Smooth and Hairy

Morning all,
Just a quick one this week, I need to go and dry out after a damp couple of hours out in the fresh air getting the new office completely watertight and secured down. It looks like some windy weather coming up after a damp night and after getting the felt on the roof on Friday I needed to nail over the edges to make sure of no edge leaks or wind damage. There were also 3 more windows to glaze to complete the waterproofing of the building so I can get on tomorrow and finish off the internal trim and get the floor down. All very exciting. Added bonus with a free exfoliation courtesy of stretching the roofing felt around the edges as well as a natural rinse in rainwater. Every cloud etc.
We collected some useful second-hand office furniture on Friday so all set up for some smarter organisation once we get all the other services and facilities installed.
Looks like the coming couple of weeks might be a bit cold, doesn't look too bad, sales can still tick along with a bit of jolly sunshine after inspirational frosts. All of our stock is pretty tough, we keep it under net sided tunnels to keep the foliage quality good, but nothing is heated. We may well be a little ahead of one or two of our more northerly customers which may have a bearing if things do get really cold, but on the whole we do have a nice range of stock showing plenty of potential for the warmer days just round the corner.
Must go, the wood-burner and a cup of tea beckon.

Availability highlights
There are a few vivid purple flowers beginning to show among the super hardy Primula Wanda, there will be loads more as we move towards spring. Our wild primrose (P. vulgaris) are also bursting into flower already. We saved the seed from the wood on top of our hill and it was worth the effort.
We have a few spring flowering bulbs showing signs of good growth and even the odd bud on a few (Crocus Remembrance,and Scilla). Lots more to follow.
We have tried in the past to grow snowdrops (Galanthus) from autumn bulb planting with little joy, so last spring we decided to have a go with some 'in the green' bulbs to establish over the spring and summer, ready for a more natural looking clump to emerge the following spring. It works out as a bit of a long term crop but the clusters appearing now are looking much more as they do in the garden. I suspect they will thicken out more as the weeks pass but then we shorten the season when they are
in bud and flower which would be a shame.
Helleborus orientalis in a variety of colours are now well under way, for that winter interest and early exotic colour. Stonking bushy plants which are mostly from a strain (Crown series) that has a high percentage of first season flowering. I hardly dare mention it, but there are a few plants in bud already. I haven't put them all on the list as being in bud as there aren't that many yet and stocks are beginning to run a bit low anyway.
The winter and spring flowering Cyclamen coum varieties we grow are now showing colour. The strain we grow has an exceptionally long flowering season with colour usually showing from November through to March and even April. They rarely get swamped with masses of flower at any one time, they just keep going on, producing a pretty and dainty show for ages. We still have a few of the hardy autumn flowering Cyclamen (hederifolium) left with attractive evergreen silvered winter foliage. We have a load planted in the garden by a hedge and they make a lovely winter ground covering.
The ever popular Erysimums are looking fresh and strong as we approach the spring. I have marked a few varieties with bud although it will be a little while before they show much colour, but the promise is there. I'm not sure for how long they will continue flowering but we have late potted batches of Armeria maritima (both the pink and the white forms) which are in flower with more bud still coming.
Compact and chunky Leucathemums are evergreen throughout the winter. There are several varieties looking very strong. Foliage starts to be of interest at this time of year and there are some good shows of colour from the Carex Evergold, Ajuga, and Euphorbia.
Have a great week from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Bracingly Hairy

