Rebuilding a nursery - Copton Ash

[Tim Ingram]

And there is just room for a new raised bed using up some old railway sleepers! At the moment this is partly shaded by a Metasequoia but the tree has suffered through previous dry summers so eventually will have to come down. This may be the place to experiment with a dry sand/scoria type bed for those astragalus and oxytropis and lupins I have generally failed with up to now, plus more Mediterranean-climate species. Other parts of the garden are established and looking quite good, and don't need too much care - this shows the entrance to the garden with Hydrangea 'Tricolor', Geranium 'Buxton's Blue', Dryopteris erythrosora, mahonia and cimicifuga, which helps when viewing areas that need more attention! Not everything is 'coming up roses' but enough to feel that some real progress is being made after quite a long haul.

[Maggi Young]

Those beds full of pots  are bursting with planty promise, Tim. I can feel my wallet leaping at the prospect of retail therapy at Copton Ash,even tho' there is little chance of my getting to see it in person. The hard work you and Gillian are putting in is surely paying off when we see  these pictures of both nursery beds and garden doing so well.
Have you more Kentish plant fairs etc to attend?

[Matt T]

I'm with Maggi on that, the nursery and garden are looking great Tim. Your posts here have certainly piqued my interest to visit your nursery if I can. I was down south recently, visiting my folks in Essex. My mum and I took a day trip out to Gt. Dixter and I can't help thinking that some of our time would have been better spent perusing your nursery beds instead of sitting in an 8 mile traffic jam on the M25 for 3 1/2 hours!  However, Gt. Dixter was splendid. I'll have to get to Copton Ash another time. Those nursery beds are surely full of exciting treasures, most of them probably not suited to my Hebridean climate, but I can have fun buying plants for my mum's warm, sunny, dry garden. 

[Matt T]

I meant to ask: are you rooting all of your cuttings in pure sand, or is there some form of growing medium under a top dressing?

[Tim Ingram]

Thanks Matt and Maggi - a few plant fairs yes, including Great Dixter this autumn, but there is still a need to educate gardeners about alpines and we are working on that. We should have a great deal more by next spring but need to make more covered areas on the nursery for the choicer plants, so a lot still to do.

The cuttings are just inserted in a layer of sharp sand over a rooting mix of propagation bark and vermiculite, plus a little loam. This summer has become unduly warm so cuttings have the roots 'fair boiled off them'. It would be good to emulate the fine prop. house at Aberconwy and in time this might be possible, but the garden also needs a lot of attention.

[David Nicholson]

Pleasure to see it Tim. Must be very hard work but tremendously satisfying.

[astragalus]

Impressive array of cuttings and plants.  Wish your nursery was near me.  Nice to see pictures of future projects - you will never be bored and looking for things to do!

[Tim Ingram]

All work and no play... a bit of Africa, Nuru Kane and the BFG at the Gulbenkian (University of Kent). Real rhythm. Wish I had a picture I could show - a great ensemble of musicians.

[Tim Ingram]

Anne - it would be so nice if your garden was near to us too! It is very stimulating to see the crevice plantings - not too many gardeners here in Kent (if any?) doing this; it is certainly on the agenda in the future. At the moment the nursery is taking precedence and having just received the latest NARGS Quarterly and read Loren Russell's article this is our plan for one area...

[Tim Ingram]

Finding new places for plants, and revamping old ones, is one of the significant aspects of an established garden. This tree house, around an old cherry in the nursery, was made when the children were small but never properly finished (it has no roof!). It seemed a potential place to plant out a few plants that would benefit from a dryish spot and some protection in winter (it could easily be turned into a mini-greenhouse). The winter gales have blown down quite a bit of the nearby hedge and opened this area up to much more light so hopefully these plants will take off. (Really an excuse to put off more of the larger scale weeding and renovation that still needs doing!).

[Tim Ingram]

A few pictures of plants from WHG Mann & Son in Essex, one of the few wholesale alpine nurseries in the country, and who grow an extensive and changing range of plants including many real rarities like Weldenia candida and Anchusa caespitosa, as well as good garden alpines like those pictured. Such an interesting nursery to visit, not least because of the connections to so many great growers of past and present. The first picture shows some nice forms of Saxifraga fortunei, several of which have come from Ray Drew who lives nearby, and like other Essex AGS members (such as Kath Dryden) has always had close links with Mann's - the Group meets just across the road in the local hall and have a fine local show every year in the spring (ref. pictures of Ray's erythroniums that I have shown last year on the Forum).

