Received from Glendoick - the Cox Family are world famous in the rhododendron world - so this is a shock:
Glendoick Gardens Mail Order comes to an end
"After 63 years, Glendoick Gardens is sadly discontinuing its mail order business to all but a limited number of customers whose gardens we are designing. We will continue to grow a range of material which will include the bestselling species and hybrids.
Customers will still be able to order plants to collect from our garden centre and we may be able to help societies who wish to club together to place orders of a substantial size and deliver to one address.
For over 60 years, Glendoick have introduced new plants from the wild, bred new hybrids and sought out the best plants from the best growers to introduce into the UK.
We are incredibly grateful to all our customers over the years, many of whom have become friends and plant-hunting companions. It is amazing to see so many Glendoick plants in gardens all over the UK, Europe and further afield. We are also very grateful to our long serving staff. Happily we have managed to employ some of them in other roles at Glendoick. But sadly Jane and Chris are leaving. We wish them the best.
Why is Glendoick discontinuing Mail Order?
1. Economics. Brexit, economic downturn, bureaucracy, and plant selling prices are not keeping pace with increases in minimum wages and have therefore made specialist nurseries uneconomic. M&S,for example, are selling large rhododendron hybrids for £10. We can’t compete. I fear that specialist rhododendron growers will be a rare breed when the current nursery owners retire.
2. Climate Change and Pest and Disease threats
All gardeners are suffering from the effects of climate change, particularly in S. E. England. The last time I visited the Valley Gardens at Windsor, I could see what the future of rhododendrons in this part of the world might be. We have had no rain for months and have been watering day and night to keep things goings. Meanwhile, the number of pests and diseases increases year on year: soft scale, petal blight, ash die back and sudden oak death. And the chemicals used to control them are disappearing off the market, so we have nothing to turn to. Systhane, the best mildew control, has just gone off the market. Glyphosate (Roundup) looks like it may join the others on the list. The E.C. is sleepwalking to disaster, allowing plant imports of plants with soil from Asia, New Zealand and other countries. The latest pest to come from New Zealand is a mealy bug which eats Meconopsis roots.
3. Phytophthora ramorum
This disease is now established all over the UK, and much of Europe. It has spread around Larix plantations in the UK and is clearly an airborne disease as well as a waterborne one. This means that, like Ash Die Back, it cannot be controlled by hygiene. In common with most UK woodland gardens and nurseries, Glendoick has had small outbreaks of this disease and have satisfied the criteria which the plant health authorities demand. This has allowed us to continue to trade. But this disease cannot be eradicated and we will all need to learn to live with it and mitigate its impact. At present, all infected plants are destroyed without compensation. We don’t want to be forced to close the nursery in the future, so are taking steps to protect ourselves from this eventuality. Having taken advice, we are discontinuing open ground production and moving to container only, and are eradicating all susceptible varieties from commercial production.
3. Plant Hunting
The Nagoya Protocols, which bans plant collecting worldwide, have made plant-hunting for a nursery like ours more or less impossible. While we quite understand the reasons for this legislation, and broadly support it, the effect is likely to be counter-productive in terms of conservation, as threatened plants may become extinct, if they cannot be collected and distributed. We were lucky to have three generations of Cox plant-hunters. And we still have every intention of going looking for plants again, but perhaps not in the same way. I don’t anticipate the next generation of Coxes being able to do what we did.
We will review any orders held over from Spring 2017 and you are welcome to come and collect any plants we can supply. We won’t be sending out any more catalogues but we will have an Excel listing of stock we can send you and we will keep the website updated with the plants we are still growing.
This is a sad time for us at Glendoick and we are sorry for the disappointing news.
Thanks once again for your support of Glendoick over the years. We hope that you will continue to visit Glendoick. We will continue to stock the largest range of rhododendrons available in any UK garden centre and we are continuing to develop new hybrids.
We have just named 2 new evergreen azaleas Glendoick Candyfloss and Glendoick Ruffles and have selected a new double yellow azalea for testing. (see images below)
Kenneth Cox's monumental book Woodland Gardening will be published in May 2018.. he just needs to finish it........"
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Mailing address is:
Glendoick Gardens & Garden Centre
Glendoick
Perth
Perth, Perthshire PH2 7NS
United Kingdom
