Latest News and Developments on the Nursery
March 2011
March has been a very busy month with work on the nursery plus plant sales to attend as well as dealing with our ever increasing mail order sales for Rhodohypoxis etc.
We have had a better, smoother surface applied to the pathways around the nursery and you have no idea what a difference it has made. I can now walk around without worrying about twisting an ankle and push trolley loads of plants without the risk of them leaping off in a suicidal attempt. Bliss !
We had an enquiry from a gentleman about purchasing Cyrtanthus bulbs which he had been looking for for some time. We were able to supply him and below is a section of the e-mail he sent after receiving them.
Dear Chris and Lorraine, Thank you for sending the Vallota bulbs, which are in first class condition. We have them potted up and are looking after them like a new born baby! We have been looking for Vallota Speciosa bulbs for some time. We thought we had found one in Holland, but after being told initially that they had some, we had an e mail a few weeks later telling us they had not got any after all !!. We carried on our search and found Tale Valley Nursery. You had Vallota bulbs, our search was over, you could not have been more helpful. The bulbs were soon on their way to us and they arrived in perfect condition, together with planting and growing advice. We are delighted. Thank you Tale Valley Nursery. Best Wishes John and Rosemary.
February 2011
OH, NO ! It's Snowdrop Season !!
On 5th February we visited Colesbourne Park for their Snowdrop Day. It is a lovely setting with well signed woodland paths and large banks of snowdrops consisting of over 200 different varieties plus other plants of winter interest. The quaint Estate
church is also worth a visit and there is a pleasant walk along the edge of the Blue lake; and yes, it really is blue - well, blue-green ! There are many other bulbs in the gardens
to see, one particular one that caught our eye was a selection of Eranthis called 'Lightning'. It is of a softer yellow that the species E. hyemalis.
Sir Henry Elwes, Lady Carolyn Elwes and Dr. John Grimshaw were all on hand to answer any questions if required. All very friendly and approachable.
We were tempted by and bought, four new Galanthus for our collection. We swore a couple of years ago that we would NOT get infected by the Galanthus addiction but there are signs that we are weakening and from what we gather there is no known cure .......at the moment.
.............Drift of snowdrops..............................The 'Blue Lake' ............and Eranthis 'Lightning'
at Colesbourne Park.
Above left - Galanthus 'Magnet' at Colesbourne, middle Galanthus 'Lapwing' and
right Hamamelis x intermedia 'Barmstedt Gold' the last two at Ashwood Nursery .
The following day we attended an illustrated lecture by Rod Leeds on 'Snowdrops' at Ashwood Nursery which we found very enjoyable and informative. Again we acquired a couple more Snowdrops !
John Massey kindly allowed those attending the lecture to look around his private garden which we found very inspiring. It is open on certain days throughout the year to raise money for charity and is well worth a visit. The garden looks like it has been designed to have interest throughout the year and when we were there there was plenty to see as well as Snowdrops including Hamamelis and Viburnums, filling the air with their spicy, slightly exotic scents. The nursery is also worth a visit, all so neat, tidy, clean and well maintained. Very refreshing. As for the tea room........lots of delicious freshly prepared food to choose from.
On the 10th February Chris attended a Snowdrop day at the Garden House, in Devon. Three lectures, a good lunch, Snowdrop sales and a garden walk rounded off the day. Needless to say our collection increased by a further three Snowdrops !! Will it ever stop ??!!
February 12th saw our first plant sale of the year at the Caerleon Alpine Garden Society Show in South Wales. It was a lovely sunny day and well attended.
Our next sale is the Spring Plant Fair at Totnes Civic Centre on 27th February.
Below are a few of the plants we have in flower at the moment brightening up the rain laden days of mid February.
On the left is Gymnospermum albertii, centre Romulea mazenconiana and on the right Gymnospermum
darwasicum.
January 2011
Happy New Year !
