Friday 10 February 2012

Golden Moments

Another great week - welcomed more of our Garden Centre wholesale customers to the nursery. Visited others and spent some time at My Garden School experimenting with exciting video developments.  Basically I've had a great time talking plants - rounded off today at Chewton Glen hotel with a lovely group of people talking Feel Good about Gardening - and having a delicious lunch!           Today started snowy - and its been a pretty cold week, but we have seen the sun and some of the plants have added to it.  One of the great delights at this time of year is the crop of Acacia 'Gaulois Astier'. this is a superb variety of the florist's mimosa which flowers freely as a young plant, producing abundant fluffy yellow marzipan-scented flowers.  In the vast cold glasshouse on the nursery the scent hangs on the air; it whispers spring to all that enter.  I've brought one home and put it in the conservatory ready to photograph this weekend - it looks quite amazing against the white snowy backdrop of the garden.
Choisya 'Aztec Gold' our new plant for Chelsea this year looks set to be a real winner. This great plant has Choisya 'Aztec Pearl' in its parentage. Launched 30 years ago this has proved to be an outstanding garden plant with great flower power and wonderful foliage.  The same can be said of 'Aztec Gold'  What i like about this plant is its light, airy habit and the fact that it is rich gold at the ends of the branches and green in the heart of the plant.  This quality makes it a better mixer than the rather solid 'Sundance'.   Now you may wonder what I've done towards  the Chelsea exhibit this week.  Well, I had a find! At a trade show I came across some rather splendid arches clad in Hedera 'Sulphur Heart'. Usually these ivy arches are rather thin and underclothed - but these are rather splendid and I bought 5 of them.  Hopefully by now they are back on the nursery ready for rick to work his magic.  I'm hoping with a bit of TLC they will make a golden arbour that I can run a river of Choisya 'Aztec Gold' beneath - I see it fading out into plain green leaves - a shaft of sunlight through the undergrowth.
Also think I'm making headway on my fencer silhouettes - did I tell you about that? Maybe next time... 

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