Allium Trials

The spring weather may not have suited the tulips, but the alliums have been in their element and are worth a visit now (mid May) as most are in flower and should peak by Chelsea week. it affords a good opportunity to see some of the newer hybrids - 'Silver Spring', 'Beau Regard', 'Ambassador', 'Purple Giant', amongst others. These are expensive to buy as bulbs and seeing them growing in garden conditions helps make an informed buying decision. To extend the season, the same display bed features statuesque eremurus varieties (foxtail lilies), which enjoy the same conditions as alliums and provide wonderful 'exclamation marks' for the early summer border

Tulip Trials

We had hoped to hold an 'Open Week' from the early May Bank Holiday for viewing our tulip trial beds at what is usually the peak flowering period.

Due to the unseasonably hot weather in April, all tulips have been ahead of their season this year and the display was all but finished by the end of April so that our Open Week was unable to take place.

We know that those visitors who were fortunate enough to see the displays in April (on our normal Wednesday nursery open days) found it useful to make their bulb selections for next year. We plant in blocks of co-ordinating or contrasting colours, which makes it easy to make decisions on colour schemes or to choose varieities for height or flowering time. For those who were disappointed to miss the trials this year, we have prepared a QuickTime movie to show the highlights - see left. If you can't view it, click here first to download QuickTime for windows - Apple Macs should already have QuickTime loaded).