Early starters

[Ross Barbour]

Slowly but surely the crevice is coming to life at Ragley with some pretty Saxi's.

[fixpix]

I like them!
Not a lot of success with my Saxi seeds yet...

[David Nicholson]

Looking good Ross.

[Ross Barbour]

Thanks. That was a while ago now and I haven’t seen it for a while. I finished at Ragley a couple of weeks ago, I am now at Old Court Nurseries and the Picton Garden. I am looking forward to building a large rock garden there which is very exciting. I am also heading up Old Court Design and I cant wait for my first rock garden project, we are on the cusp of an alpine/rock garden renaissance.

[Maggi Young]

Best of luck with all your new projects, Ross.
If you see how vibrant things are here in the SRGC with such activity from around the world, and look, for instance, at the crevice garden threads you'll see that rock gardening has never gone away, in fact it is very much the ongoing passion of gardeners in just about every botanic garden you can think of, from Denmark to Canada, never mind for private gardeners - and in the trough threads there is every evidence of the appeal of alpine plants no matter how much space you may- or may not have.  It would be fun to see the rest of the gardening world catch up with us - you'll have to do your bit for that !

It would be good to think that the 'younghorts' will get to grips with rock garden and alpine plants too - I doubt there are too many dahlia clubs offering student grants or the chance to join such an organised worldwide network. That may be something else you can tackle!

[David Nicholson]

Thanks. That was a while ago now and I haven’t seen it for a while. I finished at Ragley a couple of weeks ago, I am now at Old Court Nurseries and the Picton Garden. I am looking forward to building a large rock garden there which is very exciting. I am also heading up Old Court Design and I cant wait for my first rock garden project, we are on the cusp of an alpine/rock garden renaissance.

I'm a fairly frequent visitor to Ledbury, must pop in some time it's quite a few years since we have been to Old Court to see the Asters.

[Maggi Young]

Just realised I didn't add the link about  the Picton  student grants - http://www.autumnasters.co.uk/picton_garden.htm - which chimes well with SRGC work in that area.

[Maggi Young]

As we heard,  in the snowdrop pages I think,  Ross Barbour is now at Old Court and last month married Helen Picton, so they can expect an exciting new life together there.
Good wishes were sent to the happy couple via Ross' twitter page .

Old Court Nursery and the Picton garden started by Percy Picton are now run by his granddaughter Helen and her husband Ross. Ross is writing a blog on the AGS site about what is going on in the garden.   Catch it here

[Ross Barbour]

Thank you x