The Ashridge Nurseries Blog

Forgive me for boasting, but I understand how Latin plant names work. Learning about botanical nomenclature is one of my proudest achievements (it’s up there with touch-typing and mastering choux pastry). But I also understand that a lot of people don’t get it at all. It looks confusing. And unnecessary...

There’s no escaping it, January is hardly fun packed. After the jollity and cosy indulgences of December, it hits us full on with its chill, dark days and its unreasonable demands to live life more mindfully, more healthily, less lazily. But it’s a brand new year, and – believe it...

Like so many gardeners, I’m a huge fan of box. Its neat, clipped form brings classic elegance and structure all year round – especially welcome in winter, when the bones of a garden are what really matter. A dusting of frost gives a shapely group of box balls a bewitching...

Christmas presents can be an emotive subject for gardeners. There are always so many things a gardener wants to find under the tree on Christmas morning. But, please, not another fork and trowel set (with obligatory floral design). And no more gardeners’ soaps or hand creams. I have a pile...

I’ve recently planted a beech hedge, which my wife has had in her mind for a while, just 10 days ago. We had an area of mown grass that was not really doing anything surrounded on three sides by borders, with a variety of flowers and shrubs. However, one end...

I love roses. They’re colourful, sophisticated, often gorgeously perfumed and happy as Larry in clay soil. Being a London gardener with little time to garden, this is crucial. A winter project My little pre-Christmas project this year is to plant the climber ‘Bathsheba’ in a pot against the east-facing wall...

For me, November is a month of mixed emotions. I struggle with the shorter hours of daylight, and the prospect of those seemingly interminable months of bleakness to come. Don’t talk to me of hygge or cosying up by the fire. I want to be out there, inspired by the...

Personally I love daffodils and narcissi, and as William Wordsworth waxed lyrical on the beauty of them, whilst in a pensive moment and enjoying the tranquility of them dancing in the breeze, here is his poem: I wandered lonely as a cloud, That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all...

I’m sure that you, like all good gardeners, have been constantly looking at the weather forecast for your local area, and this week it seems as though it’s getting colder. The trees are losing their leaves which have turned into beautiful hues of yellow, orange, rust and red. This is...

  We get many people enquiring about specific things at certain times of the year, and here are some of the most frequent ones and some helpful answers:   Question 1:   When will my order be delivered? Answer: Current deliveries for bare root plants should arrive by mid-November depending on what...