A Day Out at Swines Meadow Farm Nursery

A great display of Begonias At Swines Meadow

When I first joined Twitter one of the first people I started to follow wasd @rareplants, who runs the wonderful Swines Meadow Farm Nursery in Market Deeping in Lincolnshire, along with his wonderful wife Karan. In time I came to learn that behind the Twitter name is Colin Ward, a brilliant plantsman who quite honestly knows more about plants in his little finger than I do in my entire body.

Last weekend Colin held the second of his two plantfairs this year. Lots of nurseries reasonably close to Colin had stalls and there were some excellent plants for sale as blogged by @papaver. However, as a plantaddict I was far more interested to see what Colin had on offer as he seems to be a master in finding slightly different varieties from the norm and growing them amazingly, as with the display of Begonia above.

Swines Meadow has a great selection of Ginkgo varieties for sale

In the outdoor beds there are a fantastic selection of herbaceous plants and grasses alongside some amazing trees such as the Ginkgo above, and a spectacular variegated Liriodendron. There are also lots of fruit trees and an incredible selection of bamboos. All the plants, whether large or small, are beautifully presented and look healthy and amazingly fresh which has been a difficult thing to achieve in the dreadful season we have had this year.

Once inside the greenhouse that is open to visitors there is an incredible range of  plants which range from annuals to perennial Begonias and ferns, along side some less hardy plants such as Fuchsia arborescens, which will need to be brought in over the winter months.

The greenhouse full of great finds.

Colin and Karan propagate lots of the more unusual plants at the nursery, growing lots from seeds, cuttings and division. If you get the chance to visit the inner sanctum, where all the plants are brought on, you will find a treasure trove of wonderful and unusual plants. I came away with an Akebia pentaphylla, a very rare and unusual Akebia which is an incredible plant and which Colin has propagated from his own stock plant.

I could go on and on about the plants which are available at Swines Meadow but rather than bore you I would implore you to go and have a look at www.swinesmeadowfarmnursery.co.uk, where you will see the range of plants that are available. Mail order is available too!!

To finish your visit please go and look at the amazing garden that Colin and Karan have created as it not only gives ideas on how to integrate plants bought at the nursery into your garden, but is an amazing and beautiful space to just be in. So I will finish this post with a selection of photos taken in the garden on Sunday.

Finally, please look out for nursery folk such as Colin and Karan. Its very easy to go to your local garden centre and buy plants that have been imported through Holland  but unless we support our British nurserymen and women and buy British grown plants, we will lose these wonderful folk and their knowledge.

An enormous Tetrapanax Rex

Cornus contraversa Variegata or the Wedding Cake Tree

Paulonia tomentosa cut back to create the huge leaves

Huge caulms of Bamboo

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Bees Gardening

One of the important factors in doing gardening is to make the pollination process very easy. One of the easiest steps you can do to make this happen is to make your garden bee friendly. Bees are one of the pollination agents that the nature has provided us with. As a rule of thumb you should plant plants which are rich in pollen and nectar to attract the bees. Planting bee friendly plants can be a win-win situation. Not only will the bees benefit from the nectar and pollen, the pollination of the plants will occur faster and we will get the food as desired. The greater the number of such plants it is better for your garden. The least number of planting you can do is to plant a plant for each season.

A three forth of the total foods we eat needs pollinators such as the bees. For plants like nuts, fruits, vegetables bees are essential. Though they are immensely beneficial gardeners, their contribution in the flowering season goes unnoticed and ignored. We have all heard about the disappearance of honeybees but other species of bees are also declining throughout the world. It is for our own necessity we need to build more and more bee friendly garden. Just by doing a bit we can make a big difference.

It is usually a misconception that the bees flourish in national parks or other wild animal conserved area, they love to stay in urban settings where the flights are usually short and they can get a variety of plants and flowers. They are most likely to thrive in patio garden or backyard than on huge area devoted to single crop.

It does not matter if you are doing your gardening in your backyard, in containers or you have a wide area dedicated to it. You can always put plants which are bee friendly and encourage the bees.

Making your garden bee-friendly ensure a good supply of food for bees at their crucial times like when the nest is growing and the queen is laying eggs. When you are planning for planting flower plants to encourage the bees just remember a few points. In some flowers the petals form a long tunnel which can be sometime very long and narrow for the bees to reach to the nectar. Some flower petals are very tightly packed and also hinder the accessibility to nectar for bees. It is advisable to avoid such plants.

Please do not use any pesticides in your garden. Though these are not meant for killing bees and most of the time termed as “bug-killers”, it can definitely hurt them. For pest control rather try companion planting. I have discussed about that earlier. You can find it here.

Is your garden is a heaven for bees? How do you offer suitable environment for bees? Share your passion and also encourage fellow gardeners to encourage wildlife habitation in the garden.

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Bees Butterflies and interpreting the theme

Well it has occurred to me that perhaps I have been a little hasty. A forest garden is a great idea but where will all the flowers be? Once the fruit blossom is over there will be very few and excited as I am about the forest garden concept, I love to have colour all through the season. So, having been entranced by Sarah Ravens series about attracting pollinators to the garden, I have decided that I am going to reinterpret the forest garden theme in order to bring in the insects to the garden and in the long term, help good fruit set!

So what does this mean? Well actually its really good news I think. It means I can still have Dahlias as long as they are single blossoms that have plenty of nectar like the one above, taken at Oxford Botanic Garden last summer, along with its visiting bee. I can also have zinnias, sunflowers, cornflowers, and ammi to name but a few along side pots of annual meadow mixes which I shall trial to see which attracts most of the good guys that we want.

Now I genuinely know this will help to pollinate the fruit I am also going to grow. At work we have bee hives. looked after by a great guy by the name of Arnold who is utterly adorable. Pre bees we grew fruit on the nursery and we had a reasonable amount of fruit each year. However, since the bees something little short of miraculous has taken place. The apples, pears and nectarines have all fruited like crazy as have the grapevines and kiwis. Plus we have seen an increase in birds, with all 9 of our small bird boxes used last year and several nests in heating ducts and trees and last year we found Great Crested Newts in one of our glasshouses. Already this year weve seen birds looking at the boxes and today the bees were flying around and we had hoverflies dancing around in the Daphnes which I have realised, smell like lemon sherberts.

So by growing the right plants to attract in the good guys Ill have great fruit set and hopefully a garden that has enough biodiversity to look after itself and see of any bad guys that might try to come in. I will, of course, report back!!

A bee!! And a happy one!!

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