Weekly catch up with garden & propagation

This week in the garden

with Cathy

Spring is reaching a peak with the exuberance of summer just around the corner, the garden is changing daily. Daffodils and tulips have made way for alliums, camassia and eremurus, roses are flowering and the bearded iris have begun their show.

This week we’ve been joined by Matthew, a horticultural apprentice at Capel Manor. We started the week finishing off weeding, edging and editing in the Water Garden. Matthew pruned a large forsythia, which had finished flowering, to reduce the size and keep a nice structure for next year’s blooms.

Now bergenias have finished flowering we deadhead them, they have a lovely green glossy texture for summer interest.

The big job this mid-week was to change over our two large pot displays. We helped Emily take out the half-hardy plants from the greenhouse first. Plants that had not survived or thrived over winter were removed, and new potting mix was added to the pots. We then chose a mixture of pelargoniums, salvias, plectranthus and begonias among other plants to make a new display that will look good over summer and into autumn.

The Gravel Garden has a full sun aspect, with the pots all full of sun loving plants.

On Beth’s patio under the magnolia the pots are a mixture of shade loving and some suited to sunnier positions.

We finished off by making a nettle tea that can be used to feed the pots over the coming months.

The week was finished off with a euphorbia identification with Head of Horticulture Steve. We had a walk through the Garden to identify different species and cultivars. One stem from each plant was cut, as we went to make a test for ourselves and the nursery team, to help learn all the varieties - definitely a challenge as there are so many different varieties grown.

Propagation Team

with Rob

We were super lucky this week to have Matthew visiting us from Capel Manor College. Matthew lent a helping hand to Emily, as they treated our gorgeous pelargonium collection to a little spruce up before taking their pride and place upon our nursery. They're looking beautiful! And we have dozens of varieties for sale too!

Matthew then took on the challenge of pricking out and potting into plug trays Incarvillea olgae. It's a rather new beauty for us, one which our Head of Horticulture, Steve Marshall, has described as 'very promising'.

It's proved to be a hit with our patrons too, who are taken by its arching stems of pretty, dissected foliage, holding aloft clusters of pink penstemon-like flowers. It's shown itself to have good drought tolerance, and is growing splendidly in full sun.

We're saying goodbye this week to our RHS Chelsea plants! Emily has put so much love into creating such brilliant collection, which will form part of The Bat Conservation Trust’s Nocturnal Garden, designed by the wonderful Melanie Hick. We are very proud to be a part of it, and we're all exceptionally proud of Emily, whose talent and dedication is unrivalled.

Åsa, Annie and Sean returned from the BBC's Gardeners' World Spring Fair, where they had an amazing time meeting so many plant lovers and enthusiasts. Thank you to all who came and enjoyed planting some seedlings and for the generous words about our showcase garden.

We have a plethora of new plants making their way onto the nursery and website right now, so keep an eye out for these treasures when visiting.

A tremendous thanks to everyone who has been choosing to bring a piece of Beth's garden, into yours. It's keeping Pete, Callum and Kiran in the packhouse busy!