Rebuilding a nursery - Copton Ash

[Lori S.]

Good great, Tim!  I'm especially enjoying your lupins.  I hope you discover the secret to longevity for them and can share it!  I was wondering if your sedum might be Sedum obtusifolium?

[fermi de Sousa]

Hi Tim,
good to see you're getting stuck into the renovations.
It was really good to see your place after the Czech conference and to see the changes via this Thread,
cheers
fermi

[Tim Ingram]

Thanks Lori and Fermi - yes, the sedum looks to be obtusifolium from a quick look on Google. It is quite a distinct and neat species, and a strong colour. I'm surprised I haven't come across it before. The lupins never seem to have been long lived with us, so I'm not too confident on that, but they are relatively easy to grow (he says crossing fingers) given really poor soil and a hot place, and we have had beautiful specimens of L. albifrons in the past. The small alpine species that I have seen on the NARGS Forum would be even more exciting, but I imagine more tricky. Many of the other N. American legumes are also enticing, especially when you see some of the posts on this Forum, but I think I try them more with hope than experience!

[Maggi Young]

I've moved this thread here to the Diary section - by popular demand   

Tim - can you  winter the agave  outdoors ?

[Tim Ingram]

Maggi - I have to admit that my last attempt with this Agave failed, but the problem is likely to have been too much wet rather than cold. This one is subsp. couesii, which is reckoned to be tolerant down to -18°C according to Gary and Mary Irish's book, so I have high hopes it will overwinter with glass cover. It has been planted high to maximise drainage around the crown of the plant, and we have just ordered a cubic metre of coarse gravel to top-dress the bed - watch this space next March!

[David Nicholson]

very enjoyable Diary Tim, always something to learn from it.

[Maggi Young]

Maggi - I have to admit that my last attempt with this Agave failed, but the problem is likely to have been too much wet rather than cold. This one is subsp. couesii, which is reckoned to be tolerant down to -18°C according to Gary and Mary Irish's book, so I have high hopes it will overwinter with glass cover. It has been planted high to maximise drainage around the crown of the plant, and we have just ordered a cubic metre of coarse gravel to top-dress the bed - watch this space next March!

Mmm, yes, wet might be more of a problem.  We have as much trouble here with summer wet (usually!)  as with winter wet and I' ve come to realise that I may be translating both into "not hardy" in my own mind - I have seen this recently in other forum threads -  in the matter of Tigridias - being grown in the Ayrshire garden of Tom Cameron, and Belamcanda chinensis (Iris domestica) being grown by AnnE S. in the Hudson River Valley, USA and in gardens in Nova Scotia, as reported  by John W. - I need to get braver about plant choices!

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Very interesting to read about how you get along Tim !
I'm also especially intrigued by how you get along with the Lupins !

[Lesley Cox]

So pleased to read of all your progress Tim and I have to say that it inspires me a great deal as I am gradually getting my own bit under some sort of control but not, I have to admit, very close to the original plan.

There seems to be little time at present for writing a blog but I do want to continue with that. In some ways your progress is similar to mine and we both certainly know that there are so many things to do before we can say "I have a nursery," with real meaning.

Could you send me by PM please, your postal address. I have the Hypericum ready to send and would like to get it away before your winter sets in - horrid thought!

[Tim Ingram]

I seem to be a peripatetic Forumist because I often put details on here, and equally on the AGS site! It gives the sense of being a diplomat, but another meaning of peripatetic, 'itinerant', probably sums it up better. I've just been cleaning up seed for the nursery and seed exchanges and remember the fascinating details put on here some while ago. As someone who has always propagated plants I think I find seed of equal interest to flowers! Cleaning the seed seems to provide a good opportunity to also take pictures and I aim to put more of these on the AGS site (having already started there), but just a quick example of Daphne retusa seed - a common enough plant but I would rate it as the best and most reliable species in our garden, having had it for over 30 years. A lot of promise in those seeds!

[Maggi Young]

I agree, Tim that seed is every bit as interesting as plants and flowers are - and without the seed, where would we be?
I don't know if you are aware of the scheme I have been promoting for some time to get photos ( with a  grid scale in the picture) of seed of known naming?
The photos meantime are here :
http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=4426.0

The thread is titled Seed Identification : photos of named seed varieties - there are hundreds of photos there now, though of course it is our hope for thousands more.
The project arose from the hope to allow easier ID of seed for sending to the seed exchanges ( the idea grew from talks with Joyce Fingerut of NARGS and we hoped that SRGC and  NARGS could join with the AGS on this project. Since then  I've heard no more from the others but I am keen to keep up with the project if forumists will be so good as to get involved. Ian Pryde has done some work on this too.   
There are always moans about mis-named seed being received and this is something we  can work on to help that.

Might I suggest that your seed photos might be better placed in the special section, where they will add towards a larger attempt to be of use to growers and seed packers alike?
Obviously the photos are searchable here in the forum and are also being collated for future use in a format that could be utilised offline by he seed exchanges.
I harbour a dream that they could also be matched up with the archive of photos that Glassford Sprunt has  been compiling over many years. 
I think such a collection would be a tremendous resource  were we able to make it accessible to all on this site.

[Tim Ingram]

Maggi - I haven't taken pictures with a scale, but yes I would be happy to put them on the SRGC project - I've always thought a book on the subject, showing seed and details of germination requirements would be a wonderful resource (there are similar compilations for commercially more significant plants, notably trees and shrubs, but nothing quite like this for alpines and hardy perennials, even though plenty of information is available dispersed in many places). My thoughts of putting pictures on the AGS site were particularly to relate to the ongoing collection of seed for this year's seed exchange, so I will do that too in that capacity. I agree that that to put something like this together is a project for many of us to get involved in, and for the various societies to have involvement with - it is fairly fundamental.

[Tim Ingram]

Final touches to the new raised bed.

1) Only twenty bags to go! Time for a tea break.
2) The bed top-dressed with coarse gravel.
3) The planting looks very bare at present but many of these plants are quite strong growing and it will be exciting to look forward to how it appears at this time next year.
4) Yucca schottii - ultimately a large species to 6ft plus, but will take a good many years to reach that size. This is 3 or 4 years from seed. The mixed gravel used is quite an improvement on the pea gravel I have used elsewhere, and little different in cost, so I may gradually top-dress other plantings in the same way.

[fermi de Sousa]

Looking good, Tim!
It'll be great to see it develop over time,
cheers
fermi

[Lesley Cox]

Very good indeed Tim. What is the timber along the edges? I'm thinking maybe 4" x 4" ground-treated would just about do it? It's what I'll need to do here to get a little height in the nursery areas.