Malus

Malus or crab apples as they are sometimes better known give a fantastic display, some varieties twice a year.With blossom and fruit

In the spring they have a lovely mixture of blossom colours from light pink, dark pink through to deep burgundy red flowers depending on variety and in the autumn fruit varies from small on varieties like Golden Hornet up to large red on varieties like Dartmouth

Varieties grown at St Bridget's are the following

MALUS (Crab Apple)
floribunda AGM
hupehensis AGM
x magdeburgensis
x moerlandsii Liset OG
Profusion Improved OG
Royalty OG

tschonoskii AGM
Van Eseltine

Fruiting varieties ( Zero-rated VAT)
pumila Dartmouth
Evereste AGM OG

x zumi Golden Hornet AGM OG

John Downie AGM OG
Pink Glow
x robusta Red Sentinel AGM
Sun Rival
Veitchʼs Scarlet
White Star

Please enquire for sizes and prices available at sales@stbridgetnurseries.co.uk

or Tel. 01392873672.

CORTADERIA PUMILA

Better known to most people as PAMPASS GRASS is now beginning to look its best with large white plumes standing proud above the tough strap like foliage.

It makes a good stand alone plant in middle of the garden, but to keep it tidy cut back back the old foliage at the base and dead head the flower plumes when they have gone past their best to stop them seeding over the rest of the garden.

Autumn Colour

With the evenings getting longer and the nights getting cooler the leaves on the trees are changing colour, some turn yellow others change a wide range of colours from reds / oranges and golden yellow.

This can give a fantastic show in the autumn, so look out as you are out and about this autumn .

There are some good places to visit to see autumn colour one of the best known being Westonbirt in Gloucestershire.

There ares several ornamental trees and shrubs that you can plant in your garden like ornamental cherries (Prunus), viburnum to name a few.

Look out in gardens and woodland in your area to see a free show of colour and maybe plant something in your garden.

Try the woodland trust website to find your nearest wood and go and look at the autumn colours on the trees.

http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/our-woods/Pages/woodland-estate.aspx

Wallflowers

St Bridget's own field grown wallflowers are available now, in various colours and some good mixtures of colours too.

They give a lovely early splash of colour in spring with the bulbs and give a good scent too.

Persian Carpet contains many of the beautiful colours seen in Persian Carpets including cream, apricot, orange, rose, purple and gold,very fragrant.

St Bridget's have the following varieties bare root,

Bundles of 10 for £2.10

Fire King

Scarlet Bedder

Golden Bedder

Giant Pink

Persian Carpet

Bedder Mixed

Harlequin Mxd in 12 Packs

Brighten up your window sills

Put a bit of colour on your window sills this autumn,

Miniature Miracle CYCLAMEN will flower for months if you keep dead the old flowers once they have finished, if you look into the centre of the plant you will see all the new buds all waiting to appear.

They prefer a cool light situation out of bright hot sunshine and will even be ok outside until the really hard frosts come.

Coming in a large variety of colours there is a colour for everyone from whites reds pinks Burgundy and bicolours too.

They are an easy to look after plant for the cool window sill.

St Bridget's have good selection in our garden centres fresh from our nursery.

As autumn approaches and the weather is damp and wet, the summer bedding has normally gone past its best.

Brighten up your garden, pots and even hanging baskets with some pansies and violas.

They flower for months until the frosts come and normally again in the spring, just keep dead heading and the flowers will keep coming.

St Bridget's have lots to choose from in 9cm pots in good selection of colours and 6 packs in mixed colours.

Feed the Birds Let's face it when it rains we don't really like to go out for food -why should birds? With the weather getting cooler and wetter it's time to stock up on bird food to help our garden friends through the autumn and winter. St Bridget Garden Centres love wildlife and have everything you may need such as bird tables, stands, feeders, houses, seed, peanuts, fat balls, fat blocks etc! Plus there are some excellent savings on many products so stock up now. Remember to pick up a selection of food as not all birds eat the same things e.g. Robins and Blackbirds like to feed on horizontal tables/trays and eat seed and meal worms. Tits like most food but woodpeckers love peanuts!

Grow a Hardy Palm in your garden

Trachycarpus Fortunei-

One of the most popular and suitable palms for the UK. The Chusan palm from China tolerates temperatures down to -12°C without problem, so hardy in the normal British winters even the cold spell we had in January 2010, so they should be looking equally good in summer or winter.

