Monday 3 July 2017

Hairy Exposè

Morning all,
Still lots in flower so not much room for waffle again this week.
Nice little spread in the local paper this week featuring the presentation of our Winchester Business Excellence Award for green stuff, might get in next week too with the Green Impact awards yet to hit the headlines. Bit disappointed no one has requested an autograph yet, but maybe I will need to get off the nursery to give them a chance. Fat chance this weekend, another long list of orders to prepare and jobs to get done, mind you it all helps reduce the overdraft a bit, so I won’t complain. Still haven’t managed to replace the favourite work trousers yet, just can’t find the time to get out there. The old ones have finally bitten the dust, a couple of hole enhancing accidents made them even more indecent and they had to go. Getting by on the ones with the failing elastic for the moment. I will need to be careful and keep an eye on their performance or my next exposé in the press might make the front pages for all the wrong reasons.
Started potting some of next Spring’s crops this week, where did that come from? Still at least the St Ives holiday is now booked. Looking forward to November already, it might have quietened down by then.

Availability highlights
Echinacea Prairie Compact are looking great, plenty of bud and colour on strong stems, selling well, The exotic Eucomis are starting to show their pretty columns of pale yellow flowers. Verbascums are coming up to bud. Pink Kisses is a compact variety with lovely pink flowers, and they are in bud now. We have some lovely batches of increasingly popular Erigeron karvinskianus Stallone in bud with the flowers opening. Masses of bud coming on the two deep pink flowered Lythrums. We have fresh batches of the Gaillardia Messa series, the first buds are showing on short chunky plants.  Buds and flowers are appearing on the very popular Sage Hot Lips. Don’t forget that this variety does produce pure red and pure white flowers on occasions but the ‘proper’ red and white lippy ones will prevail throughout most of the summer. The flower spikes of Liatris are looking great with the odd flash of purple beginning to show. The short Campanula varieties, carpatica White and Blue and posharskyana are all showing bud. The first Crocosmia are showing bud. Lucifer is usually the first to get going and sure enough it’s there again. Rhodanthemum is deservedly proving very popular. Low growing silver foliage with pretty flowers all summer long. The gold leaved Tradescantia Blue and Gold is in bud and flower. A standout plant if ever I saw one.
The ever popular Dianthus in bud or holding up their first flower or two. The scented compact range (Scent First (SF)) are really coming into their own. I have plenty of Passion but you probably don’t want to know that. If you do, it is a new one to us this year, a fabulous rich deep passionate red, very aptly named and beautifully scented too. Fresh batches of Salvia nemerosa in a range of colours are now back on stream with plenty of bud showing. Strong and bushy the hardy Fuchsia range is doing its thing. Exotic Oxalis are both in bud and colour now. The purple foliaged triangularis has delightful contrasting pale pink flowers, while the Iron Cross looks quite different with its greener dark spotted leaves and deep pink/red flowers. Summer has arrived, in case you hadn’t noticed, with bud rushing up in the Hemerocallis varieties.
Nice fresh batches of Veronica are now bushy and in bud. There are fresh batches of Achillea Paprika and the Desert Eve series now in bud again. Plenty of Leucanthemum in bud now. The pale yellows of Banana Creme and Real Dream are proving popular, and the very fluffy double flowers of Sante are spectacular.
Coreopsis Illico, a really compact form with masses of sunshine yellow blooms over a long period. Loads of bud already and the odd flash of colour. Sunray and Sunfire are in bud and back on the list too.
Buds are now appearing on a fantastic fresh batch of Phlox, monster bushy plants in the new Sweet Summer range of colours. Don’t hang about with these we don’t have huge numbers available this year. Several colours sold out already. A fantastic range of foliage sizes and colours in our Hosta range, all showing off well. To see the colours check out the hosta pages in our flip book catalogue.
The compact Eryngium Blue Hobbit is just about to do its thing with flower shoots erupting from the centre of the leaf rosettes. The variegated Eryngium varifolium is showing signs of flowering too. A pretty spiky flower stem, quite dramatic. Dinky Erodium varieties are back again, low growing and flowering for ages. Fresh young stock of Erysimum Red Jep and Bowles Mauve are looking good (in bud).  The Rudbeckia Goldsturm is looking great, very strong bushy plants with the first buds forming now, always a popular plant.
Have a good week from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

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