The winter in Devon was so mild this year that two large Ensete Murelli survived in their garden without any protection! If only we had winters as mild as that in our garden!
We then spent the rest of the day touring some of the local nurseries near to Exeter, first up was Urban and Rural, which is a specialist nursery stocking various exotic and also large specimen plants.
So much to choose from, but on only the first day of our holiday we had to be restrained,
especially as most of the plants are quite large!
General view in the main polytunel
Left to Right: Mark, Gaz, Laura, Lucien and Sam Rankin of Urban and Rural
After Urban and Rural, we then headed down to Trago Mills, which is a large shopping village, with a huge garden centre, first stop was lunch! Trago has a huge garden section, and some great prices, sadly this is not a national chain, but worth popping into when in the area. We have always been pleasantly surprised by the plants at Trago, often some unusual ones and generally pretty good prices too.
Trago Mills, garden center.
So much to choose from, a huge selection of perennials.
The final place to visit was Hill House Nursery, a delightful nursery with a wide selection of interesting and unusual plants. Laura was rather taken by the wide selection of Dicentras, but was unable to persuade us to take another one home (she did persuade us at Trago!). Sometimes when plant shopping in a group you can end up persuaded into buying more than you planned!
The stunning setting of Hill House
Decisions, decisions... We opted for plants then tea...
They also had a selection of succulents for sale
Brugmansia in bloom in the main glasshouse
Then to follow it all off we had Devon cream teas in the nursery garden. Plants and cake in the sunshine, what a perfect way to spend the day!
Mark had a habit of taking unflattering photos, this time I was the victim!
A great start to our holiday, after leaving Hill House we headed down to Cornwall for a week and we will share our adventures there in future posts :)Gaz
