Finding myself near Cirencester last week was the perfect excuse to call into The Generous Gardener plant sale at Ampney Crucis. Specialist nurseries and the chance to look around The Coach House garden made for a great morning.
Mel Tanner took over the sales eight years ago and holds four a year. This was the last of the season and drew a huge crowd, including a coach party from Leicestershire. I arrived about half-an-hour after it opened and there were already people leaving laden with plants.
Several of my favourite nurseries were there, including Tortworth Plants, Cotswold Garden Flowers and Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants and the temptation was great.
It’s a temptation that Mel finds it hard to resist and she’d bought a few more plants.
“It’s absolutely fatal having them here,” she admitted. “I am very lucky as I do have access to all these wonderful nurseries.
“I love it when the nurseries are here as I suddenly have all this injection of colour.”
My finds included Succisa pratensis, which is destined for the revamped main flower border.
I also got another perovskia, which does well on my sandy soil, and I’m going to try my luck with Salvia uliginosa. I bought that from Hardy’s and Rosy Hardy suggested sinking a cardboard box into the border, filling it with compost and planting into that. It might help to give the salvia the sort of moisture-retentive soil at its roots that I struggle with in my garden.
Also from Hardy’s was Persicaria ‘Pink Elephant’ – I liked it as much for the name as for the flower.
Another salvia I’m going to try is ‘Amistad’, which I bought from Cotswold Garden Flowers. I love the dark flowers so fingers crossed I can keep it going.
This was something a bit different that I saw on Tortworth’s stand. It’s a cultivated form of linaria, which they say is sterile so shouldn’t seed around, not that I’d mind with those lovely peachy-yellow flowers.
Entry to the plant sale – which also raised funds for the James Hopkins Trust – gave access to Mel’s garden and it was interesting to see the changes since my visit back in February.
The then new greenhouse is now full of plants and the border in front is fully planted.
What had been a display of snowdrops is now pots full of summer stars, including pansies and miniature hostas.
Meanwhile, nasturtiums and dahlias were adding colour to the vegetable garden.
For more information about The Generous Gardener plant sales and lecture days, visit the website.
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My favourite plant sale, too, and also one of my favourite gardens. I get to as many sales as I can, living about an hour’s drive away. Always find something unexpected, and the atmosphere is great. I shouldn’t say this, of course, because it is for charity, but it is nice when it’s not so busy as it was last week
I think the good weather brought more people out 🙂 I hadn’t managed to get to one of the sales for ages – probably a good thing for my bank balance!