Morning all
A bit wintery out there, but nothing too nasty down here yet. It can be a bit tricky finding enough warmth for everyone on the nursery when it gets too miserable, but given enough layers most of our hardy crew manage to get through. The tunnels are tidying up nicely in preparation for the coming spring sales, many crops only take a week or two to recover from their overwinter chop, producing that lovely flush of tight fresh foliage promising so much from the growing season ahead. The year has so much potential in January!
Progress on the new log cabin office is being made if not quite as quickly as I had hoped. We were held up a bit by a day or two by the weather and by a few design tweaks made along the way. We have added some risers to the foundation joists which keeps all the wood off the floor which should slow up any base rotting. This gave us a chance to slip in an extra layer of insulation under the floor to top up the slightly stingy layer originally supplied. A bit awkward to fit but would be impossible after construction progressed any further and the extra cost should pay back in reduced heating costs and extra cosiness. Floors are now in and the base logs screwed down, next comes the dramatic bit when the walls go up. It will all happen quite quickly (in theory) then come to a visual halt again while all the internal stuff gets fitted. We have had a bit of a windfall on the refit with the offer of some 'free' second-hand office kit from an office that is undergoing a move and refurb. We are reusing most of our old bits but a few extra shelves, cupboards and chairs will be well received. Exciting times.
All the temporary admin arrangements are spread around a hired site container office, the coffee shack and the pump shed, some cosier than others. I'm bracing myself for a few days in the concrete block, un heated, un-insulated and windowless pump shed for some serious wooden label making sessions. I can't afford to wait for the cosy new facilities, orders are going out and labels are in demand. We set it all up last week so no excuses anymore.

Availability highlights
There are a few vivid purple flowers beginning to show among the super hardy Primula Wanda, there will be loads more as we move towards spring. Our wild primrose (P. vulgaris) are also bursting into flower already. We saved the seed from the wood on top of our hill and it was worth the effort.
We have a few spring flowering bulbs showing signs of good growth and even the odd bud on a few (Crocus Remembrance, and Scilla). Lots more to follow.
We have tried in the past to grow snowdrops (Galanthus) from autumn bulb planting with little joy, so last spring we decided to have a go with some 'in the green' bulbs to establish over the spring and summer, ready for a more natural looking clump to emerge the following spring. It works out as a bit of a long term crop but the clusters appearing now are looking much more as they do in the garden although still not as thick as I would have liked. A real pot-full would be great but we are already stretching the budget to plant the numbers we have in each pot. I suspect they will thicken out more as the spring goes on but then we shorten the season when they are in bud and flower which would be a shame. I have put them on the list this week as they are in bud and we will see how they go. I have a few ideas on how we might get thicker clumps in the future so we will certainly invest in another big batch later in the spring. We have a few other lines we tried 'in the green' and I'm looking
forward to see what emerges from those too.
Helleborus orientalis in a variety of colours are now well under way, for that winter interest and early exotic colour. Stonking bushy plants which are mostly from a strain (Crown series) that has a high percentage of first season flowering. I hardly dare mention it, but there are a few plants in bud already. I haven't put them all on the list as being in bud as there aren't that many yet and stocks are beginning to run a bit low anyway.
The winter and spring flowering Cyclamen coum varieties we grow are now showing colour. The strain we grow has an exceptionally long flowering season with colour usually showing from November through to March and even April. They rarely get swamped with masses of flower at any one time, they just keep going on, producing a pretty and dainty show for ages.
We still have a few of the hardy autumn flowering Cyclamen (hederifolium) left with attractive evergreen silvered winter foliage. We have a load planted in the garden by a hedge and they make a lovely winter ground covering.
The ever popular Erysimums are looking fresh and strong as we approach the spring. I have marked a few varieties with bud although it will be a little while before they show much colour, but the promise is there. I'm not sure for how long they will continue flowering but we have late potted batches of Armeria maritima (both the pink and the white forms) which are in flower with more bud still coming. Compact and chunky Leucathemums are evergreen throughout the winter. There are several varieties looking very strong. Foliage starts to be of interest at this time of year and there are some good shows of colour from the Carex Evergold, Ajuga, Lamium and Euphorbia.
Have a great week from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Old Hairy Records

