Nursery news

Here at Caths Garden Plants it has been extremely hectic over the last few weeks.  This year we have attended an two extra shows, one at Malvern earlier and Hampton Court last week.  We were thrilled that not only was Bob featured on TV from Hampton Court interviewed by Chris Beardshaw but our exhibit was also awarded an RHS Gold Medal.  Bob and Stuart arrived back on Monday afternoon and we are now getting plants ready to take to Tatton Park Flower Show next week.  We have literally a five day turn around period! Labelling and cleaning up plants is going on apace ready for the plants to be loaded onto the Danish trolleys and taken down to Tatton on Sunday.  At this time of year our plants are so tall that we can only usually get two shelves full of plants onto each trolley so transporting our plants compared to others such as alpines, cacti or hostas for instance requires more journeys.

At least now that it has rained it has helped as we only have to think about inside watering but with the strong wind and rain last night we are worried about the flowers being damaged making plants either unsaleable or unexhibitable as the judges always judge herbaceous perennial displays very harshly considering how many plants we use on the display.  Achilleas, Leucanthemums, Crocosmias, Agapanthus are all starting to flower and Geraniums, the stalwarts or most gardens, are still flowering away especially blue-flowered Geranium 'Rozanne' previously 'Jolly Bee' and its newly introduced sister with pink flowers and the same long flowering habit Geranium 'Rosetta'.

Birdlife at the nursery has been flourishing this year.  We have observed not just one but two pairs of bullfinches at the feeding table.  Wrens, tits, swallows and blackbirds have all had young and some are having second batches.  Sadly our friendly robin is with us no longer but interestingly a Blackbird has taken over coming into the potting shed.  Although there are some butterflies around I am worried that there are not the numbers that we usually have.  One upside of all the dry weather has been that there have not been as many slugs around but they are now more in evidence as the wetter weather has arrived.  We have had more plants suffering from mildew this year and are trying some organic methods to see if they work.  One of our customers, PM, very kindly brought us some Garlic mixture that gardeners used to use in the past.  Unfortunately we are having to guess the dilution rate so I will keep you informed if it works.

If anyone reading this blog is attending Tatton Flower Show then please say hello to either Bob or myself as we would welcome your comments on the website.  We are in the Floral Marquee stand 28.  Bye for now.