Well, it has finally happened; winter has started in earnest!  This morning's frosty start came as a surprise to us, with car windscreen scraping the first order of the day.  Where last week, many of us on the nursery were in shirtsleeves, today jumpers and jackets have been donned as the cold weather has started. 

Traditional November weather this year has largely been replaced, by mild and sunny days and while this is smashing for gardeners, it hasn't been great for the lifting of Bare Rooted plants in our nursery.  Now that the temperature has dropped and we've had a bit of rain, the lifting of field grown hedging, trees and fruit trees has begun.

Over the past few days we have been stocking our plant centres and sending out hundreds of orders of mixed native hedging to customers around the country. 

While hedging and deciduous trees are forming a substantial part of our orders at the moment, the real stars of the show are the heavily budded winter shrubs like Camellia, Skimmia, Daphne and Corylopsis as well as a great selection of grasses and herbaceous perennials showing off their winter seed heads on our nursery beds.  The drying flowers of the fifteen or so varieties of Miscanthus that we grow are adding subtle colour and fluffy texture to our planted displays and our nursery stock beds.  Spent flowers on Achillea and Rudbeckia remind us of how colourful they were a month ago, while injecting the very in vogue prairie feel to planting schemes.  Finally, one of my personal favourites at the moment, Deschampsia cespitosa ‘Goldtau’ (pictured), a very light and airy flower atop a bushy mound of evergreen foliage.  Looking great with carpeting plants like Ajuga and a perfect partner for Allium and Gladioli bulbs.