Winter started early for us in Devon this year. We don't normally get much very cold weather until after Christmas but this year it caught us by surprise by starting in November with a bang, going down to -5.4C in the polytunnel and much colder outside. Although temperatures were as cold as last year, -18C, we hope that a lot of the plants in the garden will have been better protected by the insulation of snow we had for well over a week - another strange surprise for this part of Devon. The snow cover on top of the polytunnel certainly helped to prevent the temperature from going below -10.4 unlike last year when it plummeted to -12.5C.
We noticed, one morning when we were walking the dogs, that the pink glow that one often sees at dawn and dusk looked particularly beautiful reflecting off the snowy landscape.See below in the picture on the left, although this photograph does not do it justice.This atmospheric phenomenon is apparently known as the Belt of Venus or Venus's Girdle. Often, the glow is separated from the horizon by a dark layer, the Earth's shadows or "dark segment". The light rose -pink colour is due to back scattering of reddened light from the rising or setting Sun. By all accounts a very similar effect can be seen during a total solar eclipse.
After a while the novelty of the snow soon wore off - it is exhausting knocking snow off the top of a shade tunnel to prevent it from collapsing !...............but at least the dogs enjoyed the snow if no-one else did - you can see Alice, below centre, digging in the snow where she heard ( or thought she heard !) something under the snow.
During December Strumaria truncata came into flower (below right) adding a touch of colour to the glasshouse along with Lachenalia bulbifera 'George' , which has been in flower for weeks, the sweetly scented Masonia jasminiflora and Tulbaghia alliacea which flowered for the first time surprising us with a lovely scent.
Looking back on 2010 some of the highlights for us consisted of the following -
Our first attempt at exhibiting non-formal displays at Malvern Spring, Axe Vale
and Wisley (see News and Events, Show Results). This type of display offered different challenges to those previously undertaken and the results of Silver Gilt, Large Gold and Best in Show, respectively, were very pleasing. What is perhaps more rewarding, was the large number of favourable and encouraging comments from the general public. The formal displays we exhibited at Hampton Court Palace Flower Show and Malvern Autumn both received Gold Medals which also gave us a buzz.
The shade tunnel is another highlight of 2010 and is now up and ready for plants to be moved into in the spring. The fact that we erected it ourselves is particularly satisfying and this facility will enable us to increase both our range of the shade loving plants and also release some room in our existing polytunnel for the sun lovers.
Works on the shade tunnel in July (see below). Max helping Chris with covering the tunnel....and then the snow came !!
JULY 2010
At last, another dry spell in April meant that we were able to get a digger on to the nursery site to finish the leveling for the new shade tunnel and future standing-out ground. Gravel was also applied for the tunnel floor and the surfacing of the surrounding paths finished along with tidying up of a retaining bank. See left hand photograph below. The digger driver and his son, Mo and Barry Locke, did a wonderful job - they can be highly recommended.
The Spring Malvern Show
in May, Axe Vale Show in June and Hampton Court Palace Flower Show in July meant that time had to be devoted in preparing for these and the tunnel was put on hold again.
Now the 'Hampton Court ' experience is over we are busy potting our autumn / winter growing bulbs. However, we have also managed to resume work on the shade tunnel and on finishing the end framework have started to put the 'hot-spot' tape onto the metal hoops prior to putting the netting on.
Sales and Shows at RHS Rosemoor, Wisley and the Malvern Autumn Show in September are also in our minds and what with these, all the potting and tunnel work keep us constantly busy.
8th MARCH 2010
We have now had over a week with no rain, plenty of sunshine and wind and the ground is dry enough to get a digger onto the nursery site to fine-tune the levels and surface the area of the new shade tunnel. However, things don't always go according to plan, do they?! We were hoping for the work to start next week (weather permitting - which according to the met. office forecast the chances looked good) but the contractor has just telephoned to say that he is running behind schedule due to the wet / freezing weather earlier in the year and he now can't get to us for at least another three weeks.........ahhhh! .........By then it will probably have rained again and the ground will be too sticky and wet to get the digger on site without causing too much damage to the soil structure....again.