Morning all,
A whole week at work is a bit of a shock, although not everyone quite made the full week with a collection of colds, ailments and jury service making a dent in appearances after the festive break. Hoping for a bigger show next week as PST (pre- season tension) is beginning to build already and I'm getting desperate to cut back more of the earliest crops to get them in perfect condition for those early sales. Spring seems a long way off before Christmas but now it's nearly halfway through January and there is plenty of plant activity, it is suddenly nearly here. If the weather doesn't get too rough we will be fine and that little bit of pressure does give everyone a bit more focus and direction in what can be a difficult time of year to find motivation, especially after recent excitement and excesses.
We did really well and caught up with the pricking out from the microprop lab this week, we have loads of pre-sold crops now growing away and looking really strong, which is a great position to be in. The combination of LED growlights, extra light getting into the tunnel after the 'trimming back' of the hedge and re-jigged heating regime seem to be paying dividends. The heating bill has dropped, although the weather has been favourable too which helps. Greg has a constant battle keeping the rats at bay, as every winter they are attracted to the warmth and potential food in that tunnel, but this year so far the damage is minimal after a successful ongoing control strategy. Looking forward to getting those crops through to a really good grade out, delivered and invoiced in a few weeks time. It's always nervous time on the cash-flow front as we juggle all the ins and outs over the winter and early spring and any early sales are a help.
The new office construction took another big step forwards with the laying of the levelling pad of concrete. It took a long time to prepare for its arrival, getting all the levels right and edges secure enough not to move under the pressure and just half an hour to lay. We got the quantity ordered just right with a tiny excess which we used to fill a hole in the yard and the resulting pad looks great. Hoping to get the under-floor joists joined up and mounted on the foundation pads over the weekend, ready for building upwards next week. Exciting stuff.
This week saw a fab personal rediscovery after we found that you can get bluetooth enabled turntables for playing those old forgotten LP's. About a year ago I tried to revive our old deck, buying a new belt drive and dismantling everything, all to no avail. I also couldn't find a place to site a deck close enough to the current system to be able to wire it in so gave up. Now we have a new deck with no wires in a different room and it's brilliant. Over 200 LP's are now being rediscovered, a few scratches and a lot of dust add their own background story to when we last played these. I'm sure digital will win out overall, but it has been great to hear some classics again. Old fart reliving his youth again, slightly sad but old enough not to care!
Availability highlights
There are a few vivid purple flowers beginning to show among the super hardy Primula Wanda, there will be loads more as we move towards spring. Our wild primrose (P. vulgaris) are also bursting into flower already. We saved the seed from the wood on top of our hill and it was worth the effort.
We have a few spring flowering bulbs showing signs of good growth and even the odd bud on a few (Crocus Remembrance, and Scilla). Lots more to follow.
Helleborus orientalis in a variety of colours are now well under way, for that winter interest and early exotic colour. Stonking bushy plants which are mostly from a strain (Crown series) that has a high percentage of first season flowering. I hardly dare mention it, but there are a few plants in bud already. I haven't put them all on the list as being in bud as there aren't that many yet and stocks are beginning to run a bit low anyway.
The winter and spring flowering Cyclamen coum varieties we grow are now showing colour. The strain we grow has an exceptionally long flowering season with colour usually showing from November through to March and even April. They rarely get swamped with masses of flower at any one time, they just keep going on, producing a pretty and dainty show for ages. We still have a few of the hardy autumn flowering Cyclamen (hederifolium) left with attractive evergreen silvered winter foliage. We have a load planted in the garden by a hedge and they make a lovely winter ground covering.
The ever popular Erysimums are looking fresh and strong as we approach the spring. I have marked a few varieties with bud although it will be a little while before they show much colour, but the promise is there.
I'm not sure for how long they will continue flowering but we have late potted batches of Armeria maritima (both the pink and the white forms) which are in flower with more bud still coming.
Compact and chunky Leucathemums are generally pretty evergreen throughout the winter. There are several varieties looking very strong. Foliage continues to be of interest at this time of year and there are some good shows of colour from the Carex Evergold, Ajuga, Lamium and Euphorbia.
Have a great New Year from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy New Year to all

