News from the Nursery

From Sweet Peas to Sweetcorn!

2011-11-07T09:18:00.000-08:00

No posts for ages - sorry - we've been busy developing a great new range. Veg plants! Richard and Geoff both have allotments and have been growing veg for years (and - in a previous life - Richard was the 'face' in a leading veggy catalogue). We've been growing our own vegetable plants on the nursery so it seemed natural to now offer them online. See our new veg plant range.

Most of our trialling has been done on Richard's patch - see the before and after shots.....

Much more on all of this very soon....

It's that time of year again........

2011-03-14T09:28:00.000-07:00

Thank goodness- the winter is almost over, daffodils are blooming and once again the nursery is full of young plants. The new block of glass that we showed you in it's early stages of construction is now fully operational and has already produced it's first crop and will soon be full of sweet peas. Elsewhere our fuchsia plants are growing vigorously and we are just getting ready to send the first sweet peas.

If sweet peas are your passsion you are sure to be interested in Geoff's Sweet Pea Diary. Here he is sharing the events in his own sweet pea year........

Some Lovely New Fuchsias!

2010-09-29T04:16:00.000-07:00

We grew over 150 different varieties in our Fuchsia Trial this summer and had a really lovely display. The plants were in full flower through July - this is when we make our assessments and take pictures for the web site. We then took all the plants as apart of our display at Sandringham and sold them off at the end of the show. Some were waiting for over an hour to get the pick of the varieties, we are sure it wa worth it as there were some beauties to be had.

In recent times the very large flowered doubles have been very fashionable and we certainly sell plenty of these. This year however we were looking for varieties that carried lots of blooms and flowered over a long period as these give great value in the garden and form spectacular displays.

We found plenty and the best are now in our range. Highlights were

Strawberry Daiquiri - a real head tuner with cascades of pink single blooms
Red Spider - a great basket variety with sheer flower power
Electric Lights - lots of flowers that face up to enhance the display
Auntie Jinks - still one of the best for baskets

All these had more flowers than we could count!!

Sweet Pea Variety Trials - Latest

2010-09-01T07:21:00.000-07:00

We've just walked through our sweet pea trial area for probably the last time this year - we now need the space for other crops - and the results have once again been fascinating......

We had real concerns early in the summer as the very hot June weather almost ruined the trial. An increase in watering and slowing down the feed for a few days coincided with cooler days and the plants quickly picked up. They flowered alsmost as strongly as last year although this was delayed by about 10 days, this resulted in us having better flowers in August than ever before!

Highlights of the trial were as follows:

Dragonfly - a very interesting new intermediate variety, shadeds of pink and lavender and good scent.
Alan Roberts - this was it's best year, seems to give high quality blooms for longer than almost all others
Sylvia Moore - we think this is as good a pink as any - exhibition potential
Anna's Hope - a lovely new mid blue, bred by Andrew Bean
Apricot Queen - the most popular variety at Sandringham -we expect to have new seed from New Zealand in 2011
Patio Perfect - was really good in patio pots and flowered strongly.
White Frills - the best white by far
Ethel Grace - a week later to flower but gave great exhibition quality stems

Virtually all others (we trial all we sell) performed as expected and we had several very exciting new seedlings that have not even been named yet!

We'll miss the trial now it's going and will have to wait until next year for those armfuls of sweet peas that we've enjoyed taking home!

Gold Again at Sandringham Flower Show

2010-08-09T07:35:00.000-07:00

We were at Sandringham Flower Show once again in late July and were delighted to catch up with many old friends. It was wonderful to hear that our seeds and plants bring so much pleasure and, in spite of the baking conditions at times this summer, pleasing that many of you have done really well with sweet peas and fuchsias. We were concerned that the hot weather would prevent us finding quality sweet pea blooms but they appeared in the nick of time and we picked masses of bunches from the trial house. We also took the pick of our fuchsias and put on what we think was our best display yet.....