Never mind, no point on dwelling on the problem, at least the snowdrops are looking wonderful and the hellebores too. Other plants are also beginning to poke their little noses above the ground / compost in an effort to cheer us up. Below are a few examples of plants growing in a raised bed in our polytunnel - from left to right - Corydalis schanginii subsp. schanginii which comes from Central Asia mountains. Muscari macrocarpum (with the most wonderful, sweet fragrance) found in eastern Crete, Samos, the Amorgos Isles and southwest Turkistan and last but not least the curious rather than beautiful Mandragora officinarum, originating from N.Italy and W Yugoslavia, commonly known as Mandrake. According to the Harry Potter books, ' whenever unearthed, the root of the Mandrake screams. The scream of a mature Mandrake when it is unearthed will kill any person who hears it, but a young Mandrake's screams will usually only knock a person out for several hours'...... Must remember to do a 'Risk Assessment' before I dig up our mandrake and wear ear-defenders. Better still, I'll get Chris to do it - or maybe just leave it alone !!
JANUARY 2010
Goodness knows what happened to 2009, it just seemed to fly by with no time to update this section of the web site.
However, we have had our instructions from a good friend, Judy, to 'get our act together' ! So here goes.
Work ceased on the erection of the shade tunnel in autumn 2008 due to weather conditions and the heavy clay soil we have. We managed to concrete the 'ground tubes' in on one side just before the rain filled up the holes on the other side. The very cold frosty and snowy weather then arrived in 2008 / 2009 and put a stop to further progress during the winter months.
However, before the very bad weather stopped us completely we managed to erect a water storage tank in late 2008 ready to hold the water from the bore hole we had drilled in early spring 2009.
The spring of 2009 arrived and general nursery work consisting of potting, propagation, irrigation etc. was given priority over the shade tunnel, so things went on hold until the autumn of 2009 when we could start again. This time we managed to finish concreting in the rest of the 'ground tubes' and erect the framework before the snow arrived at the beginning of January. However, it is now the end of January and we have been waiting for the ground to dry out sufficiently to get a digger onto the site to do some leveling before we can do any more work.
A few weeks ago the nursery site looked like this ........................very pretty but difficult to do any ground work.
Even the compost was frozen so no potting could be done either.
At least we had the plants illustrated below, to cheer us up over the autumn and winter months and we hope to be able to start releasing them for sale later this year.
.......Crocus goulimyi 'Mani White'.....................Massonia jasminiflora...................Ornithogalum fimbriatum (Oreanda)
............Asphodelus acaulis.................................Polyxena odorata...............................Massonia depressa..............
DECEMBER 2008
This December 2008 we were fortunate enough to visit the Drakensburg Mountains in South Africa. Some of our experiences and plants we saw are described in the Travel Log below.
FROM WITSIESHOEK TO THE SENTINEL.
After arriving in South Africa we spent a couple of relaxing days before traveling to the Witsieshoek Mountain Resort in the Drakensberg Mountains which was to serve as a base for our trip to the Sentinel Peak and the top of the Amphitheatre plateau above the Royal National Park.
We arrived in the early afternoon and settled in. The Amphitheatre and Sentinel Peak could be clearly seen from our room as there was relatively little cloud about to impede the view. As we found on many days during our visit, the cloud in the Drakensberg area tends to build up later in the day and this is then accompanied by heavy rain and tremendous thunderstorms, which luckily don't last long.
We had a few hours to spare so decided to take a short walk in the valley behind the resort. It was on the short grass area just outside our room that we found our first Rhodohypoxis. This was the mainly white flowered R. baurii var. platypetala which is generally found in dry, short grass areas. Two species of orchid, Disa pulchra and D. stachyoides also grew in this area along with Trifolium burchellianum, several species of Helichrysum and Watsonia lepida ( below centre).
Ledebouria sp. with Rhodohypoxis ...................Watsonia lepida.................................Eulophia foliosa
The walk down the valley soon revealed more species of interest. The large white flowered Anemone fanninii which reaches heights of up to 2 metres grew in large colonies in damp folds in the grassland. Unfortunately the flowers were now past their best. In complete contrast Dipcadii marlothii with its small delicate pale green flowers was well camouflaged where it grew in the grass areas adjacent to the path. We find species in this genus delightful to grow and some will appear in our future catalogues.
