12 June, Creating the new gardens finally...

I haven't got into the whole blog thing recently as I have been slightly preoccupied, namely redoing the gardens/stock beds . In the last few weeks me and hubby ripped up all the turf (and there was a lot of it), skipped it and got 4 tonnes of topsoil in.


I'm now moving said 4 tonnes to where I want it. It took a good 4 hours witha turf cutter to get most of the grass up.

Now i'm doing what should be the fun bit, standing planning where things should go and popping then in place...but no. The builders want shooting, I think there are more buried bricks than weer used for the building. Every time you dig you hit something and the ground is really compact anyway. Anyway, plants are going in..then coming out again when I decide they aren't quite in the right place.

Plants...ok the best bit. So far i've put in:
Impatiens arguta (from nepal), Acanthus Hollards Gold, Angelica corinne Tremaine (scrummy and rarehttp://www.exoticunusual.co.uk/acatalog/Angelica__Corinne_Tremaine_.html) and Angelica Ebony (even scrummier, very sexy big black divided leaves on this hardy perennial and fluffy pink flowers http://www.exoticunusual.co.uk/acatalog/Angelica__Ebony___Black_foliage_Architectural_.html) Cerinthe major, Decaisnea fargesii (Dead mans fingers!) has electric blue seed pods that do resemble an old knarled hand. An attractive plant too, nice green foliage that always looks fresh can reach around 5 feet or so. I will be selling some soon, let me know if you want notifying.

June 08 Exotic Unusual Website live!!!

June 08.

The Nursery has been manic recently, plants are everywhere and we finally launched the Exotic Unusual website http://www.exoticunusual.co.uk/index.htmla few weeks ago, orders of our Exotic , Rare and Unusual Mail order plants are starting to flow.

In flower right now the diminutive hardy gem viola "Bowles Black", very low growing and bears dark purple/black flowers. Very pretty en masse.http://www.exoticunusual.co.uk/acatalog/Viola__Bowles_Black_.html

The Cerinthe major (honeywort)http://www.exoticunusual.co.uk/acatalog/Cerinthe_major__Purpurescens_.html is a favourite, when the first flower opened I wondered what all teh fuss is about, now they are in full swing I get it, they are gorgeous deep purple blue flowers and bracts nod gracefully and the bees love them. Very easy to grow just dont like drying out.

Chilli/ chile plants are in full growth and the first flowers are appearing, in a couple of weeks masses of unusual chillies should be growing, cant wait to try them all!http://www.exoticunusual.co.uk/acatalog/Chillies.html
We have chilli (capsicum) "Lemon Drop", hot and strongly lemon tasting chilli with yellow chillies, a real unusual one. Capsicum Hungarian Black/ black hungarian, proving very popular with blackish chillies. We are also selling capsicum "Sweet Chocolate" a chocolate coloured pepper so a real unusual pepper and easy to grow, and lets face it peppers aren't cheap even for the normal boring red and green ones at about 50p each so why not get all the fun of growing your own, plus they look cool!
We have some capsicum "Joes Long cayenne", these produce unusual chillies up to about 14" long and bright red, really popular and heavy cropping chilli plants to buy. Capsicum "Purple Tiger" are also coming up for sale, the foliage is multicoloured and great chilli fruits a real ornamental chilli plant even if it wasnt in flower. Click here for more info or to buy our cheap chilli plants, they are only around £3.50 each or we offer collection with different plants giving even greater savings. http://www.exoticunusual.co.uk/acatalog/Chillies.html

Our most popular plants include the very rare Geranium madarense "alba" http://www.exoticunusual.co.uk/acatalog/Geranium_maderense__Alba___White_tropical__.html we also offer the normal tropical hot pink geranium maderense and the tropical looking but hardy geranium palmatum which has reddish stems too, snap them up fast.