Trachycarpus fortunei should not be planted in very windy locations as the leaves can get to look untidy. Large green, fan leaves grow from a hairy, matted trunk that can grow between 10-30cm a year at maturity, although much slower when younger!

Fully grown height can be up to approx 4-5 metres over time

St Bridget's have 2 sizes available

2 Litre pot size @ £9.50

4 Litre pot size @ £11.50

Contact our garden centres for more details.

Bulb-tastic!

Spring bulbs are filling up both St Bridget Nurseries' shops! There are hundreds of different varieties to choose from and some great bargains. Buy now for the freshest bulbs and the best choice.

Some of the bargains at the Old Rydon Lane garden centre include:

British Daffodils & Narcissi in 5kg sacks. £7.99 each or any 2 for only £14. Great for naturalising.

Plus large value spring bulb packs only £4.99 each or 3 packs for £12.

Be wary of cheap bulbs you may find in supermarkets - if you look closely, bulbs may not always be of the same quality/size.

Pyracantha Cadange

A glorious sunny September morning, look around you as you go about your daily life and see the variety of berries there are about in peoples gardens.

Pyracantha, Cotoneaster to name a few in various colours red, yellow and orange .They will normally stay on the plants until the weather gets cold but are then generally eaten by birds so they can give autumn colour to the garden and also supply a food source for wild birds.

Devon Wildlife Trust - visiting If you are interested in wildlife or want to know how you can attract wildlife into your garden then come along and ask the experts. St Bridget Nurseries' Garden Centre in Old Rydon Lane, Exeter (EX2 7JY) will be welcoming The Devon Wildlife Trust on Saturday 18th September (10am-4pm) and Sunday 19th September (11am-4pm). In addition you can find out more about the Trust, the essential work they do and how you can become a member.

August Bank Holiday

With a wet ending to August, why not start thinking about autumn,

St Bridget's now have their own grown Brassica and lettuce plants in 12 packs,and pansies in individual 9cm pots and 6 packs now ready for sale fresh from our own nursery.

We also have Ornamental brassicas and Hollyhocks all ready for sale now.

Field grown Wallflowers will be available from mid Sept with trays of mixed Wallflowers in packs of 12 available now.

Sedums

Sedum give a long display of colour during late August / September and are very easy to grow.

They can be planted at any time of year, if planted in winter you will need to cut off all the previous summers growth that has died back if it has not done already.

In March it will start to shoot and will get up to 0.75m tall in good soil conditions with plenty of moisture and can become top heavy when in full flower, the best solution for this is to cut back some of the shoots in May known by some as the Chelsea chop and this will encourage the plant to produce a more compact plant and will extend the flowering season as the pruned shoots will flower slightly later.

Sedums also encourage masses of bees and butterflies into the garden.

St Bridgets grow the following varieties.

Autumn Joy AGM (Herbstfreude)
erythrostichum Frosty Morn
spectabile Brilliant AGM
telephium Matrona

Ruby Glow

AGM is a plant that has been awarded the RHS AWARD OF MERIT.

Butterflies

Most people love to see butterflies in their garden, encourage them with plants which will make them them stay for you to enjoy watching them.

A lot of butterflies like to feed on weeds as well as garden plants so maybe leave a small area to nature for them to enjoy.

Buddlejas, Sedums, Verbena Bonariensis are just a few plants that encourage butteflies later in the summer.

Plant your butterfly garden in a sunny location, but sheltered from the winds. Butterflies need the sun to warm themselves, but they won't want to feed in an area where they are constantly in the wind. It is also a good idea to place a few flat stones in your sunny location so the butterflies can take a break.

CROCOSMIA


A good plant that gives masses of flower throughout August is Crocosmia, they come in various colours of yellow, red and orange, They grow from corms and can be late coming into growth in the spring so remember them when tidying your borders in the spring.


The new varieties are not so invasive as the old orange types which people might know better by the old name Monbretia.


Within a few years of planting you should have a nice clump that will have masses of flowers over quite a long period of late summer.





St Bridget Nurseries grow the following varieties.


