Autumn Offers

With the first day of autumn upon us, we have managed to find time to get our Autumn Supplement for 2011 organised.
Every August I walk among our nursery standing grounds and choose out the plants that are looking great for our mail order supplement.
These plants are ones that I know will settle well when planted in autumn and give a great performance next year.
I like to offer plants that will bring your garden to life again as autumn sets in; there are Schizostylis and Kniphofia, Primroses and Thistles, ready now to settle into the warm soil.

ABRIACHAN NURSERIES AUTUMN SUPPLEMENT

I hope you find something to tempt you, and I hope the midges are not as bad in your garden as they are currently in ours.

An Imposing Imposter - Onopordum (The Scots' Thistle)

Each year we see the magnificent stems of Onopordum Acanthium rise from the silver over-wintering rosette.
We carefully position the young plants each year so that they are near to the driveway where people walk up to the nursery. Many photographs have been taken of visitors standing beside a 2 metre high "Scots' Thistle".

But is it an impostor? If so, it is a very handsome one.

The silver cottony leaves are fiercely toothed and grow quickly into flat silver rosette in the first summer. It stays that way over the winter and in spring it begins to build.  In June the silver stem rises, the mace like buds opening to a glorious purple thistle head.

It is also called Cotton Thistle and comes from Southern Europe & Asia, but believe me it looks magnificent growing in Scotland, and has long been naturalised and taken on the local accent.

Choose a sunny well drained spot and plant any time from April to August.

One for adventurous gardeners yes, but for beginners too, easy and satisfying.

It is our August 'Plant of the Month' at the nursery and available through our online catalogue.