So there I am, sitting the pub, sipping my glass of blackberry and elderflower Pimms (which was very good) and all I can see out of the window are hollyhocks. Once lunch was over I decided I had to have a little explore.
The garden was fully of hollyhocks, there was a lawn for pub tables and some nice lavender edging, but overwhelmingly there were hollyhocks.
There was all sorts of colours and the place was alive with bees.
It was a great find and I really enjoyed my wander around the garden.Then it was time to get to the nursery.
We walked into the garden and had that wow moment,
the garden was fantastic. Beautifully laid out and beautifully maintained.
If you can look above the plants the sky was quite threatening, but thankfully held off through our visit.
There were nice touches everywhere like this wonderful bit of cloud pruning.We had gone to see the nursery though and in particular the echinacea trials which Bob had told us about earlier. He is experimenting with color breeding in echinacea and I was fascinated to see what the plants would look like.
There were rows and rows of echinacea. The colours were wonderful, from white through red to orange and yellow.
The rest of the nursery was also beautifully maintained and laid out, the echinacea are a passion and a sideline, the main nursery sells many other plants.
This is the trial bed where Bob tries the plants in proper growing conditions as what he is looking for is good color and a good garden plant. He also sells off the unwanted specimens, which are still good garden plants, but just not what he is looking for.
So I bought three,
well it was rude not to.
and an Aeonium Zwartkop also jumped into the bag. I have been hankering after one for a while so I was not going to let the opportunity pass.The day also involved a bit of plant swapping on the side.
so I also went home with a couple of trays of penstemons, peony seedlings, an agave plus other wonders. It was a good day.
