Autumn pots, bulbs, violas ...

This week in the nursery we’ve been taking in deliveries of autumn bedding plants, and making up hanging baskets. I love this time of year. Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve pricked out thousands of violas, and they’re just starting into flower.

There are trays of beautiful pink-berried Pernettya mucronata, silvery, coral-like Calocephalus, and gorgeous vivid heucheras. There are spikes of Calluna vulgaris - heather - and swirls of the dancing, ice-blue grass fistuca glauca. They’re all autumn colours: frosty and silvery; deep red and pink, purple and orange. My favourite viola is ‘Delft Blue,’ a deep cobalt that makes the purples and oranges sing. 

When we make up pots or hanging baskets in the nursery, we usually layer the small tulip ‘Red Riding Hood’ with narcissus ‘Tête á Tête’ and mixed spring crocuses, which will flower in sequence from late winter into spring. Other bulbs that work well are iris reticulata, species tulips such as turkestanica, and other small narcissus such as ‘Pipit’.

You could even include autumn crocuses, which will be in flower in just a couple of weeks; if you planted crocus sativa, the saffron crocus, you could get your own (tiny!) harvest of saffron from the stigmas of the flower. Although the bulb flowers will come and go, everything else we plant will carry on right through to spring.

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Vertigrow Plant Nurseries, Lawnswood House, Malton Road, York, YO32 9TL