Spray Usage
We try to operate our nursery with the lightest spray touch we can consistent with producing a good plant. We have to spray to control fungal problems such as mildew, which we do only at need and aphids are dealt with on a spot spraying basis if they become a problem. Dawn will sometimes spray plants just before they are dispatched if she thinks they need a little protection, but on the whole we try to keep spraying to an absolute minimum. The nursery is full of birds and bees and dragonflies, newts and toads and they all play their part in keeping a balance. In our youth we saw many more butterflies around the nursery and joining the crowd and adding neonicotinoids to the compost for a while I’m sure added to their demise. I’m glad they have been banned. So, we check all our plants before they go out, but we can’t guarantee then to be 100% wildlife free. We always strive to send out a good, sound healthy plant and ask you to overlook the odd hole in favour of a healthy environment. I’ll end with a little Joni Mitchell from Big Yellow Taxi
I don’t care about spots on my apples,
Leave me the birds and the bees
Peat Usage
At the moment we use a compost that is 3/4 peat and 1/4 composted bark, which is a mix we have developed over the years. Over the next few years we are going to try to transition to a peat free mix to mitigate the environmental consequences of peat extraction. Over the years we have tried several peat free mixes. Over 20 years ago we tired Coir. It had many of the properties we needed, but is stubbornly alkaline and we really don’t think that transporting bulk materials from the far East is the way we should go if we are thinking environmentally. We tried a green waste mix one year with disastrous consequences. Despite the marketing hype, the product was just so dense and so hot that we lost plants by the hundred. Wool and bracken composts appeal but are in not readily available in quantity, which bring us down to the commercial wood waste mixes. Unfortunately these mixes don’t draw water from sandbeds like peat which will be a big challenge to the way our nursery works, but I think this is the way w will be going.
