Autumn is well and truly here and the colours are also turning up the heat with all the oranges, reds and yellows.
We still have spaces on some of our autumn workshops, these can be booked on the nursery shop page on our website: Quercus Garden Plants
Seed saving workshop - how to save and store seeds from your garden - 12th October, 11am to 12pm
Finally on the penultimate Saturday of our open season, Saturday 18th October we will be holding a garden question and answer session. This is free and a chance to chat to us about all things gardens and plants before we close for winter. Please email to say you are coming so we have an idea of numbers - quercusgardenplants@gmail.com
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| Teasels |
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| Echinacea and Euonymus |
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| Darmera peltata |
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| Apples in the orchard |
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| Purple Hazel nuts |
Autumn has definitely arrived here in the garden at home. Glorious autumnal hues are now taking over from the soft summer colours. Bright marigolds, nasturtiums and sunflowers annual and perennial are competing with the autumn leaf colour........ and the self sowen nasturtium has ignored ALL the memo's and now covers all of the wee courtyard, has crept into the greenhouse and over the seating area!
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| All the colours in the garden at home |
It might be September but there are still lots of fabulous colours in the nursery and gardens, why not come and visit and see yourself and pick up some great autumn colour plants, there are shrubs with some amazing autumn colours in the sales area. We also have all our pick and mix spring bulbs now.
Autumn tasks in the garden - cleaning out ponds
This is the ideal time to clear out overgrown ponds as the wildlife is not very active. Our wildlife pond was installed in 2019 when we created the gardens in the bottom terrace and has been left to get on with things and create a very healthy ecosystem. Its stiffed with frogs, toads, newts, damsel flies and lots of other aquatic insects.
But it has become quite overgrown with more roots than water in some parts so it was time for some aquatic gardening and Isabel and Shannon were up for the job.
We found that almost all the plants had grown out their baskets and were quite happily living outside the basket lol. So it was a case of removing each plant mass, separating off part of the plant and placing it back where we wanted it and putting the surplice in the wheel barrow for potting later. We extracted a lot of a plant that wasn't planted but had become quite invasive, rooting into everything, so hopefully we have removed it all or at least to a point its easy to pick off if it grows back.
We were watched by a couple of frogs, who hung about the water lily we didn't move. All the weed and roots we removed were left on old compost sacks at the side of the pond to drain off and for any creatures to get a chance to go back into the pond. I'll remove it all in a few days.
Once all the weed and bits of plants we'd thinned out were removed Isabel and Shannon worked through the barrow of bits, tidying, cutting back and potting up. These will go in the tunnel over winter and hopefully will be out for sale next year. Once the disturbed silt settles the pond will look much better and now we are getting rain will fill back up. In a couple of weeks I'll get the nets on to stop the leaves going in over winter.
This is the ideal time to clear out overgrown ponds as the wildlife is not very active. Our wildlife pond was installed in 2019 when we created the gardens in the bottom terrace and has been left to get on with things and create a very healthy ecosystem. Its stiffed with frogs, toads, newts, damsel flies and lots of other aquatic insects.
But it has become quite overgrown with more roots than water in some parts so it was time for some aquatic gardening and Isabel and Shannon were up for the job.
We found that almost all the plants had grown out their baskets and were quite happily living outside the basket lol. So it was a case of removing each plant mass, separating off part of the plant and placing it back where we wanted it and putting the surplice in the wheel barrow for potting later. We extracted a lot of a plant that wasn't planted but had become quite invasive, rooting into everything, so hopefully we have removed it all or at least to a point its easy to pick off if it grows back.
We were watched by a couple of frogs, who hung about the water lily we didn't move. All the weed and roots we removed were left on old compost sacks at the side of the pond to drain off and for any creatures to get a chance to go back into the pond. I'll remove it all in a few days.
Once all the weed and bits of plants we'd thinned out were removed Isabel and Shannon worked through the barrow of bits, tidying, cutting back and potting up. These will go in the tunnel over winter and hopefully will be out for sale next year. Once the disturbed silt settles the pond will look much better and now we are getting rain will fill back up. In a couple of weeks I'll get the nets on to stop the leaves going in over winter.
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| The wild life pond before cleaning |
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| Isabel and shannon getting started on thinning the plants out |
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| Re-potting irises |
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| Plants to pot up |
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| After clearing out |
sunset from the house
This is a fantastic plant for damp to water logged soil in shade or sun. Great for ground cover too, it loves our rubbish soil, perfect.
Bonus it also flowers, these pink and white flowers appear in spring before the leaves appear on long stalks from the curious tubers that creep across the soil surface. It grows to 90cm and spreads to 200cm.