Morning all,
Happy New Year to everyone. I'm looking forward to a good one despite the potential stormy skies ahead. So many unknowns on the horizon and changes along the way, it should be an exciting year.
We ended 2018 with our own little flourish by managing to move out of the old office and into our temporary metal hut. It wasn't without its challenges, getting the rather complex IT and telephone systems out of the old site and into the new took a lot longer than planned. Having labelled all the cables very thoroughly to ensure a smooth changeover I promptly cut the main phone line by mistake and plunged us on the nursery and in the house into isolation on the phone and internet. I didn't find
this out until the weekend before Christmas when all was reassembled and we had no connection, oops. Luckily a very jolly engineer from BT Openreach got to us on Christmas Eve to connect us back to the outside world. It's only when you lose that link you realise how much you rely on it, especially when our mobile signal is so weak too.
Over the festive holiday we had our usual annual friends and family hockey and games day which was brilliant. A few stiff muscles the next day for quite a few of us, but a fab get together and just what I love over Christmas. There was an added bonus on the day after, when we had a few house guests left over, looking for something to do. The old office got stripped of just about everything, the last bits of furniture, electrics, internal cladding, and windows all came out, just leaving us a thin shell to pull over on Wednesday when we came back to work properly. Now the old site is clear and we should get the foundations levelled for the end of next week if all goes well. Can't wait, the temporary office is already a hit with a degree of warmth never before experience in our admin department (Caroline and I) so the new one, with a bit of extra room and way more insulation, should be a joy.
The young plants in the two propagation tunnels which had been overshadowed by the old Leylandii hedge have already responded to the hedge removal. Growth is noticeably better even at this slow growing time of year so feeling pretty smug about getting that task under our belt. Probably should have done it years ago. Just need to replant with a natural hedge mix now to replace and improve the available wildlife habitat. One great thing about having so much on-site natural cover is that I don't feel too guilty about taking out that hedge, there are plenty of other roosting sites available and the replacement habitat will be much more diverse and manageable.
Looking forward more generally, I'm desperately hoping the increasing interest in all things environmental maintains it's current momentum and doesn't get knocked off course by more short-term headlines. It might be my ever hopeful and naive nature, but I do wonder if the message about looking after our world is beginning to register higher up in more peoples priorities than before. That's my hope for 2019, let's see if we can look after each other and the future generations, rather than worrying about too much self gratification at other peoples expense. I reckon doing that in itself can provide a deeper fulfillment and reward anyway, but that's just me talking my way out of the consumer led society that buys our plants!

Availability highlights
Helleborus orientalis in a variety of colours are now well under way, for that winter interest and early exotic colour. Stonking bushy plants which are mostly from a strain (Crown series) that has a high percentage of first season flowering. I hardly dare mention it, but there are a few odd plants in bud already. I haven't put them on the list as being in bud as there aren't that many yet but given a few nice days they will be up and running.
The winter and spring flowering Cyclamen coum varieties we grow are now showing colour. The strain we grow has an exceptionally long flowering season with colour usually showing from November through to March and even April. They rarely get swamped with masses of flower at any one time, they just keep going on, producing a pretty and dainty show for ages. We still have a few of the hardy autumn flowering Cyclamen (hederifolium) left with attractive evergreen winter foliage. We have a load planted in the garden by a hedge and they make a lovely winter ground covering.
There are a few purple flowers beginning to show among the Primula Wanda, there will be loads more next spring. I'm not sure for how long they will continue flowering but we have late potted batches of Armeria maritima (both the pink and the white forms) which are in flower with more bud still coming. Compact and chunky Leucathemums are generally pretty evergreen throughout the winter. There are several varieties looking very strong.
Foliage remains of interest at this time of year and there are some good shows of colour from the Carex Evergold, Ajuga, Lamium and Euphorbia.

