A little retail therapy

It was time for my annual trip to Norfolk to visit Keith and Melissa and their wonderful garden and to do a bit of plant shopping.  This is always one of the highlights of the year, a lovely garden to look around and visiting a few cactus and independent nurseries. This year more than ever I needed some plant therapy to get to my mind off not being able to get in the garden.

I'll come back to Melissa's garden in another post. Over the weekend we visited the largest cactus mart of the year, Hyde Hall (one of the RHS gardens) and a couple of local nurseries. First up was the cactus mart and most people agreed that the setting was far from ideal. Everyone tends to tun up ready for opening, the hall wasn't large and so it was a bit of a scrum as everyone tried to get the choice pants.

It was much more enjoyable once the rush had died down and there was space to take you time and enjoy each stand.  Many of the sellers had brought multiples of plants, so kept re-filling the empty spaces, and it was worth returning to each stand to see what had been placed out since your last look.

I was quite restrained and didn't buy everything I liked the look of.  Most of plants were small so it was easy to transport them home. Having said "no more white echeverias", I did cave and bought two.  I can never resist when I see them, despite knowing that they are a pain to keep in top condition and need to be inside to keep their colour.

Ask if you want photos of individual plants.

Next up was a trip to Hyde Hall.  It was the wrong day to visit this garden; it is very open and on a windy day was a little blustery.  Most of the garden was not my style, there were a few areas I liked.

In one section a group of flower spikes caught my eye. On close inspection I found they were eremurus robustus, having seen the size of the leaves on mine, I had wondered if the flowers would be a dramatic. They do not disappoint.

The real area of interest was the gravel garden

I haven't visited many RHS gardens, but they seem to have good nurseries.  For some reason their alpine sections have always been well stocked with some choice plants.

It is always good to find a large number of named sempervivum varieties and added a few to my collection, so I will have to revive sempervivum sundays.

That was it for the Saturday, then on Sunday it was time for the local nurseries.  Having visited the local chain, it was off to Urban Jungle . This is one of my favourite nurseries and it gets better every year.  They started, as the name suggests, with a the majority of plants being aimed at exotic garden styles.  With the bad winters they have evolved and now the exotics are mixed in with choice plants from other styles of gardening.

One of the highlights of visiting is seeing the plants in beds, it is a great way to show how good plants are, or how they may be used in the garden, they also have two great green walls.  This is the original one and it continues to do well. The new indoor one is planted with broms

The main greenhouse is lovely to walk around,

You can stop and look at the koi

And if you want to relax you can get a drink and collapse in one of the seating areas.

Liz who runs it, seems good a picking up on trends in both plants and was of gardening. It was great to see a good selection of pines, both dwarf and larger forms.  I will never understand the resistance to these plants, I guess it's fall out from the laylandii hedges that were so popular in the UK until their true size became obvious.  I think they are perfect in gravel beds planted among succulents and the new garden gives me an ideal opportunity to include some.

Then there are the trends in planting, Kokedama seems to increasingly popular.  Liz has them scattered throughout the nursery

Anyone in the UK interested finding out more about Kokedama, UJ are are holding a demonstration on the 1st of June, details can be found here. There is also an edible jungle, but at this time of year it is just being planted and so not worth photographing.

Obviously the true test of a good nursery is if you leave with any purchases,  which I always do.  This time was slightly different as with a whole garden to fill, it was not the usual spikie plants I was after.

The cinodendron hookerianum (chinese lantern tree) was a suggestion for the shade garden.  I have been looking for plants to espalier and someone suggested it may be something different to try.  I also picked up a couple of different arisaemas, again it was great to see several varieties available.

Here is everything, sorry for the elongated line up, my neighbours little girl loves to come over and help when I am in the garden and she decided the plants had to be lined up to display them.

All said, a very successful weekend of shopping, with something for my obsession and a few things ready for when I can get planting in the garden.

Spot the dalmatian

Ok so that one was a bit easy.

I have posted about Keith and Mel's garden before , usually I end up visiting at the end of spring, before the covers are off.  Like this post.

Mel is the remaining bad influence in my plant buying, so visits usually revolve around some shopping trip.  If it's not plants it's dalmations and they have just picked up two new puppies.  Both are deaf, which makes life interesting when they are charging around and you can not shout at them to stop.

I am sure the dogs will make an appearance in the post, so keep your eyes open.

So the sunken garden is finished and even after only a couple of months looks fantastic.

You can literally walk around and want to take a photo of every plant, which of I did, but a few highlights.

Agave ovatifolia, with dalmatian

aloe polyphylla & agave parryi

The cycad corner

Keith does most of the hard landscaping, and Mel then decorates and plants it.  Each section has a different panel.

 There are lots of fun things hidden in the walls when you look closely

 

This is the view from their kitchen door

Mel tends to worry about me left alone in the green houses, so she sets guards to protect them.

 

The boards are to stop the puppies going inside, as they started to show too much interested in some of the plants.

Both the tall cacti were rescued, but seem very happy now.

 I love the low coloured wall.  The light doesn't tend to be bright enough for much colour like this, but it really works here.  If nothing else I will be steeling the idea a similar type of wall in the new garden.  

Anyone who tries growing succulents outside in the UK will loose plants every now and then, but it's always worth keeping solid sections of trunk as you never know what will happen.

Outside again and a tour of the different parts to the garden. The right hand side is a bamboo forest, not a bad place to sit.

This swimming pond was their project a few years back. The hut the other side is made out of a set of electricity poles Keith found got from recycling site.

The fireplace is another of Mels creations.  If you get bored of sitting by the pond, you can move up to the summer house, just visible on the left hand side of this picture.

Continuing around you get to the succulent bank.

Sadly they lost a couple of large yuccas over the last bad winters, the problems of trying to really push what you can grow. It is slowly filling out again and there is always something ready to fill an empty spot.

The bank curves around to run down the side of the house to the newer bits.  It has been so tough weather wise, there are several casualties.

Did you spot the dalmatians?

I mentioned that everywhere you look there are fun bits, a fish on a electricity pole. I love that they have left the warning sign on the pole.

Some of the agaves are getting big now, I've not seen an agave mitis this large in the UK.

No agave likes being in the ground as much as agave montana.  There are quite a few dotted around.

Then into the new bit, which was only finished last year.

Every time I see an agave potatorum it strikes me how good a plant they really are.  Another of the overlooked plants I think.  They are marginal in the UK, getting through in the warmer parts, but do best with rain covers.

This echeveria has formed nice clumps. The colour contrasts really well with the other plants in the bed.

On the way up to the greenhouses the green roof, well sort of green roof, is doing well.

It is funny seeing it at the end of summer, the plants shining are different from those in spring when it was the alpines strutting their stuff.

Finally looking back down the garden.

For the first time, I didn't really need to go in the greenhouses as everything had been moved into the garden. Being the end of summer also meant the more jungle sections of the garden were worth photos.  Going down the other side of the house are two walled gardens. Looking into the first one.

With another bench to relax on.

Then the jungle garden.  it is so lush, the photo doesn't do it justice. There is a jungle hut in there, but you will do well to spot it.

As you can tell, they garden takes a huge amount of work, and everyone helps out.

Don't be fooled though, The second you take your eyes off them, they are off looking for trouble again.

During all the times I have visited I have never seen Keith relaxing during the day.  There is always a new project, so I will end with the rarest photo of all.

I asked if the garden was now finished, and although there may be a short rest, I think Keith has his eye on a fernery. Well I guess not everything can be spiky.