We have lots of unusual and exotic plants ready for sale now all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff that you haven't heard of or seen before prices start at about £1 a plant, most plants are below £6 each.
We have masses of the annual white double flowered poppy papaver "swansdown" , these are good sized plug plants and are coming into flower, they just need new homes and planting out so they can really show off http://www.exoticunusual.co.uk/acatalog/Papaver__Swansdown_.html. We do 3 plant for £3 or 10 plants for £5.25 etc so grab them while you can. They look beautiful with pure white poppy flowers and glaucous foliage.

April 24th 08

Just a quick update.

The website went live on Saturday, still not quite finsihed uploading all the new products but there is plently on so far and the card facilities etc are set up so we're ready to take your orders!

A good response about the look of the new site and hits are building up. I also booked us in for the RHS "The Garden" magazine for June, July and Aug this year so hopefully lots of new customers will come as a result. We are also now included in the RHS PlantFinder both online and in the book and that is generating new website hits.

Plant wise...

Finally the seed raised stock is reaching sale size, I am overrun with yummy geranium maderense alba! beautiful plants that could do with homes. This is a rare white flowered version of maderense and we sell the ven hardier palmatum too. Whilst i'm on the geranium subject I have lots coming up for sale of other varieties too.

Germination is continuing apace! i'm awe struck by the germination rates this year, amazing what a bit of greenhouse heat can do. Just checked today and we have lots more appearing... leontochir ovallei, coleus palisandra, bomareas, callistemons, you name it they are all appearing.

Back to the website for me... more products to upload.

By the way i've added/am adding a load of artwork that I have to clearout. They are all one-offs and are on at sale prices to clear so have a look I do mosaics (which are pretty good if I do say so myself, i'm happy to take commissions too), ceramics around £6, paintings at around £20 each. I will also be putting some art materials like real gold leaf smalti etc when I get chance.

Any questions mail me via the site.
Chow for now.

Lou

Spring is in the air

So it's early March, been a while since my last post and i've been crazy busy. The greenhouse is nearly bursting with exotic and unusual seedtrays, new plant type seedlings are popping up every day so it's all promising and exciting. In the past few months it's been a case of ordering tonnes of seeds, seeing what the competition is up to, organising the design of the Exotic Unusual website, planting seeds and potting up.

I'm trying loads of stuff i've never done before this year plus old favourites, i've put in several large orders for one of the nurseries specialities- Agaves. These odd looking little seedlings are popping up nicely can't wait for them to pick up speed, it's fair to say that they aren't the quickest growing plants around!

I've found the greenhouse must be doing something right as germination rates have been good, the only thing stopping me having as many plants as I should is my bad habit of overwatering seedlings, I will pack this in.

New ranges for this year include, agaves, passionflowers, a few acacias, several lovely salvia varieties a particular fave of mine, and much much more. My original aim for the nursery was to specialise in agaves, passionflowers and other rare exotics witha few unusual plants thrown in so that there was something for everyone. After ordering in agaves from around the world ( I try not to think about the combined cost so far this year) and thinking about the lack of speed of agave seedlings I decided that I had to carry far more stock varieties.

To cut a long story a bit shorter these are my main categories, exotic, unusual, and rare plants. I've alos gone for a few novely items like the mimosa whose leaves fold up when touched (I was thinking of the possibility of keeping baby Alexia occupied with these), scented plants like the heliotrope or cherry pie, coloured plants so that I can sell plant collections like "black plants" , grasses and so on, basically something hopefully for everyone.

Roll on spring the weathers miserable...

Gearing up for launch

At this time of the year there isn't a great deal to be done physically in the greenhouse. It's a case of doing checks and watering when needed every few days or so.

My time plant wise is currently being spent on research more than anything and pestering my fantastic, multi-talented, wonderful web designer Andy or Munki boy as he is known (he better be reading this) http://www.munki-boy.co.uk/ . The Exotic Unusual site is being built and is in the tweaking stages, looks great all it needs now is plants!

Yesterday I did a stock check, made a list of every plant I had to sell at this moment in time, size, details and so on. Where I had bought in the plants I worked out how much they had cost me including overheads and worked out my selling prices.
As Agave specialsits are, shall we ay rare in this country it difficult to pitch a price so I have to look at my costs, desirability, risk and so on, after all I am running a business not a charity I am here to make good profit and I don't apologise for that. I put 100% into running my businesses constantly and with this come alot of sacrifices and very high risks. Therefore if you see a price that you find steep, it is like that for a very good reason you are not just paying for a plant you are factoring in the complete devotion, overheads, sacrifices and risks of the seller.