Have a great New Year from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy Lumberjacks

Morning all,
What a difference a week makes. The farm chainsaw gang, fresh from their weeks tree felling training, came up on Tuesday to make a start on cutting down our rather sad Leylandii hedge. It has been tidied up on several occasions over the years but ended up brown on the sides and overhanging our prop tunnels at some height. It was initially a daunting task and approached with some trepidation. Once started there would be no turning back and the felling of each plant needed to be pretty precise to fall on the track between the prop tunnel, which is full of young plants and heated, and the donkey paddock fence. For a change things actually went better than expected and we should have only one more day to go before the whole lot will be down and cleared away. We just had the one exciting close call, with one tree falling rather adjacent to the tunnel and brushing the cover a bit firmly, but it held out, so sighs of relief all round. The difference it has already made to the two closest prop tunnels is astonishing, we used to have to put on supplementary lighting in one for the winter mornings, when it would take until gone 12.00 before the sun shifted the dense shadow and now we can reduce that input. Next job will be to order the replacement mixed natural hedging we are planting in its place. Hopefully we can keep better control of this one and being mainly deciduous it will still let plenty of light though in the winter. Mondays forecast looks promising and the heroic farm team are due back then, so this will be a great job to get completed before the break.
It might make up for the disappointing progress on the nursery office rebuild. I have been really struggling to leave the old one, it just seems such an upheaval, all that history, all those wires connecting me to the rest of the nursery/world and all that accumulated stuff on the shelves, however I am feeling inspired by last week's hedge transformation and the thought of seeing this tired, freezing cold, old wreck of a portacabin gone, is suddenly quite exciting. Greg had a good go on Friday and removed a load of equipment, stores and dismantled a big shelving unit and worktop so it now looks like something might happen. Looking forward now to reassembling it all in the new version. Scary stuff.
If you can see past the current Brexit chaos, it's great to see there seems a bit more urgency coming into the latest world climate change talks. Hopefully some meaningful actions will come together that are more than token gestures. I know not everyone is joining in, but that is no excuse not to do your best. Don't forget we can all help as individuals to do our bit, we can't leave it all up to the big boys to sort it out for us, let's rejoice in taking some responsibility for ourselves.
Christmas is nearly here so I'd better wish you 'all the best' for the festive period just in case you have already gone away by next week's update, or if I've decided started early on the celebrations and don't make it in that weekend. We are in a run of three 60th birthday parties over three weeks with the last one being a big barn dance next weekend. The timing is just a fluke coincidence really, it's something to do with the much older circle of friends we mix with and definitely nothing to do with my advancing years!

Availability highlights
Helleborus orientalis in a variety of colours are now well under way, for that winter interest and early exotic colour. Stonking bushy plants which are mostly from a strain (Crown series) that has a high percentage of first season flowering. I hardly dare mention it, but there are a few odd plants threatening to flower already. I haven't put them on the list as being in bud as there aren't that many yet. The winter and spring flowering Cyclamen coum varieties we grow are now showing colour. The strain we grow has an exceptionally long flowering season with colour usually showing from November through to March and even April. They rarely get swamped with masses of flower at any one time, they just keep going on, producing a pretty and dainty show for ages.
We still have a few of the hardy autumn flowering Cyclamen (hederifolium) left with attractive evergreen winter foliage. We have a load planted in the garden by a hedge and they make a lovely winter ground covering. There are a few purple flowers beginning to show among the Primula Wanda, there will be loads more next spring.
I'm not sure for how long they will continue flowering but we have late potted batches of Armeria maritima (both the pink and the white forms) which are in flower with more bud still coming.
Compact and chunky Leucathemums are generally pretty evergreen throughout the winter. There are several varieties looking very strong.
The massively popular Erigeron karvinskianus Stallone is still sprouting a few flower buds. If the weather is not too harsh we have had these still flowering at Christmas before now and they could well do that again this year. Foliage starts to be of interest at this time of year and there are some good shows of colour from the Carex Evergold, Ajuga,Lamium and Euphorbia.

