The latest news from Hortus Loci

Chelsea Flower Show, it has scaled the horticultural heights for its centenary year, celebrating 100 years at the Royal Hospital in London. This year’s Show is special for Hortus Loci, too, since we have supplied over 70,000 plants for a wide range of gardens and exhibits, including four of the main Show Garden.

Chris Beardshaw’s Arthritis Research UK Garden
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Chris Beardshaw’s Arthritis Research UK Garden (RHW/1), explores a sufferer’s journey of discovery with his design that passes through three distinct zones of emotion. The shaded ‘veiled’ woodland complete with a contemporary retreat and underplanted with a range of shrubs and herbaceous links, via a stepping stone path, to a formal ‘lucid’ area with reflective pool and white-themed planting, then finally a ‘radiant’ garden containing a vibrant combination of pink, purple, orange and blue flowers (foreground).

RHS Award: Gold

The Brewin Dolphin Garden by Robert Myers

The Brewin Dolphin Garden by Robert Myers (MA21) showcases a calm, reflective garden for relaxation and entertainment, using native plants. In a central sunken area, a verdant textual combination of groundcover and clipped box provides a counterpoint to the pleached field maples and a scattering of multi-stemmed rowans, underplanted with a blend of grasses, shrubs and herbaceous with white, purple and blue flowers. Towards the front the colour theme is dominated by blue pink and white with splashes of yellow with patio and pebble seats.

RHS Award: Gold

Jinny Blom’s B&Q Sentebale Garden

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In Jinny Blom’s B&Q Sentebale Garden (MA16), in association with HRH Prince Harry, a textural picture has been created using muted tones inspired by the landscape and culture of Africa, to highlight the plight of Lesotho’s forgotten children that suffer from extreme poverty and an HIV/AIDs epidemic. Her design highlights the stark regional contrasts of a moist valley delta alongside a dry mountain slope. The damp plain is planted with six pollarded willows in a sea of lush Ajuga, Anthriscus, Damera peltatais, Rheum, Cyperus and Osmanda. There’s a forget-me-not meadow and a ‘hearts and crowns’ stone terrace set in a mossy lake. The dry mountain slope is planted with a craggy pine and arid grasses from the region.

RHS Award: Silver-Gilt

Nigel Dunnett’s RBC Blue Water Roof Garden

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Nigel Dunnett’s RBC Blue Water Roof Garden (MA13) that investigates the challenges and opportunities of urban gardening as a vehicle to support wildlife and biodiversity. It contains a central wetland area maintained by captured rainfall, and low-tech living walls surrounding an area that incorporates rooftop essential infrastructure including cooling vents and air conditioning units. A flower-rich planting threads its way through four distinct conservation zones of shady woodland, sun-drenched, wetland and aquatic – each filled with a selection of hand-picked, well-adapted species.

RHS Award: Gold

We are very excited about a fantastic new flowering crab called Malus ‘Peter’s Red’, that’s now available exclusively from Hortus Loci. Selected by German arboriculturist, Peter Fluegge, it’s prolific in flower, has a compact habit, with stunning autumn colour and persistent red fruits that last well into the New Year. Reaching just 10m at maturity, it is an ideal choice for small gardens since it provides year-round interest and offers great garden value. ‘Peter’s Red’ is at its most impressive during May when smothered with huge clusters of eye-catching, cerise-pink, single flowers, but it remains an attractive specimen throughout the summer months. The leaves turn bonfire shades in autumn, followed by a large crop of spherical, bright-red fruit that are a highlight of the winter garden. This lovely new crab apple is also disease resistant. Available as a multistem 2.5-3m tall, or as a heavy standard (8-10cm girth), with prices starting from £395 (ex. VAT) per tree.

As Chelsea week approaches, it’s been another record-breaking year for the Hortus Loci nursery. Having supplied all the plants to four of the main Show Gardens, the quality of our specimens became the talk of the Showground and last-minute orders kept flooding in. To date, we have supplied over 70,000 plants to nine different gardens and even more stands and other exhibits. From impressive 9m-high multi-stemmed Betula nigra ‘Heritage’ trees for the RBC Blue Water Roof Garden (MA13), to swathes of Deschampsia flexuosa ‘Garnet Schist’ in 3-litre pots gracing the B&Q Sentebale Garden (MA16). In fact, almost everywhere you look you’ll see Hortus Loci plants at this year’s Chelsea!

