Big Birthdays and a walk up Dollar Glen, and plants of course

Fabulous foliage in the nursery gardens this week. I am a great fan of foliage, it adds form, colour and fabulous shapes. Along side flowers, foliage plants have an important part to play in the garden. The mixed weather continues but we are thankful for rain when it happens, it lessens the burden of watering the nursery.

 A nice start to the day, the first hoya flower is fully open and lots more to come out

We still have one reduced bronze pot and rhododendrons. Rhododendrons were £14.95 now £10. Pot reductions in the photo once they're gone.....

A talk about witches in Stow on Thursday evening .......... don't say it

We are fully restocked with pond plants, including oxygenators, lots of waterlilies with flower buds and lovely marginals in flower.

Wednesday to Sunday 10am to 5pm

See you soon

As the end of June looms it means we are half way through our open season for 2025 (can you believe that?!) The weather continues to be all over the place but I am grateful for the rain every so often. The gardens and nursery look glorious and the compliments we are getting about the nursery, gardens, our team and all things Quercus is wonderful and makes all the Quercus teams hard work worth it so thank you very much 😊

This week we have been continuing with the annual stock bed tidy and potting of stock, Isabel is now working through A’s having finished the shade stock beds and she and I will probably meet in the middle about Campanulas, hopefully in the next week or so.

We have been doing some replanting and filling in gaps in the garden borders to keep them looking good and filled up. The more ground we cover the less weeding there is to do.

Fiona has been working through more cuttings and is now potting the cuttings done in March and April! Which is great, a quick turn a round for prop then we can start on this years big prop list.

Erin has been potting up a lot of lupin seedlings for next year, this will hopefully make up for this years shortfall due to the tunnel disaster in January.

The tree line has been filled up with lots of great trees for your garden and water plants are also topped up with great waterlilies with flower buds on, oxygenators and marginals.

Isabel and Fiona were in charge in the nursery on Saturday while David and I had a day off to celebrate his big birthday. I had hired a self drive canal boat at the basin in Linlithgow and as many of the family as we could get to come had a great day out sailing to Falkirk and back over the day. We had a huge picnic which kept everyone going and a great time was had by all. Those that wanted got to steer the boat and Maisie went too lol. A great way of spending time with the fam for a celebration or just because, the boat can be hired from the Canal Society at Linlithgow for the day, it has a loo and wee kitchen on board and plenty room for 12 people. A great way to help support the society too.

Quercus would not be what and where it is today with out the support and hard work from hubby David. Whether he's building things, dealing with nursery dogs, helping customers, writing signs or teaching me the ins and outs of HMRC and all things mind numbingly numbers related I couldn't have done it without him. Today he celebrates a significant birthday (well every one else is celebrating, he's being a bah humbug ) and tomorrow (Saturday) we are off with family to celebrate. The nursery is open as usual in the very capable hands of Fiona and Isabel. They as always will help you with all things plants, gardens, compost or a bit of banter. I've challenged them to sell the last of the discounted bronze pots lol so please help them out

For David's birthday I hired a canal boat from linlithgow and gathered as much of the troops as possible for a day on the canal

We had a fantastic day, the weather was good, the company fabulous, but we did miss Becky and cheryl. Everyone who wanted to got a chance to steer the boat. The picnic lunch lasted all day, thanks to Wellbread catering in Linlithgow and sweets by me. Thanks to Linlithgow Canal Centre for the excellent boat and briefing David as skipper and Adam as first mate. We sailed as far as the locks at Falkirk before turning around, over aquaducts and through tunnels, lots of wild life and wild flowers.

A perfect day

A lovely very green walk up in the dappled shade of Dollar Glen on Monday. Ages since I’ve been in this area, and walked here. Relieved I managed the walk up the glen after a lack of any decent walks and being ill. That said I managed to walk all the way up the precipitous paths and back down, only to turn my ankle on a stone and fall all my length on a dead flat path walking back out to the road back to the car! Honestly I shouldn’t be allowed out. Take away coffee from the deli in Dollar then meandered back through Muckhart where I spent many childhood days with friends and home via Kinross and the motorway and torrential rain, so we definitely got the best of the weather.

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