Weekly catch up with garden & propagation

Propagation Team

It's been a busy week down in the growing department!

Emily, Debs and Iñaki (visiting from Middle Temple Gardens), have been taking cuttings from our collection of pelargoniums, before moving the mother plants into the greenhouse to overwinter. It was wonderful to find so many visitors taken with our pelargoniums, with 'Lord Bute' perhaps being the favourite amongst them all. Keep your eyes peeled next year for when they make their spectacular return!

Sean has been deep into our stockbeds, carrying out the perpetual and important role of keeping our stock happy and healthy. Sean made a seldom escape to come up to the propagation building where he got busy splitting some of our stock in pots. It was with Arum creticum 'Album' where great success was found, with a solid 20 turning into an incredible 60. Well done, Sean!

Arum creticum 'Album'

Debs got down with some cuttings of Salvia lavandulifolia. This illustrious plant makes a compact bush of narrow grey leaves, and is conspicuous for the abundance of its rich purplish-blue flowers held upright well above the foliage in dense spikes in midsummer. This particular cohort is set for the University of Essex who are carrying out fantastic plant research which we are proud to support.

Salvia lavandulifolia

We hit hard our plants this time of year, as well as in the spring, with several applications of a certain nematode to combat against vine weevil. Nematodes are hugely important in how we protect our stock, as many will know, as well as being peat free, we use no chemicals, nothing which ends in 'cide' on our plants.

The rest of the team have been just as brilliant, picking and packing a wonderful range of plants who are a part of our sale this autumn. Thank you, as always, for bringing a piece of Beth's garden, into yours.

Garden Team

Storm Amy brought strongs winds and 20mm of rain to the garden last weekend, but fortunately we escaped any real damage. The weather has been a mix of bright sunny mornings with beautiful early autumn light, but all too quickly replaced with low lingering grey cloud.

We were joined this week in the garden by interns Marina and Inyaki with our time spent between Chattowood and the Reservoir Garden.

The next phase of Chattowood has been made available for us to plant up, and with that, Åsa began setting out the huge number of pots in the beds ahead of the team planting them. We planted Erigeron karvinskianus, Lavandula angustifolia 'Munstead', lots of cistus and bergenia, plus Stipa tenuissima and Amsonia 'Blue Ice' amongst many others in the new beds.

Returning to Beth's, we have started to weed through the borders of the Reservoir Garden, ahead of our upcoming intern weekend. We want to get the area ready for planting new additions here, so getting it well prepared is the main aim. We have taken out a few deep rooted Eryngium planum 'Blaukappe' that were encroaching the paths, thinning the seedlings of Erigeron annuus and Cephalaria dipsacoides, whilst enjoying the amazing colour of the beautiful Symphyotrichum novae-angliae 'Guido en Gezelle'  also alive with bumble bees and butterflies.