Seedlings

seedlings, originally uploaded by peganum.

Some pots of seedlings to whet the appetite for next year, or the year after that, depending. Seed raising is one of the most satisfying parts of running the nursery. I love it.
I tend to sow most fully hardy species as soon as the seed is shed, both in case they need some summer ripening/winter chill regime to break dormancy and also to get them in as fresh as possible. A lot of my species are a bit obscure to say the least, so information on germination can be hard to come by, so I just get them in as soon as they're ready - as of course happens in nature. Unfortunately this doesn't always work.
I've had to invest in a treatment for Pythium (damping off) for the first time this year, possibly because of the mild damp autumn. Some Penstemon and Asclepias suffered particularly badly when they germinated in October. I think in previous years I've sown these summer rainfall species in mid-winter (when the seed merchant delivered them) so in these cases a winter/spring sowing might be best.
The treatment, by the way, is called Prestop and is itself a fungus (it comes as a yeast-like powder) that colonises the compost, out-competing the Pythium. Seedlings are still emerging and don't appear to be failing now, so fingers crossed. Anyway we'll see how it goes. It's nice not to be using poisons anyway.

Over Wintering

One might expect this to be the quiet season on a nursery but the mild weather (the mildest on record apparently) means that things are still growing and I've taken the executive decision of continuing to pot things on here and there. Autumn can be a time of prodigious root development in many species in a normal year so it's not as mad as it sounds. They've usually stopped by mid November though so this year is undoubtedly odd. I already have all sorts of seedlings up that I normally wouldn't expect to see until spring and I'll have to keep them cool and well-ventilated through the dark months if they're to survive.
Anything remotely tender of course should be left well alone now. It's important not to damage the roots in case they rot, or prune the tops too much in case they try to make new growth. The damp mild weather produces a lot of moulds and aphids so it's touch and go.
Plants from Mediterranean climates (Chile, California, western South Africa) are the exception. It's worth knowing which ones these are because Autumn to Spring (being mild and damp) is their main growing season in the wild so it's a good time to think about potting them on, or even pricking out seedlings. I have some pots of Chilean Lobelia excelsa and polyphylla seedlings which look very eager to get on with life. I'm not sure they'll look so happy if I wait until March but moving them now might be worse. It's a learning curve, as they say.

The other thing of course is getting the nursery itself set up to receive customers in the Spring. At the moment, apart from the polytunnel and the shed, it's something of a blank slate. At some point soon I'll be buying in a lot of timber to make display beds, and there'll be a shade house and an area with a pond liner for wetland plants. At the moment it's just a basketball pitch sized area covered in Mypex. I'm hoping for some inspiration for the design - something eye-catching but practical.
For now though I'm working on the shed, for which I've been making window frames - something the like of which I've never attempted before. Getting the corners square and strong has been something of a challenge, given that the shed itself isn't exactly square, but they do actually have glass in them now. I'm not planning on becoming a carpenter any time soon but it's been very satisfying.
Next I need to get some gates for the entrance, and a properly installed electricity supply (not just an extension lead strung across). Insurance too - that's a big one.

This is also the time of year for checking out the new catalogues. I shan't reveal my sources of course but going through the lists of the various seed merchants is always exciting and I always end up with longer wish-lists than I can possibly pay for or find space for (assuming they come up). Each year I buy in a few stock plants of things that are particularly uncommon from other UK nurseries but this is my first year importing plants from abroad, in this case from Japan. It's not cheap, what with all the official hoops they have to jump through (quite rightly) getting the certification, and a bit of a gamble, but if seed is not available it's the only way to get hold of some particularly special things. I shan't say any more for now but I must say I'm very excited about the package that should arrive in the post sometime in the next week or two.

I've been putting together my listing for the new Plantfinder. I've just checked and am very pleased to discover that I have no less than 186 new items to add to the existing 102, all but eleven available at less than twenty other nurseries (often a lot less) and nineteen previously unlisted in the Plantfinder. Many of these are still in 3in pots so I'd better stop faffing about and get on, hadn't I.

Happy Potlings!

Happy potlings, originally uploaded by peganum.

Being somewhat new to this business, the novelty of having a greenhouse full of babies hasn't worn-off yet. It's extremely exciting.
Until last year I'd only raised a few items here and there for fun or if I needed something specific for a garden. I'd done some courses (one especially good one at Armidale tech, NSW) and paid close attention to what other nurseries did. I raised my plants as well as I could (and often ended up with a lot more than I knew what to do with) but I never really had to develop what you might call a production system before. It's what's known as a steep learning curve.

I'm obviously reluctant to give away trade secrets - a customer asked me recently where I got my seeds from and I said something vague about the internet, but the fact is that the internet has been absolutely indispensible, both for hunting out likely looking species that are not easily available over here in the UK, and for finding people to sell me the seeds. In the process I've also made a few friends.

So, what have I learned in the last twelve months?
Vigilance - that's one thing. Neighbours might have a spotted me in slippers, PJs and fleece, with a torch, prowling about out here, periodically dropping something on the path and squishing it into oblivion. I make no excuse for this. For whatever reason the local pest control team (hedgehogs, slow worms, toads) are not doing their job and I have to step in and thin the slimy hoard. It's become a nightly ritual although the period spent at said ritual has decreased lately as the new shoots firm up and the slugs amuse themselves elsewhere.

 Making more space is the other thing. Not for nothing is this blog called Far Too Many Plants. I've no idea where I'm going to put it all. The original idea with the 12 x 8 greenhouse my wife very kindly bought me a few years back was to keep half with benches for growing my weird and rare plants, and half with borders filled with compost for growing tomatoes and basil and such like. That was before I decided to try to run a nursery. As a consequence, all last winter my newly potted cuttings sat in blue mushroom crates on top of the compost - horribly vulnerable and intolerably risky with freshly pricked seedlings. I just couldn't see the slugs coming at all. So this last couple of weeks I've been out with the timber and the hammer and the expletives, building new benches. It all looks very neat but I still don't know where I'm going to put everything...

What else? More sand in the compost (at least for young plants and dry climate plants) keeps it more open and drained for longer, and to try not to prick out more than one seedling per pot. This I have trouble with. I'm too soft. I hate throwing seedlings out when they've gone to all that trouble coming up for me and I've tended to put two or three in each pot (as insurance, in case one dies, ha ha.) You can do this with some species. The seedlings either coexist or there's a certain amount of 'self-thinning' as I believe the foresters call it, meaning that the weaker seedlings get out-competed by the stronger and disappear. In the worst case scenario though, all survive but none thrive. Stanleya pinnata and Penstemon palmeri I think suffered this way last year.

Another punishing winter took it's toll but much less so than last year. The greenhouse was minimally heated and fleeced (see article) so it didn't drop below -5C but limited space meant some relatively young plants had to sit outside. I chose only those that I believed to be fully hardy but, like I say, it's a steep learning curve. Plants aren't necessarily killed by the cold per se, but, if they're sick or weak for some reason (or too small), winter is when this'll catch up with them. All the Hibiscus made it through by the way, in their pots, out in all weathers, as did Senna hebecarpa - my most experimental new items. All the Desmodium and Asclepias, Colquhounia and Caryopteris divaricata made it. Those that didn't make it include Nepeta govaniana, Spigelia marilandica and Atropa belladonna. All sizable plants, and I'd have thought, pretty hardy. Strange.

Anyway, there's lots of exciting new things coming along.
As soon as they're ready you will, of course, be the first to know.

Happy Spring to all our customers.