Abriachan Nurseries Plant Catalogue 2018

Abriachan Nurseries Plant Catalogue 2018

Anyone who knows our garden knows that we have a love affair with the Southern hemisphere and this year we broke new ground in Tasmania, actually, Bruny island off the south coast of Tasmania…next stop Antarctica. The birds were amazing, made all the more so by our daughter Cat, who is a wildlife guide there. Wallabies and Echidna; Wombats and fantastic beaches, where anyone else on it made it feel crowded. And oh, yes the plants. They were wonderful too and I have a huge love of Eucalyptus forest and the great cushion and carpet plants on their high peaks. Donald has brought his enthusiasm home and we will be planting some Tasmanian plants this year. And now can winter stop please. It has been long alternating freeze and thaw, and for the first time for some years enough snow to break branches and that has caused a surprising amount of damage. It is mid-February now and the met office is now promising a Siberian easterly and another cold spell. Bring on spring. Make this the year you come and visit us…the garden is already looking good, glistening hollies, witch hazels, snowdrops, winter aconites and the wonderful Daphne bholua.
The 2018 Plant Catalogue is now ready to be thumbed over, pencilled upon and the corners folded while you go about choosing this years selection for your garden.  So put the kettle on, open the chocolate digestives and peruse at your leisure, picking out a great selection to enhance and enlarge your gardens.  If you are on our hard copy mailing list it will be popping through your door any second, but you can get a head start on some of the special plants in limited numbers by  through our website ordering or downloading the pdf of the catalogue.

As the weather is now suitable, we are beginning to send plants in the mail.  We will send out the mailorder in the same order we received the online and posted order forms and will let you know if plants sell out so you can be put on a wait list or choose another alternative.Download a hardcopy mailorder form
Don has been Instagramming in the garden all year.  Join us @LochNessGarden and please do #LochNessGarden and #AbriachanNurseries
 Enjoy, Best wishes,  Margaret, Don & Hamish

Great Autumn Offers 2016 - Primula & Auricula

Our 2016 Autumn Availability of Auricula and Primula.

Many of these were not available earlier in the year.
Get in quick to grab those which are rare or limited in numbers.

Click here to download a pdf of the Autumn Catalogue.

Click here to download a mail order form.

Click here for to order online or see the photographs of each plant.

 

Best Wishes,

  Hamish, Donald & Margaret

 

 

 

Autumn Shrub Sale 2016

A very small selection of our shrub sale plants:

Mahonia x media Charity

Dwarf Rhododendrons & Larger Hybrid Rhododendrons

Decaisnea fargesii (The fabulous blue bean Tree)

Escallonia rubra Macrantha, Griselinia Littoralis,
Hebe John Collier,
 

And many many more.....................

A Slow Snowy Spring

It is still cold.
Real Lambing snows this year……snow showers on Friday and Saturday , and frosts at night. Brrrrrrrrrh. 
The grass is growing but very slooooowwwly  even the dandelions are slow to open. There is an upside to everything, that gives you a fighting chance to get on top of them!

 

There is of course still much to be glad of and the photographs give a feel for why spring is such and heart lightening season.

 

And in case I forget the dawn chorus is a good as ever. We should bottle it and let it out on gloomy low light days.

March White Rabbit

Oh dear, oh dear…I find myself waking up and thinking about everything there is to do and panicking just like the white rabbit…I’m late I’m late.

Well, the only excuse is it has been a cold month. Well, in truth not even that, it has been a rough old switchback of a month, one mild sunny day and the next back to snow showers.
We have snow forecast on the tops again tonight.  So I have let other things dominate my time and energy; but the balance must shift back now and 'just get another layer of fleece on and get out there woman!'

I have been around the garden looking for signs of spring and my goodness they are all there.  The other evening I had a walk around and several “oh my goodness look at that” experiences.
Here are a few of them:
White Daphne mezeron, this just gets better slowly every year and of course a scent to knock your head off. 

The snowdrops and snowflakes are giving way to the daffodils, and this year more than any other I have loved taking the daffodils indoors to watch the buds open. They are wonderfully cheerful.

Some nice crocus tomassinianus here and there, but for every ten we plant, the mice and voles find and eat nine. Still onwards and upwards, and let’s hope they have a population collapse this year..…the mice not the crocus. 

The Rhododendron praecox has defied all the odds and has avoided the frost on its ridiculously early blossom. It is a wonderful cloud of violet  purple. Bravo. 

Hellebores are everywhere. Where we remember, or when they look too spotty, we cut the old leaves off and that lets the flowers show off really well and the new leaves seem to accelerate through. All sorts of flowers; doubles, dark and pale singles, white and spotty ones and some robust excellent hybrids like ericsmithii. Such great garden value.
Margaret Davidson