The judges agreed as they awarded us a Large Gold Medal for the second year running. We'd just like to thank all that visited us and also our hosts from The Sandringham Estate who once again made us so welcome. We hope to see you all again next year.

New Sweet Pea looks Perfect on the Patio!

2010-07-06T04:30:00.000-07:00

We've just taken this pic of our new Sweet Pea Patio Perfect. This large pot has about 10 plants in it. The light blue flowered a few days before the other colours and the display is now a real treat as you can see. As a bonus the warm weather is really bringing out the fragrance which seems stronger than last year.

Lots of Lovely New Plants

2010-06-22T04:35:00.000-07:00

We've just returned from visiting the annual flower trials in Holland. It's held every year and is the 'shop window' for a large number of the best plant breeding companies. It gave us a chance to catch up with new introductions and also meet many old friends. There was much to see! We found some great new fuchsias and a very interesting sweet pea. Other highlights included super scented Nemesias wich we are now trialling here on the nursery.

Our own trials are growing very nicely now and we'll post more here soon.

Sweet Pea Trials Planted

2010-05-20T05:01:00.000-07:00

Our Sweet Pea trial has just been planted. We grow it in an open sided poly tunnel to be sure we get plenty of flowers whatever the weather. That means that any promising new varieties get the best chance possible. We limit ourselves to 120 varieties whicm mean we have to forgo quite a few but always ensure we monitor our best sellers. We've also got quite a few newcomers sent from the best breeders.

The trial doesn't look much at the moment but will soon be leaping into growth. We'll post here regularly giving progress.

2010-05-17T08:12:00.000-07:00

At last the weather seems to be warming up and it seems like spring. We've still got plants available for quick despatch and there's still time to plant. Hurry if you want to plant the best!

2010-04-07T06:13:00.000-07:00

It's one of our busiest weeks of the year! We've been waiting for Fuchsias - held back this year by poor weather in February - and they are finally ready. We've been hard at it sending these and also Sweet Peas to all parts of the UK and some a good deal farther afield. We've had orders from as far apart as Greece and Lithuania, some of these from returning customers. We are re-assured by the good condition that our plants arrive in after their European travels. We put this down to the quality of plants that we ship and our specially designed transit packaging.

Introducing...Sweet Pea Patio Perfect!

2010-03-09T06:57:00.000-08:00

We often asked which Sweet Peas we would recommend for growing in patio pots or hanging baskets. The answer has been that there none are truly suitable. Spencers and Grandifloras are fine if using a wigwam in a large pot but do need space to climb and Cupid is really compact and never really trails in a basket properly.

When our Sweet Pea trial came into flower last summer we were really excited therefore, to see that one of the new varieties we were looking at had all the attributes of the perfect patio Sweet Pea. The plants grew strongly to about 3 feet tall and became covered, top to bottom, in large spencer like blooms borne on strong 6-9in stems. Although grown up netting we the plants had sufficient strength in the stems to partially support themselves. There was certainly some fragrance although we could not say this was strong.

We were confident that we were looking at a big improvement on other patio types and immediately commissioned a crop of seed.

Now we are delighted to launch Patio Perfect. Plant it in patio pots supported, if you like, by a couple of short canes or grow it unsupported either in troughs or in a border, letting it scramble and just do it's own thing.

Or you could follow us and plant in hanging baskets, we've not seen it grown this way but feel sure it will have enough strength to fill the centre of the basket yet be lax enough to tumble over the sides - and there will certainly be plenty of flowers.

Pelargoniums from PAC Elsner in Dresden

2010-02-28T11:15:00.001-08:00

We've recently added Pelargoniums to our online range (although we have grown them for years). All our varieties are from the distinguished PAC range, developed by the Elsner family in Dresden, Germany. We've visited Dresden on several occasions to view the summer breeding trials and have some good friends at PAC Elsner - we regard their varieties as being best of all. On our visits we've been lucky enough to see parts of the beautiful old city - once seat to the Kings and Queens of Prussia - which have been restored to their original state after the firestorms of World War Two.

