We are now on day 2 of heavy rain…. I look outside the window and think how much the grass needs mowing, I can honestly say it has looked like that for some time as I have tried to avoid mowing in November thinking there must come a point when we stop but the mild winter seems to be telling me otherwise, so I sit in the warmth and the rain lashes outside and contemplate all the jobs I should be doing if I was only brave enough to go outside, the endless chores, the potting up of plants that must be done, the cuttings I must take for the coming season, the tidying – this Christmas we put together a to-do list of jobs we must do whilst we were not at work…. So far the only thing that has happened is eat the Christmas turkey and play with the kids.
So I continue to sit here, contemplating the coming season and it is both exciting and somewhat frightening. Our new seasons catalogue is due out in January – this is always an exciting but nervous moment as so many weeks go into preparing the brochure and
until people start receiving it I never know whether all the hard work will be well received or not – being a family firm these little things are important to us, it’s what makes us us! This years catalogue is (I think) quite stunning with a very colourful front cover and packed inside with lots of our range – it is getting harder and harder to choose which varieties go into the brochure as we have so many, but we have managed to squeeze in some new ones to tempt you of particular interest is our new garden pink
Whatfield Wisp a delightful little Alpine pink with delicate pink flowers on low compact foliage or there is Dianthus Superbus, a vigorous flowering variety with good strong stems and bright colourful flowers.
In the greenhouse range we have some new Perpetuals, one of my favourites is
Damascus with its creamy white blooms and purple wire picotee or why not try our new Green flowering Spray Carnation Eaton, spray carnations mix so well as a cut flower and grow so easily – why go to the expense of buying a bouquet when you can grow your own – unless of course your wanting to send flowers to your friends then our tried and tested Flowers by Post service is a must!!
Pelargoniums, we have now managed to finally catalogue our whole range some 600+ varieties! And we have such treasures, last autumn alone we listed over 40 newly listed
varieties to our catalogue of particular note was the brand new yellow pelargonium
Allwoods Lemon Drizzle and yes you read that right, it has lovely creamy yellow blooms on low compact foliage, makes a lovely dwarf plant so will happily grow on a sunny windowsill if your pushed for space and is rather interesting in both the way it grows and foliage as it isn’t like most pelargoniums but grows more similar to the species type with chunky tubular stems and only a few leaves per branch, but the flowers are in abundance and oh so pretty.
Another newly listed variety which we trialled here on the nursery in some pots is the King of Denmark, it makes a fabulous plant for filling out the bed or border, with lots of lovely orange pink blooms and pretty pattened leaves making it super colourful. For the hanging baskets we have our newly listed Dark Delight, I have never seen such a deep, dark red flower in all my life it is so gorgeous and rich – if you want to wow the neighbours with your basket displays this year then grow some of this!!
Succulents are still in popular demand and our range also keeps increasing, of interest
this season is the new Bulbine Frutescens Orange, a grassland plant that is super easy to grow and quick to flower with its very pretty orange flowers, another variety that I am sure will be of interest is the Sedum Clavatum a low growing variety that’s most striking feature is its silver blue rosettes, again so easy to grow and will look fantastic in container gardens or grown on its own as a specimen plant.
And finally we have a new Zinnia to impress you with, Zinnias have always been one of
our favourites and our new Zinnia Pop Art quickly became our latest love with it’s very striking flower. We grew some of these in a border in the garden last year and boy did they look impressive with their red and white showy blooms and lush green foliage, they fill a gap so easily and make a dull area bright with colour, we hope you will agree that they are truly stunning.
So that about covers the main newly listed varieties we have in our range this season, our new catalogue is due out in January and existing customers should receive one automatically, however if you would like a free copy sent to you, you can order one HERE, of course the only way we can ever list our full range is through our website and we are still in the process of listing everything we grow so if you are looking for anything particular and can’t find it elsewhere then give us a shout, chances are we have it here on the nursery somewhere and just not gotten around to listing it online yet!
So the rain continues and the job list isn’t getting any shorter, but I’d best leave you in peace I’ve probably rambled on long enough! So from a soggy Sussex, thanks for reading and please feel free to leave any comments and let us grow together in the coming season.
Emma
Allwoods (Hassocks) Ltd, London Road, Hassocks, West Sussex. BN6 9NA
T: 01273 844229