Have a great Christmas from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Seeing the hairy light

Morning all,
Apologies for the break in communications, I bet you'd not noticed I'd gone. We took a long break in sunny St Ives and it has taken a little while to get back on top of things. Now I feel like I need another holiday. Only another 11 months to go and we can go again, can't wait. We just rent a house above one of the beaches and have a few friends to stay, just perfect. We had a huge number of fabulous meals from simple grilled mackerel and chips to full blown mega fancy stuff, now I'm on a
starvation diet in preparation for the upcoming Christmas excesses. Lucky the current trend in waistbands is elasticated, or is that just the shops I go to?
I popped into the Winchester Guildhall a couple of weeks ago to pick up our Green Impact Gold award from the Mayor. Group picture in the Hampshire Chronicle, so now getting plenty of recognition in the streets and autographs needing to be signed. Very pleased with the award, it's great for the business to get recognition for all our sustainability efforts, but we are also ever hopeful that others are seeing what we are up to and think perhaps they could do more too. It's a great scheme, we particularly like the little nudges it gives us to change things in areas perhaps we hadn't look at before.
So much to fit in before Christmas and so little time. The new online catalogue will be out very soon, I just need to get the last few images and updates in there and I can publish it. We are going to splash out on a mobile/tablet version for 2019 as I know there are a few of you out there who have asked for this. Not quite sure how it will work but hopefully it will be useful.
This is the time of year when we try and have a think about what other improvements we can make to the nursery. The biggest new thing will be the non-plastic coloured pot labels we are introducing early next year, but there are plenty of other bits to play with and inevitably spend money on. The rain this week highlighted the next few tunnels that need drains installing and this is now already underway with a couple of new trenches dug and the pipe-work arriving today, The old office is getting leakier with each passing storm so the pressure is on to get on with demolishing it and erecting the new super insulated log cabin, the list goes on.
We saw some of our aging HPS propagation lights go out this week, so replacing those with LEDs has moved up the agenda after spending a fortune on electricians unsuccessfully trying to identify and rectify the fault. The lighting issue also highlighted our vulnerability to potential losses if the heating went off too. We have more micropropagated module stock in there than ever before and it is growing away really well, but if we got caught out on a cold night with a tripped out power supply in that
tunnel, the heating would go off and we wouldn't know. So it was onto the internet to find a plug-in power cut sensor (with a backup battery and sim card), which will phone your mobile to let you know when the power goes out and also when it comes back on again. Then we lashed out on a new generator battery and trickle charger to make sure that whatever time of night the power is lost it is easy to get the backup system going. Now I can sleep easy.
Just the leylandii hedge to remove and replace, the catalogue to finish, labels to print and a few orders to do. Plenty of time, it's ages until Christmas.

Availability highlights
Helleborus orientalis in a variety of colours are now well under way, for that winter interest and early exotic colour. Stonking bushy plants which are mostly from a strain (Crown series) that has a high percentage of first season flowering. I hardly dare mention it, but there are a few odd plants threatening to flower already. I haven't put them on the list as being in bud as there aren't that many yet.
The winter and spring flowering Cyclamen coum varieties we grow are now showing colour. The strain we grow has an exceptionally long flowering season with colour usually showing from November through to March and even April. They rarely get swamped with masses of flower at any one time, they just keep going on, producing a pretty and dainty show for ages. We still have a few of the hardy autumn flowering Cyclamen (hederifolium) left with attractive evergreen winter foliage. We have a load planted in the garden by a hedge and they make a lovely winter ground covering.
There are a few purple flowers beginning to show among the Primula Wanda, there will be loads more next spring.
I'm not sure for how long they will continue flowering but we have late potted batches of Armeria maritima (both the pink and the white forms) which are in flower with more bud still coming.
Compact and chunky Leucathemums are generally pretty evergreen throughout the winter. There are several varieties looking very strong.
The massively popular Erigeron karvinskianus Stallone is still sprouting a few flower buds. If the weather is not too harsh we have had these still flowering at Christmas before now and they could well do that again this year. Foliage starts to be of interest at this time of year and there are some good shows of colour from the Carex Evergold, Ajuga, Lamium and Euphorbia.
Have a good week from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Damp and Hairy again