Not only do we commend the Pelargoniums of Dresden but we also thoroughly recommend a visit to this beautiful and friendly place.

Our pictures show the pelargonium breeding trials and also some of our 'tourist' photos.

Plants are growing quickly now..........

2010-02-10T06:38:00.000-08:00

In spite of the almost relentless cold since the start of the year our overwintered sweet pea plants are in the rudest of health and they've been in the poly tunnel since November where the soil has been frozen solid most weeks. We'll be despatching these at the end of the month - certain that are fully hardened off!

Elsewhere we're working hard on our fuchsia production - here Margaret is busy snipping the tops out to 'stop' the plant. This will encourage side shoots and give us nice bushy young plants in a few weeks.

Latest additions to our plant range

2010-01-25T08:45:00.000-08:00

We've just added Tumbelina Double petunias to our web range and they are already in demand! We know these plants very well as I used to work with the breeder David Kerley when we were both at Unwins. I remember David showing me his first double one summer - nine months later we had sold over 100000 ! David and his wife Priscilla are gifted plant breeders and have some excellent sweet peas to their name too. Their petunias are some of the best around and they have also raised Belarina Primroses and Candy Drops Cape Fuchsias. See more at http://www.kerley.co.uk/

Back on the nursery we are busy as ever and work has resumed on the new glass. The cold weather delayed us but we hope to have a roof on by mid Feb.

Next project on the web is pelargoniums and we hope to have something to show in a week or so....

Looking Forward

2010-01-13T06:55:00.000-08:00

Still very wintry here but we are definitely looking forward now! Plant production continues apace and we've already made quite a few deliveries to wholesale customers.

To offset the winter blues have a look at a couple of the more interesting varieties we trialled last summer - a very interesting fuchsia with simply masses of tubular flowers and a great new intermediate sweet pea which bears loads of blooms and grows strongly to a height of about 3ft.

2009-12-24T03:47:00.000-08:00

A very Happy Christmas and successful 2010 in the garden to all. We've closed the nursery for a few days now although the growing plants will get the occasional look in to check all is well.

This festive scene was captured at the start of the week.

Fuchsia Maternity Ward!

2009-12-17T05:15:00.000-08:00

It's bitterly cold now and the forecasters say we could be in for a dollop of snow. Under glass it's lovely and warm - good job as the latest batch of fuchsia cuttings have just been stuck after arriving from much warmer climes.

We work with specialist producers in Africa and South America where the intense light levels provide us with superb starting material. Cuttings can be transplanted and growing on our nursery just a couple of days after leaving the tropics.

The tiny plants seen here were stuck yesterday and within a week or so will be growing away strongly.

Winter Sunset

2009-12-10T05:30:00.000-08:00

Looks like we are in for a more settled spell of weather for a few days. If we get plenty of sunshine it'll help the cuttings we are sticking to root quickly and certainly help keep energy bills down.

The Fenland lanscape may not be the most inspiring in winter but we do get some superb sunsets looking towards the back of the nursery.

Plenty going on on a cold winter's day

2009-12-03T06:54:00.000-08:00

Its cold and wet and not a bit like gardening weather but (as always) there's plenty going on here on the nursery. The really exciting news is that work has just started on our new greenhouse block which we hope to be using early in the new year. Its main use will be for growing standard fuchsias and no doubt we'll fill any spare space with sweet pea plants as our order book is ever increasing!

Elsewhere we are busy 'sticking' cuttings of fuchsias and other tender plants. Many are surprised that we already cultivating plants that will appear in gardens in the height of summer! The quality of the new stock looks excellent.

Molly has come with me today. She loves running around on the field that was once the old orchard. She would much sooner chase sticks or even jump in the reservoir than sit under my desk as she is doing now.