What is productions role over the summer?

Firstly let me apologise for not sending the blog out sooner. You have probably seen from social media that life on the nursery has been quite busy. We did the Big Barn conference back in June, for the production side this involved a general tidy of the whole nursery and now it looks great for all the summer visits.

The crop has grown particular well this summer with a cool gentle start which really benefits our trees in the containers. The flowering cherries looked particular great this year, very little frost meant that the flower stayed on for longer.

We are well into the growing season and the stock is looking fantastic and responding well to our summer feed regime which started in May by putting a blended feed into our irrigation system so the trees get fed little and often with our nitrogen based mix. This will carry on to late summer when we will change the feed to help the trees move into the autumn/ winter period.

The summer pruning program has now finished and our pleaching program has started which involves selecting stock such as Malus, Liquidambar, Hornbeam, Lime and Beech. These will be pleached onto 1m by 1.2m frames with an average 1.8m clear stem. We can also do larger panels to accommodate whatever height or width is required. Raised screening can prove more economical than fencing and certainly a lot prettier.

Summer is the time when we start filming for our’ buy the tree you see’ on the website, this will take place until the end of August so look out for the lovely stock coming through this autumn.

This great weather has also given Mike and I the chance to take some extra pictures for the website. Stock around the nursery is grown in batches so this season if we do not have the tree you want in ‘buy the tree you see’ there will be a new section called ‘buy from batch’. The 500 shots taken will be uploaded onto the web site by the autumn.

With the weather being so glorious the crops in the polytunnel have grown exceptionally well. This stock will be available to buy on the web site in due course.

Have a great summer and look forward to catching up in the autumn

Posted by Warren Holmes-Chatfield