We really love our Agapanthus at Hortus Loci and are very excited by a crop of new varieties, but have been frustrated trying to get them to market. The young Agapanthus just don’t appreciate our British climate, especially in their first year. So this year we got together with some Spanish chums to see if we could steal a march on our competitors by avoiding the British winter problem and raising container-grown stock in Spain. The results have been remarkable. Big blue skies providing long hours of strong sunlight has brought on the plants in leaps and bounds, transforming five-thousand 9cm youngsters into 3-litre specimens in just is six weeks. Our plan it to keep them there until next spring, forming monster plants in 10-litre pots all budded-up and ready for sale from April 2014 onwards. Apart from the wall-to-wall sunshine, maybe the key to our success has been the unique Spanish water, just slightly on the salty side! We’re so impressed with the results that next year we repeating the experiment with all our aromatics, including our own Rosemary prostratus ‘Whitewater Silver’ and several rare lavender varieties.
¡Viva España!

Chris Beadshaw has been down on the Hortus Loci nursery this month to do some TV filming for the Chelsea build-up and check over the stock of plants for his Arthritis Research UK Show Garden. We are raising a range of woodland perennials including Mertansia virginica, Trillium luteum, Digitalis purpurea ‘Snow Thimble’, Corydalis ‘Blackberry Wine’ and Brunnera ‘Jack Frost’. ‘Many thanks to the guys at @HortusLoci for the time spent discussing plants – pleasure as always.’ He tweeted afterwards.

The sheer scale and variety of the perennials, shrubs and other plants available on demand at our nursery means that garden designers can be certain of finding what they want when they need it. This comes in really handy when putting together show gardens and other exhibits at Hampton Court when designers are particularly hard-pressed. Hortus Loci will even deliver directly to the show ground. No fuss, no stress, just the best possible plants for the job. Last year we supplied 17 gardens at Hampton Court and made six deliveries per day for six days.

Our very first Wholesale Plant Catalogue is now available. Listing over 5000 different varieties with sections on Perennials, Hardy Ferns, Climbers, Clematis, Roses, Shrubs, Trees, Grasses, Bamboos, Alpines, Conifers and Herbs – most with detailed descriptions and guide prices. If you are interesting in getting your hands of one of these horticultural masterpieces, please contact us.

We now raise over 85-percent of all the plants we supply, so we can guarantee availability and quality. Nearly all of the plants we grow are bought from UK specialist growers as liners, plugs or Jumbo Plugs and then potted-up and grown-on at our Hampshire  nursery. To grow the best plants possible, we think it is essential to select exactly the right compost and container to suit each variety. To this end, we have developed a spectrum of different compost formulations, including specialist composts for all our roses and fruit trees. Our pot sizes start at 1-litre for easy-going perennials, with the majority supplied  in 3- or 4-litre pots or taller long-toms – depending on their rooting requirements. Specimen plants in larger containers  are available on request.

Hortus Loci’s retail outlet, Whitewater Plant Centre, is having its grand opening over the Easter bank-holiday weekend (29th March-1st April) with special events, competitions, talks and entertainment as well as nursery tours by Hortus Loci founders, Robin Wallis and Mark Straver. The Plant Centre aims to be a plant-aholic’s paradise by offering the widest selection of varieties, including many recent introductions, in larger sizes than any other retail outlet. Over the opening weekend, shoppers will not go hungry, with famous hog-roast sandwiches from Hartley Wintney Traditional Butchers and refreshments from Qualitasse of Basingstoke – served from their wonderful vintage Citroen H Van.

Our very own new variety of prostrate rosemary has just arrived on the nursery. Named ‘Whitewater Silver’, to celebrate the opening of our new Whitewater Plant Centre this spring, it forms a dense, low-spreading, evergreen mound of aromatic foliage that’s white-woolly underneath – giving the plant a distinctive silvery sheen. Blue flowers light-up the foliage during the spring and intermittently throughout the summer. Then, in autumn, the shimmering silvery foliage comes to the fore, illuminating the border throughout the winter months. A fantastic year-round winner!