It's all about the gardens, getting ready for the nursery opening

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Snowdrop season has started and all the wonderful varieties I have planted in the nursery gardens are beginning to appear. Whilst it is just us here at Quercus that get to enjoy them in situ, I have taken photos of them to share the Galanthophile joy.

You can also read my snowdrop Plant profile blog by following the link below:




Sky and water with sparkly paint



Cephalaria gigantea                 

I love this plant and have had it in all my gardens since the late 1990’s both in full sun or shade. You can tell my most fav plants in the nursery gardens as they are the only lants allowed to be planted more than once. It is so airy and graceful with very long graceful stems topped by pale primrose yellow, scabious-like flowers with pale grey stamens in mid-summer. For full sun or light shade in moist well drained soil. Use to create height in the border without bulk and very effective against a dark background. Keep on the dry side to prevent the plant from splaying apart. H 1.8m, S 100cm.    

In between the snow showers yesterday and slightly drier conditions today I got the herb garden tidied. It’s amazing how much growth there is already, especially with the Alliums. The checkerboard got a top dressing of compost and the juniper needs a good hair cut as it was getting a bit big for its border. This I had already planned to do but when I came to tidy that border the juniper had a lot of damage with broken branches. To be honest it looked like an elephant had sat on it :0 So it is much smaller now and hopefully it will thicken up.


The last couple of days have seen the Scented garden have its turn to be tidied. Isabel spent the day working on it yesterday, cutting back and lifting leaves doing a great job. Its a much bigger garden area than you think and hard to believe in a few months the ground will be completely covered with plants.
Today I finished off the last corner and then dealt with the bit behind the sweet pea planter. This has widened over time, so I've put in a wooden edge and back filled with compost then I'll sow grass seed but it looks a much neater line now. I also planted a Viburnum lantana behind the sweet pea planter which has scented flowers and makes a small tree, I grew it from seed so I am hoping it will grow and do well. I also planted an Inula hookeri here, its not scented bu I am hoping it will cope with the really awful soil in the area 🤞


Bit of a late one tonight but I was out at the Roberton Gardening Club doing a talk about the nursery. A lovely group of people, the talk went well and I sold some plants.

During the day I got all the entrance beds tidied. The stream garden which I started yesterday finished off with a mulch of compost from the compost heap. The climbers on the fence got a tidy and notes made of plants that will need thinned out at some point. I then moved onto the big entrance border. It’s hard to believe how full this border becomes later in the year! The euonymus europeus was leaning at a jaunty angle as its stake had snapped, to be fair it had out grown the stake, so a new much chunkier one hammered in and tied up.


We took ourselves off for a long weekend before the nursery busy season starts. Not too far, down to the West side of the Yorkshire Dales at Ingleton. We went underground and explored White Scar Caves, a mile long walk through natural caves under Ingleborough Hill. We spent ages in Lords Antiques and salvage in Ingleton, where I did buy some puppets that I collect. None of the outdoor stuff sadly as we only had my wee car with us, thank goodness I could hear David muttering

😃 The sun came out on Sunday and we had a lovely walk on the Ingleton waterfall trail. A 4.5 mile walk taking in unspoilt oak woodland, lots of waterfalls and limestone craggy hills. Lots of ferns and mosses and an energetic mouse dog. The scenery was stunning with snow on the surrounding fells. We meandered our way home through the Yorkshire dales, stopping at the Ribblehead viaduct for a walk in the Baltic wind, then on through Hawes and a stop in Kirby Stephen for a coffee and then to my favourite plant nursery Larch Cottage outside Penrith for lunch and a wander and I didn’t buy any plants! So if you are ever down that way its a lovely often missed part of the country and lots to do and stunning scenery.
Back to the nursery this week to get the garden tidy up finished and then start filling up the sales area tables ready for opening on Saturday 8th March. Not long now 😃






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