Morning all,
Feeling the chill a bit now. We've had a few frosts over the last week or so and it's made quite a difference to the overall feel of the season. I know I'm a bit early on sending this list out but it now feels about right for a bracing British seaside holiday and that is what is about to happen as we slip away for a few days R & R with a few friends. House and nursery all set up with sitters and plenty of cover should anyone need an emergency order or two so I'm sure you won't miss me.
The build up to a few days off makes you feel even more like you need a break, and as happens every year something always breaks down just as you are getting set to go. It usually revolves around some sort of plumbing issue so adds that extra frisson of damp messiness to go with it. This time it was the downstairs loo which refused to flush properly. After initial investigation and some fiddling about with the ball-cock to increase the water level a bit, I discovered a stripped thread on the adjuster so left it bodged and still not flushing. Someone, who will remain nameless, then had a look at it and managed to break the whole thing off, so it was off to the shops for new bits all round. Bought a new main siphon and ball-cock both of which claimed to be a 15 minute fix, 5 hours later we had a working loo with only a small drip (not me). Another two days saw the drip eventually sealed to the relief of all involved. Now we can relax.
Anyway back to real life of sorts, on the nursery. I have been putting together a few plant orders for next season, looking for a few new lines to add onto our lists, hopefully boosting everyone's sales even further. I will put the finishing touches to the new catalogue on my return so you should get an idea of the new offerings then. There will also be a bit more info in there about the new non-plastic waterproofed colour pot labels. I have just placed the detailed order on those, so no stopping us now. I've a feeling there may be a bit of press coverage by Floramedia about the labels when they get delivered to us in the New Year as this is another first for outdoor plant promotion. Fame at last.
Talking of fame, I have to pop into Winchester Guildhall soon to meet the mayor and pick up our Green Impact award for 2018, which should be their Gold Award if my sums are correct. We ticked a lot of their sustainable boxes this year and the recent audit went really well, so fingers crossed for good news and a splash in the Hampshire Chronicle.
Must go, off in an hour or two and haven't actually packed yet, but how long does it take to pack shorts and tee shirt?
Have fun.

Availability highlights
Helleborus orientalis in a variety of colours are now well under way, for that winter interest and early exotic colour. Stonking bushy plants which are from a strain (Crown series) that has a high percentage of first season flowering. I hardly dare mention it, but there are a few odd plants threatening to flower already. I haven't put them on the list as being in bud as there aren't
that many yet.
Viola Konigin Charlotte traditionally flowers in the spring with its deep violet colour and stunning scent, but we find it does produce a pretty smattering in the autumn too. Looking and smelling great. although they do need a little warmth in the air to get the scent going.
The late summer flowering Anemones are still looking good in many gardens if not too battered by the recent cold winds, and we have some looking strong.
Compact and chunky Leucathemum Banana Creme with lovely bud showing and the odd splash of delightful pale yellow. The massively popular Erigeron karvinskianus Stallone is still sprouting plenty of flower buds, full of promise and dainty colours. If the weather is not too harsh we have had these still flowering at Christmas before now.
Foliage starts to be of interest at this time of year and there are some good shows of colour from the Carex Evergold, Ajuga, Heuchera, Lamium and Euphorbia.

WOODEN BOX RETURNS
We have visited most sites now and our van trips have dropped away, so we won't be coming by quite as often, however please do keep in touch and let us know if you have a batch to go and we will try and get round to you at some point.

Have a good week from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.