The leaves of a Eucomis were evident but unfortunately it seemed we were too early to see this in flower. There were also numerous Scilla which grew on the damp banks that adjoined the footpath. Throughout our trip we saw several Scilla but found their identification difficult as they didn’t seem to key out with our references. This one was possibly Scilla dracomontanum. The orchid Eulophia foliosa (above right) grows on the grass slopes here at an altitude of about 2200 metres which is near the top of its range. The dull pale green flowers hang gracefully down and are honey-scented.
A small waterfall proved to be the perfect habitat for Moraea huttonii this tall bright yellow flowering plant related to the Iris, likes moist sites and can be found at altitudes up to 2400 metres.
With time running out and a long day ahead of us tomorrow we decided to return back to the resort by the same route. It is surprising but usually the case, that one always sees different plants when viewing the area from another direction. The first of these was Gladiolus longicollis. This has pale cream flowers speckled with purple which open in the late afternoon and is generally found to be solitary. The Gladiolus are firm favourites of ours and are included in many of our highlights during this visit to the Drakensberg and our previous trip to the Western Cape.
Brunsvigia grandiflora ..................Rhodohypoxis baurii var. confecta .....................Dierama dracomontana
Glancing at the upper slopes we saw a shade of pink not reminiscent of other plants we had seen, so a scramble up the rocks was required. At times like this the thoughts of snakes lying in the grass go to the back of the mind. The effort was well worth it as the plant turned out to be Brunsvigia grandiflora (above left) , this is one of the Tumbleweeds so called as when ripe, the seed-heads become detached and are blown around the countryside until they find a place to rest.
We arrived back at our room to catch up on our notes and later went out to eat. It was during our evening meal that the mist drifted down and the sound of thunderstorms could be heard in the distance. We sat in the lounge to catch a weather forecast and although this was in African it was evident that the weather was on the turn, possibly for the worst.
We woke at 0500 am the following morning to look out onto a cold and misty scene with very poor visibility. It looked as if our hopes of getting onto the escarpment were not to be fulfilled. However during our breakfast at 0700 am there were signs that the cloud was lifting and we decided that even if the weather was not good enough to go up to the top we would follow the route along its lower path.
We arrived at the Sentinel car-park to be greeted by tens of thousands of Rhodohypoxis baurii var. confecta (above middle) growing on the grass slopes alongside the path. This plant is generally considered to be pink in colour but the plants in this area are of every shade from white to red and also included bi-coloured forms. This sight was our highlight of the trip so far and seeing these plants in the wild fulfilled one of our ambitions.
The Guide books state that the walk from the car-park to the chain ladder should take about one and a half hours, it was soon obvious that this time does not allow for botanising! Although the low cloud impeded the views of the area it did little to spoil our day.
The next plant of note was Dierama dracomontana (above right) commonly known as the Wand Flower or Angels Tears with its deep pink flowers moving in the breeze making taking a good photograph a mere impossibility. More rosettes of Eucomis became evident and in some cases there were signs of the flower spikes beginning to push themselves up. As we continued to walk on their numbers became greater and soon they could be seen in full flower. There was some confusion as to the species but we believed these plants to be Eucomis autumnalis (below right). These plants showed considerable variation in both leaf and flower colour and it was evident that there is still plenty of scope for new forms to be introduced into cultivation. The nodding orange-red flowers of Glumicalyx goseloides could be found in damp sheltered pockets at the base of rocks. Helichrysum were represented by the yellow flowering H. aureum and H. oreophilum and around every corner new plants were to be found. The yellow flowering bulbous Cyrtanthus flanaganii and C. stenanthus were both plants which were relatively new to us and as we got higher the strong growing Moraea alticola (below left) were to be seen, firstly in small numbers but soon in large drifts.
..................Moraea alticola..................................Chain ladder............................Eucomis autumnalis.......................
