Weekly catch up with gardens & propagation

Garden Team

Spring has certainly sprung the last couple of weeks with sunshine, blue skies and buds bursting into flower by the minute. The Gravel Garden is looking like a sweet shop with colourful flowers of bergenia, euphorbia and anemone on every corner.

 

 

 

 

 

We have been busy bees in the garden trying to keep on top of all the jobs that come with the warmer weather, such as uncovering the gunnera that suddenly started shooting through the little teepee tentswe covered them with in November to offer protection from frost. An hour after we had uncovered them, it already felt like they’d grown a couple of inches!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another job ticked off the list has been pruning cotinus and cornus. We pollard both species down to knee high knuckles every year as we are after the new growth on both these species, but for different reasons. The new growth on cornus provides bright red and orange stems that will offer colour at the back of the borders next winter, whereas the new growth on cotinus will provide a lovely dark big leafed foliage that looks stunning in the late summer light.

 

 

 

Another area we are excited about is the Water Garden where we did a huge clearing and replanting job in the autumn. I walk past the shade beds daily to have a look and see if our little plant babies have grown yet! Trilliums and erythroniums are flowering away and leaves of little gems like dactylorhiza are starting to poke through, we can’t wait to see how these beds will look in the summer!

 

 

Propagation Team

'We are propagating... I got all my cistus with me!' Annie-Rose has been singing, celebrating our Plant of the Week! It's been a fantastic year for our Cistus plants, and it's wonderful to see such interest from our patrons, especially for C. argenteus 'Peggy Sammons' and C. x lenis 'Grayswood Pink'.

Hollie and Emily have been lending their artistic talents to our nursery area, creating some truly unique and spellbinding displays, which we hope you will all enjoy when visiting. Myself (Rob), I've been deep in our polytunnels, checking roots and seeing who is ready to take the next step in their growing journey onto sales. Tina has been busy checking up on those plants who overwintered, checking their health and vitality, an incredibly important part of our job!

Elsewhere, Debs and Emily, our green-fingered maestros, have been sowing seeds and taking cuttings, such as the Phlox paniculata 'David'. Kathy and Mel have been casting their potting magic on the many treasures from our propagation house, whilst the stock bed team of Miya, Sean and Hannah have been utterly magnificent! We are all so proud of how beautiful our beds are looking thanks to their hardwork and diligence.

I must mention the return of Sol and Callum, our spring/summer helping hands! Callum has been packing orders with the care and expertise he developed back in 2024. Whilst, Sol has been an absolute benefit to our team, assisting with many different jobs, including cleaning one of our polytunnels earlier this week.

We've had lots of orders this week, which Ben and the rest of the team have been picking, and super Pete has been packing. From all of us in propagation, thank you for bringing home a piece of Beth's Garden, into yours.