September, the start of change. As I walked my son to school this morning there was a definite nip in the air, autumn is coming and I love this time of year, the autumn colours, early dewy mornings walking the dog and cosying up in the evenings planning what to grow for the coming seasons.
This Autumn we have several newly listed varieties added to our range, of particular interest is the beautiful and very strongly clove scented Hollycroft Fragrance a variety that has not been seen for many, many years and was thanks to Mr Tindall from Northumberland who kindly sent us a few cuttings off his plant asking us to identify it, on receiving it we got very excited as we have not seen it available for many years, with his permission he let us root some of the cuttings and we have now been able to revive and re-introduce this fantastic garden pink and the scent from the variety is AMAZING!!!
We are also pleased to be able to re-list Sops in Wine, this Heritage garden pink is a good traditional one and supposedly gets its name from an old custom of flavoring spirits.
Heritage pinks are from pre 1900s to the Tudors and are strongly clove scented. They generally grow into lovely clumps and positioned in a sunny, well drained spot will grow happily for years. Most of them have a relatively short flowering season compared to the more modern varieties, flowering time is usually June and July and some of them make excellent cut flowers. The most known variety from the Heritage range is Mrs Sinkins.
Another new variety for this season is the beautiful light green perpetual flowering carnation Capricho, this made its debut appearance in the Royal Marquee at the Sandringham Flower Show and was the same shade of colour as the Duchess of Cornwalls dress. Another beauty is the lovely orange-red carnation Borja.
Perpetual Flowering Carnations if grown in the right conditions will flower 12 months of year! If you wish to grow your own cut flowers for a wedding these are the plants to grow - but if it is a summer wedding you will need to get started soon, the young plants take about 4-6 months to get to their best flowering maturity, if you are wanting a lot of flowers you will need quite a few plants!! They are regularly used for button holes, bouquets and floral arrangements as the blooms longevity is unparalleled with other cut flowers and they come in a huge range of colours. This Autumn we have 14 different varieties to choose from.
Succulents continue to be very much in vogue and it is clear to see why, they are so versatile, with many people not just growing them on a windowsill, I have seen them used as table decorations at events, put into bouquets and even a door wreath! This season we have added a new one to our range, Haworthia Reticulata v. Guttata a lovely low growing variety, that will clump-up quite quickly and flowers easily too.
We are also quite excited to be able to re-list Crassula Brides Bouquet and Cotyledon Lady Smithiensis as these have always been popular and can sell out quickly.
Our range is steadily growing and we grow far more than we can ever list so if you are looking for something in particular please get in touch, chances are we have it!!
We value any comments or suggestions so please get in touch.
Thanks for reading part 1, look out for what's new in our Pelargonium range in Part 2, coming soon.
Happy growing
From the Allwoods team