The Ashridge Nurseries Blog

To be honest, August isn’t the best month in the garden. Right now, there’s a bit of a breeze getting up. Lat weekend it was positively stormy. There were leaves and bits of broken tree branch all over the lawn that needed clearing up. My runner beans, long and lush...

Ashridge Nurseries recently asked our customers a number of questions, one of which was: “What are the top three reasons for shopping with Ashridge Nurseries?” The voting has taken place over the past two weeks and over 1000 customers have made their valuable opinions known. The top reason why customers...

(Happy memories for those of us old enough to remember the days of Play School!) We were passing through Ludlow on our way back from a family holiday last week and stopped off for a quick visit to nearby Stokesay Castle. I used to go there with my parents when...

Your garden is home to a huge range of insects and other living creatures and they all play a really important role in pollinating our plants. In order to benefit the pollinating wildlife, the best way to encourage them is to grow pollen and nectar-rich plants that they love. Here...

I visited a friend’s house and gardens a few weekends ago for his birthday lunch and was taken on a tour of the gardens. There is a formal garden behind the front of the house, with 120 year old yew and box hedging set in symmetrical patterns. Andrew explained that...

So said Arthur Conan Doyle, author of more than 50 Sherlock Holmes mysteries and true devotee of the beauty of roses.  This year the roses have been spectacular. I’m sure all of you will have seen and nurtured some fantastic roses, many still at their best. I love them, having...

Many of our customers ask us whether our plants are grown in the UK. Ashridge Nurseries can say that "by number of different species of plant sold - the vast majority are UK grown". In terms of a percentage - 90% are UK grown. We have several production nurseries in...

The fabulous gardens of Walmer Castle We spent a few days in and around Broadstairs in Kent a few weekends ago, including an afternoon at Walmer Castle. It’s slap bang on the coast, between Deal and Dover, looking out over the North Sea across to France, canons trained menacingly on...

My garden’s looking wonderful at the moment, even though its on a hilltop - and therefore slightly windswept - location means our plants seem to be a little later than elsewhere in the southwest of England. I recently went to the Isle of Mull for a week with some friends...

There’s something magical about plants that seed themselves. I sowed a pack of annual love-in-a-mist about seven years ago, scattering seeds randomly in a sunny border at the back of the garden. I may have raked over the soil and possibly even given the area a quick water. But then...