Bulgaria - Kamenari 2009 - A Guided Tour

[Hristo]

Given that a continuing theme in all threads of the SRGC forum seems to be an interest in how people grow their plants I thought I would create a quickish guided tour of the developing garden and facilities here in Bulgaria. A quick background, we bought the property back in 2004, did some basic work on the house before moving to Bulgaria in the autumn of 2006. The first autumn saw 5 temporary beds built (4m x 2m) to house the bulbs that had crossed Europe with us. With the bulbs housed for the winter we moved on to renovating the house, renovation works were completed by March 2007 after which the first permanent rock garden bed was built ( Pic 0.5 )
To the Western side of the house ( Pic 1 ) is the main alpine garden ( or alpinaium ), this was established in the January of 2008 and is slowly moving west into the upper meadow! ( Pic 1.5 ) This meadow came with Ornithogalum narboense, Scilla bifolia, Muscari neglectum and Himantaglossum caprinum established curtsy of nature and as stocks of suitable species increase they move out into the meadow!
Shade is at a premium here and the house itself offers the shade required to grow a range of woodland species. (Pic 2 ) The Northern shade terrace provides a habitat for Corydalis sp, Hepatica, Helleborus, Orchis, Cypripedium, Platanthera, Calanthe, Cyclamen and Viola amongst many others.

[Hristo]

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The year old eastern shade garden ( Pic 3 ) contains more of the Corydalis plus amongst others Scoliopus, Adonis, Crocus, Eranthis and Fritillaria whilst the three year old partial shade garden ( Pic 4 )  holds the bulk of the Cypripediums, Trilliums, Liliums, Erythroniums, Polygonatums and Podophyllums.
( Pic 5 & 6 ) These are the most recent woodland beds and will lie largely fallow this year whilst copious layers of bark are allowed to rot into the soil.

[Hristo]

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( Pic 7 ) The composting bays, we run a three-year rotation here,  we compost all kitchen and garden waste and collect our own hay from the meadow for composting.
( Pic 8 ) These are the vegetable beds and the greenhouse is a seasonal greenhouse used for growing tomato, cucumber, aubergine and melon, many of which are heritage varieties.

[Hristo]

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( Pic 9 ) The larger of the bearded iris stock beds, we hold about 60 varieties, this years the bed will be top dressed with crushed stone to make life for the voles and moles harder, they don't eat the rhizomes but they make a mess!
( Pic 10 ) Orchid bed holding some H.caprinum lifted from the upper meadow and placed here for ease of summer division.
( Pic 11 ) Holding area for bearded iris types, these will either go to sale or into beds as the garden is developed.
( Pic 12 ) Holding area for herbaceous plants, again for sale or later use in new flowerbeds.

[David Shaw]

Facinating tour. I do hope that we can return to Bulgaria and visit you one day.

[Carol Shaw]

Wow great pix. Hristo as David says we hope to return to Bulgaria one of these years... but probably not this year 

[Hristo]

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( Pic 13 ) Two beds of this style hold pots of sown seed that require stratification, once germinated they move to beds that offer shelter from rain, wind and mild frost ( Pic 14 ) or into beds that offer wind shelter only ( Pic 15 ).
( Pic 16 ) Shows the main bulb frame, which holds bulbs requiring protection from excessive moisture and bulbs that are present in the open garden but are held here in reserve!

[Hristo]

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( Pic 17 ) Built in January to March 2008 the potting shed re-uses windows and doors salvaged from the renovation of the house, this shed also houses all my beloved power tools!
( Pic 17.5 ) This shows a view down to the lower meadow which is seasonally inundated with water as the field drains have stopped working, this of course is fine as we slowly introduce species to the meadow that enjoy these seasonal conditions.

[Hristo]

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( Pic 18 & 19 ) This is the latest area of rock garden to be developed, soil is from the footings of the barn where we dug and poured a concrete floor! The crushed rock is placed directly on top of the soil and grass as a weed suppressant, as this season progresses we will spray the weeds that come through, the beds will be planted up in the autumn and from then on they will be hand weeded.

[Hristo]

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( Pic 20 to 22 ) These three beds were made from the 'remains' of the original beds built in 2006 to hold the bulbs, the bulbs were lifted, the beds remodeled, the bulbs then went back into the beds, to new locations in the garden or to the main bulb frame in the 'nursery area'

[Hristo]

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These last pics ( Pic 24 - 27 ) are the before pics, hopefully they give you some idea of the scale of the job we have undertaken, there are many many years of work ahead!

[Hristo]

Carol, David, if you make it here there will of course be a meal and some Rakia waiting for you!

[Lvandelft]

Very interesting to see this series of a growing garden.
You've done a huge job in a reasonable short time. 
As being a former (resting) nursery owner, I have the practical or economic
question about how you will sell your plants.
Bulgaria is not the first country where I would think of selling (buying) alpines etc.

[Hristo]

A good question, whilst we sell locally to anyone who drops in, the bulk of our trade will be internet based mail-order. Postage rates are quite reasonable from Bulgaria, trials on E-bay have been quite promising, with living at this end of the EU overheads are much smaller than western europe and so we can afford to be quite competative and patient whilst the business develops.
Currently we hold seed for 2,700 sepcies of plants with around 1,800 species growing, as you will appreciate the issue is having the numbers to sell, this takes time! I imagine few nurseries appear fully formed with a full catalogue ( unless they buy from Dix! )

[David Nicholson]

Very interesting Chris, the pair of you obviously have a wide range of horticultural and building skills that are well used. I hope you will keep us in touch with your developments and do bear in mind that there are lots of potential customers here.