The path continued to snake its way along the base of the basalt cliffs until eventually we came across the Chain ladder (above middle). We had read about this quick route to the top of the plateau, had seen several pictures and now faced the reality of climbing it. The ladder is about 100 feet long and was erected in 1930 by the Natal Provincial Administration to provide a quick, alternative route to the Buttress Gulley. The weather was still cloudy but we decided to climb the ladder to see what further plants we could find.
The top of the plateau is fairly flat with the exception of the Crow's Nest at 3154m which lies in front of Mont Aux Sources which at 3282 metres is the highest point in this area of the Drakensberg. Standing at the top of the chain ladder we could see the Elands River falls plummeting over the top of the cliffs although the view beyond this was unfortunately impeded by the low cloud which kept swirling around.
We headed towards the top of the Amphitheatre and Tugela Falls to be greeted by the diminutive Rhodohypoxis rubella.This plant was probably top of our list of those we wanted to find on our visit and another dream was now fulfilled. It has been in cultivation in Britain in the past but now seems to have been lost. Here it was to be found growing in small pools and in seasonally flooded silt patches. Although of limited horticultural value due to its small size this plant in its natural habitat will be a memory we shall always hold dear.
The area also contained Geum capense and a Kniphofia sp. which grew alongside streams and two small Moraea, M. alpina and M. modesta and as one climbed the Buttress slopes several cushion forming Helichysum sp. We stood at the top of the Tugela Falls but were unable to look out over the Royal Natal National Park below due to the continued cloud cover so we turned and headed back to Witsieshoek this time via the Butress Gulley well satisfied with the plants we had seen during the day.
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........................The Crow's Nest 3154m.............................................Rhodohypoxis rubella..........................
JULY 2008Having recovered from our tiring but pleasurable experience at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show life continues to whiz along and we are back to work with our noses to the proverbial grindstone. Propagation by division and cutting of some material continues in readiness for next years plant sales. The Habranthus and the Caloscordum neriniflorum are flowering well and setting seed which we will collect and sow next spring. The Eucomis are also looking good and the Acis (syn. Leucojum) autumnalis is coming into flower. The Acis rosea is just poking its dainty nose above the surface of the soil showing great promise of things to come. We are in the process of erecting a shade structure over an area where we will incorporate some stock beds for direct planting of some of our ever increasing range of shade plants and bulbs. We have also arranged for someone to finish leveling the nursery site and have ordered a 30m X 9m shade tunnel which is being delivered on Tuesday 29th July....... another exciting project to look forward to and worry about! ....Life is never dull around here. 16/05/2008: New Website Launched |
We are pleased to announce that we have launched the new Tale Valley Nursery Website. Using this site, you will be able to find out more information about Tale Valley Nursery, read our latest news, view a list of all shows which we will be attending, as well as being able to see our product catalogue - you can also download a printable mail order form. If you wish to make any comments about our new website, please visit our Contact Page and send us a message. We look forward to hearing from you, and hope you enjoy the new Tale Valley Nursery Website. |
Winter 2006 and Spring 2007
Clearing part of the nursery site during the winter of 2006 before the work of leveling could start in preparation for erecting the first polytunnel.
In the spring if 2007, when the ground was dry, leveling was carried out for the polytunnel. At the same time we installed a drainage system to collect the rainwater from the outside of the tunnel and any surplus irrigation water from inside the tunnel. (Alice, our Labrador X (mongrel - but don't tell her I used that 'm' word !) supervised the leveling and drainage operations - someone had to !) This water will then be collected and recycled for irrigation use. A deer and rabbit proof fence was also erected around the area of the tunnel to protect our valuable plants from the appropriate pests - of which we have plenty. In December 2007 we adopted Max, a Collie X, so Alice would have some company. He is going through his 'teenage phase' and 'Mad Max ' seems more appropriate!
Max on arrival cuddling into his soft toys for comfort .............it doesn't take long for him to settle in and start playing 'tuggy' with Alice.
Alice and Max relaxing during a hard days work on the nursery !!
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