
Wednesday was a rainy day - perfect timing after all the planting we had done. We took cover under umbrellas and went out to log all the new plants on our computer system. This helps us know what plants we have and where they are in the garden. We can’t wait to see all of these plants settle in - come and see it for yourselves and let us know what you think.
Propagation Team
Sean and Miya have been beavering away at the stock bed bench, splitting a whole host of geraniums which Kathy has been potting, one of which includes G. 'Philippe Vapelle', it's a super foliage plant, forming low mounds of velvety, sage green, wrinkled leaves. Above, the lilac-purple flowers have prominent darker veins and notched petal tips. They do best in a more sheltered spot.
Many more plants have been brought inside to take shelter from the damper months ahead. Mel, Tina, Angela and Kirsten have spent time working through many eryngium, euphorbia and hyssop varieties, which will all benefit from being within the polytunnel this winter. Debs, Emily and Steve have been doing much of the same with our stock which we keep in pots.
Ned's been carrying out some maintenance over on the nursery, where Rob has spent some time putting together some autumnal displays. Whilst Annie and Sean have been crawling around in our stockbeds, keeping them free of anything which might reduce the vitality of our important stock plants.
The rest of the team have been picking a great flurry of orders, which Pete has been packing diligently.
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