Crocosmia Emberglow -Red

Crocosmia George Davidson - Yellow

Crocomia Emily Mckenzie -Orange with a dark centre blotch

Late autumn is probably one of the best times of year to plant fruit trees, so August is a good month to sit in the garden thinking about which type of apple you would like to be eating straight from your garden in years to come and what space you have.

St Bridgets sell their apples on a dwarf rootstock M27 and a semi dwarfing rootstock MM106.

St Bridget Nurseries have large selection of Apple varieties growing in our fields and this year looks like it could be a good year for bumper apple crop as there seems to be a lot of apples around on the trees.

Fruit trees are normally sold in different forms starting with bush, half standard and standards there are also the trained forms- cordons, fans and espalier.

APPLE ALLINGTON PIPPIN
APPLE ASHMEAD KERNAL
APPLE BLENHIEM ORANGE
APPLE BRAMLEY ORIGINAL
APPLE BRAMLEY SEEDLING
APPLE BOUNTIFUL
APPLE CHARLES ROSS
APPLE CHIVERS DELIGHT
APPLE COX'S ORANGE PIPPIN
APPLE DISCOVERY
APPLE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE
APPLE EGREMONT RUSSET
APPLE ELLISON'S ORANGE
APPLE EXETER CROSS
APPLE FIESTA
APPLE GALA
APPLE GOLDEN DELICIOUS
APPLE GREENSLEEVES
APPLE GRENADIER
APPLE HOWGATE WONDER
APPLE JAMES GRIEVE
APPLE JUPITER
APPLE LANES PRINCE ALBERT
APPLE LAXTONS FORTUNE
APPLE LAXTONS SUPERB
APPLE LORD LAMBOURNE
APPLE NEWTON WONDER
APPLE REV.WILKS
APPLE SPARTAN
APPLE STURMER PIPPIN
APPLE SUNSET
APPLE WINSTON
APPLE WORCESTER PEARMAIN

Picture showing St Bridget's tree propagator budding an ORNAMENTAL CHERRY TREE

Ornamental and Fruit trees.

At St Bridget Nurseries we propagate the vast majority of our trees on our nursery by budding or grafting, most of the budding is done during the summer and grafting normally during the late winter.

Budding is a method of propagation which involves putting a small bud of the variety of tree you want to propagate onto a rootstock,it is normally done with varieties of fruit trees and ornamental trees,the rootstocks are normally a common variety of the same type of tree which is a lot easier to propagate.

It will normally takes between 2-3 years to get a saleable size tree from budding and they are grown on to make half standard, standard ,cordons, fans, espalier fruit or feathered, half standard and standard Ornamental trees .

Contact St Bridget Nurseries for a copy of our price list and a full list of trees we sell or to visit the tree fields contact us to make an appontment.

Today's fact...

Plants can relieve everyday symptoms.

Plants can reduce stress levels.

So plants are vital to healthy lives.

So for first aid, try plant aid!

Make sure you have plants in the house/workplace as they are proven to aid concentration, clean the air, reduce headaches and reduce dust particles. If nothing else they look very pretty!

St Bridget Nurseries' Garden Centres have a lovely selection of indoor plants and colourful containers to brighten any indoor space.

Hydrangea's for August/ Sept

Hydrangea Paniculata Grandiflora,

Kyushu AGM,

Limelight,

Pink Diamond,

Are all varieties of Hydrangea that flower in August /early Sept they have big flowers in various shades of white/Pink colours.

To get the best flowers they have to pruned in a different way to the other Hydrangea varieties.

Prune them hard to approx 20-30cm in March just before they start to come into growth and they will produce lovely big flowers on the growth they make that same spring/summer. This will also keep them to a compact size of approx 1 metre.

St Bridget Nurseries sell the above varieties for £8.25 each

Hibiscus Red Heart

August can be a month in the garden when flowering shrubs are not so abundant, one that flowers throughout August and into September are Hibiscus.

They flower over a long period in a wide range of colours blues ,whites , pinks , reds and bicolours.

Hibiscus are deciduous so will loose their leaves in the autumn and are late coming into leaf in the spring.

St Bridget Nurseries graft their own plants in the winter and below are a list of varieties we grow.

Priced from £10.00

HIBISCUS
syriacus Ardens

Blue Bird AGM

Duc de Brabant
Elegantissimus
Hamabo AGM
Meehanii AGM
Purpureus Variegatus

Red Heart AGM
Totus Albus
Woodbridge AGM