In Full Bloom

Turn your garden into a rainbow of colour with locally-grown plants and flowers. There’s everything from hardy perennials to sweet-smelling lavenders, cottage garden favourites to shade-loving plants. For help and advice on planting, come and speak to one of our green-fingered experts… 

 
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Tortworth Plants

On a typical market day, you can expect to find over 50 different varieties of plants at Tortworth Nursery’s stall. These include a range of alpines, herbaceous perennials and herbs, from the classic garden favourites, to the rare and unusual. Most of the plants are grown outside, which makes them good and robust, and ready for planting straight into the garden. Summer flowering plants include Echinacea, Penstemon, Nepeta, Geranium, Coreopsis, Salvia, Phlox, Heuchera, Lychnis, Gypsophila and Dianthus. The herb range includes all the staple kitchen favourites, grown in small batches in succession, so that there are always young, fresh plants at each market.

The Lavender Garden

June, July and August are the best time for hardy flowering lavenders, grown by Andrew Bullock at his Lavender Garden in Kingscote. Of these, the angustifolias flower in June/July and the intermedias flower in July/August. Angustifolia cultivars are more compact and sweet scented and are very attractive to bees and butterflies. Good varieties are the pale blue Little Lady (a great culinary lavender) and Ashdown ForestFolgate is a lovely sapphire blue and deep blue/purple cultivars include Hidcote and Imperial Gem. A traditional pale pink is Rosea or Hidcote Pink. Intermedias all have that classic slightly eucalyptus lavender scent – try the classic Provence lavender Grosso and its white twin Edelweiss, superb for bumblebees. Grey-leaved varieties are larger and include Old English and Lullingstone Castle. Other good cultivars include Sussex and the giant Edwardian Lavender Grappenhall.

Windmill Nursery

Sue Atkins grows hardy perennials at her nursery in Minchinhampton. Being right on the edge of the common where it can be pretty windy, the plants have to grow up tough but strong. Sue shares the stall with her friend Pat who lives in Cashes Green where the plants mature almost a month earlier. Early summer flowering plants include good old fashioned cottage plants – Foxgloves, Lupins, Aquilegias, Campanulas and Delphiniums. For mid summer, there’s Phlox, Poppies, Dianthus, Echinacea, Hardy Fuchsias and Penstemons while for late summer expect Anemones, Hardy Lobelias, Asters, Chrysanthemums, Verbena Bonariensis and many more.  

Spinneywell Nursery

This family-run nursery specialises in the provision of hardy plants such as Box, Yew, Shrubs and Perennials as well as Ferns, Bamboo, Ornamental Grass, Water Plants, Potted Bulbs, Roses, Potted Trees, Topiary, Herbs, Wild Flowers, Alpines, Fruit and more. They grow over 1,000 varieties at the nursery in Oakridge and are constantly adding to the collections with more unusual types of plants that you can’t always find at garden centres.