As we get nearer the end of our season, I know I can’t believe it either, I would like to say a massive thank you
to hubby David and my youngest son Dan for the garden railway. This feature in the nursery has now been in
operation for five years with David running the railway every second Sunday when weather permits (we were lucky to hardly cancel any this year) and Dan comes over when he can to help on the running days and do any upgrades and fixes. They fund it all themselves, buying the running stock, engines, buildings and track and using their own time to build and fix it. I am sure everyone who has come along to see the railway running and
enjoyed it will join me in saying a huge thank you to David and Dan doing this for Quercus and our customers.
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Well it feels truly autumnal now, yay! The trees are colouring up already and the berries and nuts are looking great on hazels, viburnum, hawthorn, holly, oaks and so much more. Here in the nursery we finished working through the propagation list and we now have so many young plants growing on for next year, cuttings done and seed saved. There will be a few more to do before the end of the season but its great to have another big annual job ticked off the list 
On Wednesday we had a group of students from Borders College with their tutor Nigel who are studying horticulture. They were a great bunch and we chatted about the nursery, what we do, my career in hort and so much more, hopefully we’ve helped inspire one or two and some of them really appreciated the different plants we grow and the range 
Bulbs are in stock at last and we’ve already sold out of some varieties, so don’t leave it too late. We are again doing out pick and mix and have a rangr of tulips daffodils, camassia, crocus, iris, hyacinths and so much more 
More exciting news – David has finished constructing tunnel 3 and it is ready to get its polythene cover on. We have already filled it, because we need the space to start tunnel 4, so needs must but we can cover it even if its full. The aim is to have the last two tunnels finished and filled before we close for winter so all our plants that need to be under cover are snug for winter. This like everything else in the nursery only happens because we have a great team, team work really does achieve the dream lol. Exciting! 
Isabel and Shannon cleaned out the wildlife pond on Friday. This was badly needing done, generally it gets left along but after 6 years it was in need of thinning out. Plants were cut back and put back in and the rest were potted up for selling next year. It already looks so much better 
I have been replanting plants which have died and those that we don’t have planted yet, though it is getting tricky to find spaces believe it or not. Plants that have failed will get tried somewhere else, our wet soil is usually the problem so it can be tricky to find the right home for some plants
We are open Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm, trees and water plants still have 20% off, bulbs are available and our usual range of fabulous grasses, perennials, shrubs and climbers 
See you soon 
Over the years we’ve been involved in growing plants for Borders Forest trust for their projects in the
wild heartland of the Scottish borders. Their projects take in the rugged landscapes of Carrifran Wildwood, Talla & Gameshope and Corehead and the Devil's Beef Tub where since 1996 they have been restoring native woodland and plants to these areas. Now all these years later in Carrifran we can see the natural landscape beginning to re-establish. We have been involved in growing Bearberry,
Salix, Juniper and Ajuga pyramidalis for BFT and its been a fantastic project to be involved in and taught us a lot too at Quercus.
Anyhoo, today, as it was a gorgeous autumn day we thought we’d drive down to Carrafran to have a walk up the valley and enjoy this amazing project. A great walk for us and Maisie, enjoying the Moffat hills at their finest and the establishing woodlands and all the native flowers and plants. A joy to see.
Afterwards we headed to Moffat which we always drive through but never stop as we are always on the way somewhere. A lovely lunch and a wander around the shops, found an antiques emporium I never knew was there, yes I did add to my Pelham puppet collection, bough some gifts for friends and David found a book shop. A drive back up through Tweedsmuir, a lovely local day out, love autumn.
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| walking into Carrifran |
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| Hawthorn |
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| Cladonia |
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| Viburnum opulus, Guelder Rose |
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| Maisie, Carrifran |
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| Where's my lunch? |
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| Lots of puppets |
Its definitely porridge season
Getting the last wee jobs done on the front of the house and its now complete. New roof, painted walls, new guttering, sillls and wood panel painted blue, the what felt like hundreds of redundant wires removed, new extractor fan cover fitted............. so much better and of course the gardens
probably our last lunch for this year out in the garden
#rural #countrylife #countryliving #cottagelife #antiquecottagescenes #interiors #scottishborders #independantretailer #smallbusiness #localbusiness #independantplantnursery #uniqueplantnursery #hardyscottishplants #scottishgarden #gardeningontheedge #scottishborders #lifestyleblog #gardenblog If you to see what's new and looking good at the nursery like our Facebook Find out more about the nursery here - our web site: www.quercusgardenplants.co.uk |
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