Spetchley Park Plant Fair

We attended our very first plant fair on Sunday – I don’t think it will be our last! I did have an idea that I would just be having a look, with no intention of buying yet more plants but I think we all know how likely that was…

We fell in love with Spetchley Park as soon as we got there and are already planning another visit to explore the gardens more.

We took a little stroll round by the lake, lovely and peaceful with some beautiful blossom and wild meadow flowers.

 

 

We watched the amazing chainsaw woodcarving demonstration by Steve Elsby, he made it look very easy.

 

But the plants were the real star of the show. Lots of varieties I haven’t heard of before and I really did have to stop myself getting carried away. It made me realise how much I still need to learn about all sort of flowers, shrubs and herbs. Here is our haul, not bad for someone trying to resist temptation:

 

One of our favourite stands was Edulis Nurseries, where after some discussion with the owner, we bought a Japanese Wineberry (Rubus Phoenicolasius) and an Earth Chestnut
(Bunium bulbocastanum). We also liked the Pershore College stand, where I bought a couple of lovely geraniums as many of my overwintered ones are not looking their best. They also had some pretty bedding plants I couldn’t resist.

Later we found ourselves at the Cottage Herbery stand where the really helpful stallholder gave us some advice about stopping the wild garlic we bought from spreading itself across the whole garden.

He had some wonderful herbs and plants, lots of unusual varieties but one we liked the sound of was Goat’s Rue (Galega officinalis) so that was added to our bag as well.

So that was us done, but just as we were heading back to the car, a Prostrate Willow (Salix nakamurana yezoalpina) caught my eye and I just couldn’t resist it – another lovely and very helpful stallholder, Paul Green of Green’s Leaves in Gloucestershire told us about the plant’s hardiness and the fact that it hails from Japan.

So, my first ever plant fair – showing me how much still I have to learn about plants and
gardening but another step in my fully fledged addiction 🙂