Rebuilding a nursery - Copton Ash

[Maggi Young]

That is a lovely idea to show the different snowdrop varieties in the basket - easily transportable too!

Yes, I liked that too - practical and attractive.

[Tim Ingram]

I think maybe we will work on the idea of a more integrated event/s in Kent next year if we can. The snowdrop basket came from Sue Martin of Geum fame - a lovely and simple way of displaying them which I must remember for the Best of Faversham market next time!

[Tim Ingram]

A few pictures of the sales at Harlow which I thought I would put here from a nursery perspective. Quite a busy day with plenty of people around. How many visitors know how far some of these specialist nurseries have come from? Slack Top had come for the first time from the Yorkshire Pennines. A four and half hour drive(!) with all the packing up of plants: a fantastic opportunity for those down in the south who are new to alpines to discover a remarkable range of plants. The first picture shows a new generation overlooking the hall    but none of them came to the Show itself - a missed opportunity for the school to actually show some of its students some remarkable plants from remarkable places, and notably the exhibit from Kew. The last picture shows Crocus tommasinianus roseus - I've never noticed before how much blue there is in the centre of the flowers, though maybe the lighting added to this?

[Maggi Young]

Your first pic there, Tim, Harlow 6, shows Jackie Potterton and Lisa  manning the Potteron's stall - they had set off the day before and had to have an overnight stay.... all more time and expense for the nursery folk to factor in to attending a show.

[Brian Ellis]

Your first pic there, Tim, Harlow 6, shows Jackie Potterton and Lisa  manning the Potteron's stall - they had set off the day before and had to have an overnight stay.... all more time and expense for the nursery folk to factor in to attending a show.

It was very much appreciated by all us southerners who ended the day with empty pockets and full cars

[David Nicholson]

Tim's picture 9 is, I think, Allison and Michael Mitchell from Slack Top Nursery.

[Maggi Young]

Noel Kingsbury  has a blog entry entitled  "Where have all the alpines gone?" - where he laments the supposed - and perhaps actual - "disappearance" of many alpine plants from our gardens. He is certainly right about the loss of many specialist nurseries.
He is a tad off the mark in some things though.
Also, he hadn't spotted that Pottertons have been trading under that name since 2002 and I think it was  Wiert Nieuman and his team who were responsible for all the innovative planting schemes at Utrecht - fab though Harry Jans and his private garden are!

[Tim Ingram]

That is an interesting blog entry from Noël Kingsbury which I think holds some truths about the seeming 'exclusiveness' of the alpine garden world, which may in part explain 'Where have all the Alpines Gone'. I remember visiting him many years ago when he began his nursery and was growing interesting alpines (and I remember being struck by how good his writing was then), and another well known gardener and landscape designer, Dan Pearson, has also written about the AGS and the influence this had early in his career. Both are really significant gardeners and plantsmen, and the fact that they and so many others have had such formative connections with the (AGS specifically) alpine gardening world has great relevance then and now. To these you can easily add people such as Jim Archibald, Martyn Rix, Brian Mathew, Chris Brickell and many others and so I would relate this to other discussions that have gone on on the SRGC Forum - viz: the Future of Specialist Plant Societies and the concerns about EU Regulations and the impact these have on certain freedoms of expression.

I would return to a point I made about young people having some knowledge of plant diversity, environment and origins, which the Alpine Societies of all champion and celebrate. These are pretty profound things to know and to share with new gardeners even if sometimes they might seem quite academic and rarified.

[astragalus]

Tim, thanks for the pictures of the Harlow sale, which made me pea green with envy!  Is that  Harlow as in Harlow Carr?  Joe and I visited there for a day when we stayed once in York.  It was so lovely even in November. I think we took a train and then had a nice walk to the garden ending with tea at Betty's Cafe.  Unfortunately, the new Alpine House wasn't opened until the next spring.

