Welcome to our autumn newsletter, as we near the end of our plant mail order season – for those of you who don’t realise we stop posting plants for the winter from November until March, but this doesn’t mean we get to sit back and have a break, no our focus then transfers to our Flowers by Post service as things kick up a gear in our cut flower department with the onset of Christmas and all hands are needed to ensure the thousands of orders get posted in time for the festive season, more about that in the next blog.
This autumn with the help of the really mild temperatures, has been a good one for us growers, we have had a bumper harvest of cuttings with many plants refusing to slow down just because the autumn colours are showing on the trees! though the constant threat of “we’re to have one of the coldest winters on record” does send shivers through us as to the potential problems that might cause and making sure we’re well stocked on oil for the greenhouse heaters!
So now we start catching up on all those jobs we were meant to do but have either put off or just been too busy, our first task is to mend one of the pinks stock benches that decided to collapse over the summer.
Thankfully it collapsed flat so nothing was lost or damaged else it would have been much more of a disaster, but it is still going to take some man power to move all those plants before we can re-build the bench!!
Then we start seriously propagating for the Spring, our Spring plant catalogue is due out in February, but the wheels are set in motion for which varieties to list and for anything new or unusual to be added. This autumn we added a whole range of new Regals that were bred by Nicola Stemp, read our earlier blog about them here and they have been well received and we look set to include them again in the Spring brochure.
After the scorching hot summer, which despite being a holiday makers delight, did cause us many untold problems, most particular with our Fuchsia’s these leafy plants did not like the extreme temperatures or the hot sun, but despite all the problems we went through this summer, we are aiming to have a range of these available again in the Spring.
We often get asked if we are open to the public, unfortunately our nursery is mail order only these days, but that is not to say you cannot arrange to come and collect your plants directly from us – you just won’t be allowed to wander around our greenhouse! However our nursery is also now home to another plant nursery ‘Garden Sage‘ this family firm specialises in trees and shrubs and anything else plant related and caters to gardeners and landscapers, they also have a good selection of our plants in stock too. Or if you are in the area you must try the new coffee shop on our site ‘Sussex Mother‘ who do rather excellent cakes!! (Seems some of us are going to need to go on a diet soon!)
In other news, those of you who ring the office will no longer be able to speak to Monique for awhile as we are really proud to report that she has had her baby!! Born rather early at just 29 weeks, Bradley came eagerly into the world on Thursday 11th October at 20:01pm weighing in at a whopping 1.152kgs. (That’s just 2.5lbs to us who still think that way) All are doing really well and we are really missing Monique’s company in the office, but Bradley is adorable and we wish them HUGE congratulations!!!
Emma has also been out of action for the last few days after having had hand surgery to correct an ongoing problem with her finger after she broke it in 2016 (read the blog November News (2016) ) no pun intended, but fingers crossed she will be back in the office soon and sorting everything out. In the meantime if you phone you will most likely speak with our new office lady Kay, and we warmly welcome her to the fold.
So that about covers it for now of what’s going on, I am sure there is much we haven’t mentioned but that will have to wait until next time.
Thanks for reading and happy growing
David.
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