With the saxifrages is a nice robust form of Gentiana asclepidea (ex. Nymans) and the silver saxifrage cross S. x andrewsii (which Winton Harding praises for its 'really sturdy constitution and sterling merits as a garden plant), and is a good addition to a select range of 'silvers' that we have been kindly given by David Hoare, and aim to build up on the nursery.

The second picture shows some good cushion alpines amongst others, including the super tight growing Delosperma spalmanthoides. We haven't grown many of these relatively hardy succulents in the past, but potentially they suit our conditions well and it is hard not to get a little excited about them when you look across to N. America and Panayoti Kelaidis' and others championing of them at Denver and the challenging climate of parts of the western US.

Thirdly, why not learn to love Silene acaulis again? These are the compact 'Snowdon' form and more robust 'Pedunculata' at Manns - we will try these à la Peter Korn.

[Maggi Young]

Tim - and others - have written of the seeming lack of interest in rock gardening in some circles - here is a link to an article by Francine Raymond who hopes the tide is turning: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/gardeningequipment/11063964/Why-have-rock-gardens-fallen-out-of-fashion.html

[Tim Ingram]

Yes isn't that nice. Doddington is only just down the road from us and we know it and Amicia quite well over the years - the rock garden is quite extensive and it is quite an exercise to rebuild it like this - more power to their elbow. I'm not so sure about the references to Friar Park and miniature Matterhorns because these show how ridiculous some rock gardens were in the past; the Czech gardens and many British gardens like Branklyn, which we have just visited, show how rock gardens can be true works of art and highly valuable ways of growing these plants extremely successfully, as they are in Japan. Rock gardens don't have to be on this traditional large scale and associated with large gardens, they can be much more intimate and linked to individual discernment by gardeners.

[Lesley Cox]

Though I look at this super thread regularly, I rarely add to it as there's so much happening and I feel I should be doing so much more myself, both to my own seemingly defunct blog but also to my garden and nursery. The weather's perking up some so hopefully I'll be out there for a few more days before the next lot of rain pours in.

Having read the article you linked to above Maggi, I am wondering if the modern writer/presenter hasn't noticed what's happening out there. I have just recently come across Carol Klein in the series about her Devon cottage garden and enjoyed it quite a lot but also in a series called "The Great British Garden Revival." It's been on before but I missed it but just a couple of days ago caught a repeat of the episode which features the "revival" of the great British rock garden. Starting off with a rehash of the huge rock gardens of the Victorians and Edwardians, such as those mentioned in the linked article, she went on to talk some about the Edinburgh BG rock garden and a few others but all, with the exception of a trough which she planted were enormous and if that's the current perception among those who DON'T rock garden, it's no wonder many people are put off. I and many others - all of us in fact who look at the Forum - are aware of a few large ones for sure but there are so many little or even tiny rock gardens which are very much in keeping with modern garden sizes, time available and the calls to other, competing interests and responsibilities. I thought it a shame that Ms Klein didn't mention these at all. Even the alpine house she mentioned - Edinburgh again - was the biggest and best or among them, no mention that just a very few square metres of space under cover can house a fantastic collection of stunning plants. I shouldn't be surprised if many people watching her "revival" thought "Oh well, that's far to big and ambitious for me" instead of seeing that so much can be done with so little.

[astragalus]

Lesley, to me one of the joys of rock gardening is that it can be done within a few square feet.
You don't  need a huge space.  Larry Thomas, who was a wonderful New York City rock gardener, displayed his alpine plants on his 11th floor terrace in a number of gorgeous pots (which he made himself) and small troughs.  He grew wonderful plants.  I can think of other rock gardeners who have a few troughs and grow incredible plants in them.  It's great to have a site that begs for a rock garden, but what's needed is some sophisticated publicity on how rock gardening can fit into just about anyone's lifestyle. 
On the other hand, I don't find "big" and "expensive" at all daunting, but rather a learning experience and a challenge to adapt what you've learned in a way that doesn't make a team of round-the-clock gardeners a necessity