[David Nicholson]

Ann, not wishing to steal Tim's thunder but the town of Harlow (the venue for one of the AGS Shows) is in the County of Essex in South Eastern England.

Incidentally the Harlow parts of both names share the same derivation, from the Old English 'here' meaning army and 'hlaw' meaning mound or small hill. The Carr bit stems from 'oecer', meaning plot of land and gradually developed into the word acre.

[astragalus]

Thanks, David.  Really interesting information.  Always fun to see how words evolve.  Sorry I couldn't be at the sale, wherever it was.  But then I'd have to go through the draconian US Customs.  When we visited Harlow Carr, I bought some packages of bulbs at the Garden Shop, mostly iris reticulata cultivars not available here - and breezed through Customs forgetting they were in my bag.

[Tim Ingram]

I suppose this may not so directly relate to us personally rebuilding our nursery (though it does in some ways) but it does to some of the wider aspects debated on the Forum here about the Specialist Societies themselves and potential regulations on growing and selling plants: today we had a really good debate in Faversham about the significance of the Magna Carta, historically, now and in the future (Faversham happens to have one of the original copies of the Magna Carta dating from 1300). The panel included academics, an army officer (with wide experience in conflict zones around the world), Rod Liddle, associate editor of 'The Spectator', Munira Mirza, deputy Mayor of London for Education and Culture, and Claire Fox who established the Institute of Ideas. All of them spoke really eloquently from quite different backgrounds and perspectives but highlighting the importance of the individual and freedom of expression. It was just stimulating to be there simply for the value of debate, thought, and a feeling that Faversham was on the map for a moment! The local market we are involved with has arisen from a pretty concerted effort, not always without opposition and obstacles, so not entirely independent of this debate.

[Tim Ingram]

Following the generosity of friends in our local Alpine Groups - Denis Catlin and Mike and Hazel Brett - we now have this wonderful collection of old sinks to use in this narrow strip where the old leyland hedge has been removed. Is there a collective noun for troughs? An alpinarium? The biggest two are around 3ft x 2ft and the smallest about half this size, and all a good depth.

After building the sand bed elsewhere - which although relatively small still involved a good bit of preparation and work and has been a good learning experience and successful for a lot of plants - this will be another very stimulating project, helped by seeing what Mike and Hazel have done in their new garden over the last year or two. We are combining this with a lot more structural work on the nursery itself so these may take a while to be rendered and re-rendered and to find their place, and plantings planned and completed through this spring and summer, but a lot of the inspiration has come from seeing what others do on this Forum so we will show them as they develop.

[Tim Ingram]

For anyone in the south-east this weekend - the 'Plant Fairs Roadshow' are at Hall Place in south-east London on Sunday 19th April from 10am to 3pm. Hall Place is is at Bourne Road, Bexley DA5 1PQ - just off the A2 and a few miles inside the M25.

A good range of plants from small specialist nurseries in an extensive and varied garden which also has an historically interesting and important rock garden on relatively poor stony soil in a dry climate. Admission FREE.

(see www.plant-fairs.co.uk)

[Tim Ingram]

This is a specific example of rebuilding the nursery, which is taking a while because of the competing demands of maintaining the garden! This  area had become overgrown and neglected and we now want to make open but covered standing areas for smaller alpines compared with larger perennials that were grown here in the past. So the old frames and ground-cover have been cleared away and the land leveled, and the purple cherry in the background (damaged in the Christmas gales over 2013/4) removed. The aim now is to make a structure rather like the one Adrian Young uses for the saxifrage collection at Waterperry but with a raised standing bed for plants at waist level. (I wouldn't mind raised beds like these complete with tufa! but that is a dream for the future).

This would double the protected area we have for choice plants needing more care in growing, and the ongoing plan for next year is to repeat the process in the adjacent standing area between the apple and crab-apple cordons. Having got the land cleared and leveled it's now much easier to contemplate building the structure and there is a need as cuttings and seedlings are being potted and grown on!