About Seaside Plants

Dartington Hall - Devon

We are a small family run business set in the South Hams area of South Devon. We have been trading since 1979, supplying trade customers throughout the south west.
In that time we have built up a wide range of different plants, many of which are suited to coastal conditions.
We now feel we would like to offer our knowledge and range of plants to you through this site.

JULY 2010 NEWS FROM THE NURSERY
After the driest start to the year since 1929,perhaps we can have a break from constantly watering our tubs and other containers; as the weather seems to have changed from the searing heat of June.
Lawns in our neck of the woods are a bleached straw colour, but a few damp and cooler days and they will soon be green again! Irrigation of lawns is quite rightly frowned on, in these days of conserving resources. Expensive if on a water meter and really not essential.

In our polythene tunnel houses , for which we use water from our borehole.
We have been watering by overhead irrigation lines every day to keep the plants alive. We were therefore very surprised to discover, when clearing out some old plants, that we had a blackbirds nest, complete with semi-naked chicks! We have put the old plants back in front of the nest, which had been dislodged and at a crazy angle, before being straightened up. Feeling very guilty and concerned we retreated and left the tunnel for several hours. Happily normal service has been resumed and the chicks are being fed and brooded again. Presumably every time we put the irrigation on the hen bird sat on the nest and protected the nest and its contents.

Lots of plants are now flowering which means one thing - dead heading - I must admit not the easiest thing to keep on top of, but worthwhile if you can, as it does prolong flowering. The other advantage of dead-heading is that small changes are noticed and can be dealt with before a larger problem occurs - greenfly- caterpillar damage - rust - mildew - rodent and rabbit damage and if you are really unlucky deer damage, they do like eating rose flowers!


We have a nice range of CLEMATIS available as young plants - either plugs or small 7cm pots priced @ £2.75 each plus P&P.
We recommend potting and growing them on for at least a month before planting out. Pot a bit deeper than the level they are in the plug as this encourages more shoot to develop. Tie up to a cane.

GIFT TOKENS - We are now offering Gift Tokens - nice to have something to plan for the season ahead at this time of year.


NURSERY VISITS

As we are also a wholesale Nursery supplying our local West Country Garden Centres we therefore have deadlines to meet preparing and delivering orders. So although it is nice to meet our web customers we can not spare the the time selling retail at the nursery especially at this busy time of the year. We have prepared web orders for collection on request and perhaps in the Winter months we will be able to see visitors by appointment.

We have added a new category 'Cards for Special Occasions'
These cards many by local artists, are for you to choose from to include with plants being sent as a gift with your message included for birthdays and other anniversaries.