Weekly catch up with garden & propagation

Propagation Team

This week we had the fantastic team from @rymer_trees_hedging over for a visit. Harry, Elizabeth and Hector run a super, 100% peat free tree and hedging nursery, here in East Anglia, specialising in UK natives!  We also had the brilliant Heather down from fullers_mill_garden who spent the day with Emily talking all things propagation. It's truly wonderful building connections with other growers, as sharing knowledge and passion is at the heart of what we do.

They're here! They're finally here! Bulb chipping woohoo! Our beautiful baby bulbs, bulblets, bulbies, whatever you wish to call them, have been unveiled after 12 weeks in darkness. Emily's now placing these little treasures into trays where they will mature for 12 months. We propagate a lot of Galanthus, Narcissus and Nerines this way. From 8 bulbs of Galanthus plicatus 'Wendy's Gold' we now have 77 forming. That's proper propagation!

Seed heads have been collected from Hedychium densiflorum. Known as Ginger lily, it hails from East Himalayas, and fashions itself with many strong stems, handsomely dressed in long tapered leaves topped, with bottle-like spikes of small apricot flowers, followed by bright red berries. A grand feature plant, providing interest and colour late in autumn.

Elsewhere, our plant winter sheltering drive continues. Tina, Kirsten, Angela and myself have been working on our sale plants, whereas Emily and Debs have been ferrying in our stock pots. Miya and Kathy have been hard at it giving a little TLC to our shade stock. Where Annie and I ventured over to our shade tunnels to begin laying some fresh ground cover. And, as always, a champion amongst packers, Pete has been picking and posting your orders which we are all very thankful for.

Garden Team

We are excited to welcome Mattie @mattie.ocallaghan to our team this week as our new trainee, it will be great to have Mattie on the team for the year ahead.

We’ve had a busy week planting across the Garden, we started with some shrubs and trees in the Woodland, Euonymous oxyphyllus and Sarcococca confusa among others. We have also been adding bulbs to areas for more interest in Spring and Summer. The two large beds in the Water Garden that we have been renovating the past couple of years have had gaps in spring and summer. We planted Camassia and Lillium martagon into these beds amongst the perennial tapestry we’ve been developing. It will be exciting to see how they add to the picture when they come up next year. There have been lots of bulbs put in along the grassy walk, on the edge of the Wood and Reflection Area such as Narcissus, Scilla, and Tulipa sylvertris.

Our team plant ident this week was trees from around the Garden. I gathered 16 stems for the team to identify, it’s good to see leaf and branch form side by side and take notice of details that you don’t always see from a distance. The trees are looking absolutely beautiful this time of year with the Autumn colours ablaze throughout the Garden. Standing out especially at the moment are; Liquidambar styraciflua which has maple like leaves which turn orange, crimson and purple. Parrotia persica, Gingko biloba and Liriodendron tulipifera all have buttery yellow leaves, while the deciduous conifers Taxodium and Metasequoia are all shades of burnt orange. It’s a wonderful time to appreciate the variety of shape, form and colour that trees bring to the Garden.