A good first step in getting the nursery known is that I have been accepted into the Plant Finder book and website so people will know what I sell and that I exist, just need the site live asap so people don't get disappointed if they try going to the site at the minute.

This morning I ordered all manner of pots and labels so I should have enough to keep me stocked for a good while.

The weekend was spent forum bashing, researching into my main venture idea for this year. My husband has his own computer business, our free time revolves mainly around work but it's good as we spur and envourage each other and come up with suggestions, alot of the time just telling the other person what's going through your head helps make decisions for you. He is of the "just get on and do it"- "have you not done it yet?" school, i'm more of the business head I think I calcualte risk and research till I am completely satisfied, then I get on with whatever needs to be done.

I need to get another seed order done. Potted up 8 lovely germinated Cycas panzhihuaensis and 2 Ensete superbum aswell, looks like the seeds are beginning to sprout.

New Years Eve 2007

Well, it's come form nowhere but here we are New Years Eve 2007. Fully driven by my Christmas presents of Entrepreneur type books i'm part way through plotting my New Years resolutions. Essentially from now on I want to be successful.

I've always loved Art and Design, infact that's what I studied and qualified as (3d Designer/Maker and later I trained as a lecturer in Art and Multimedia Design). I think the way I see the world in from my Artist's perspective has a massive influence on me, what I like and what I do.

I somehow got into plants, I was pretty young at the time, it started with the revolutionary gardening equiptment of an empty Ferrero Rocher tub and a packet of Marigold seeds and went from there. I tried allsorts, Bonsai, Climbers bits of everything. Lots of stuff failed, but what I did learn was experience.

So here I am today, a few years ago I set up "Winter Hill Plants" as an outlet for some of my spare bits. I figured, if I can get what I want out of something (i.e plants for myself) and then sell enough left over plants so that effectively it hasn't cost me anything then I was onto a winner. So I started ordering what I liked then selling any spares I might have. My site was poo, I created it myself by learning HTML but it did the job and cost me nothing. It served it's purpose of advertising my plants and I sold enough to keep my hobby going.

I have to say, the day my mum decided to tell a fellow school friends mum (infact they weren't good friend at all but hey) that I got a greenhouse for Christmas wasn't a good one. I knew what was coming, ridicule. When it came back to me I simply denied it but being into plants was a geeky thing and I knew it and it wasn't something I advertised to anyone. It's different now, I still don't advertise to friend what i'm into although I think as you get older it's more acceptable to have a geeky interest. I put my initial interest in plants down to the artist bit in me, I see things in an architectural mindset, the shapes, contours, textures and colours. They inspire my artistic work. To get this exotic inspiration it therefore made sense to grow them myself, the lure of making a few quid at the same time was also appealing. I think my entreprenurial skills started young, I remember collecting grass seed stems and selling them to my gran when she visited for 20p a bunch, I bet she was thrilled with paying for weed seeds!


Somehow I got into an Exotic Plants forum down the line and my passion took off from there. I could take a tiny seed and grow it into a rare/ exotic/ unusual/ valuable plant, the challenge was to get the thing to germinate in the first place then get it to survive, the lure of Exotics in this country is to create a garden full of tropical looking plants like you might see on holiday but have them growing in your own garden, your own bit of paradise. It's no wonder the interest in Exotics took off, the challenge of also trying to get the things to survive our icy winters was great.

Now a few years down I got married, had a baby and a terrace house with no garden, I had to sell all my plants as I was no longer living at home to care for them all and I needed the money to fund my art materials. I gave up work in the school hols in 2006 , I was pregnant within a couple of months and got busy trying to learn new art skills and sell stuff. In October 2007 we moved to a beautiful 4 bed house with a garden front and back and I thought sod it, not only will I try and make a business selling art but I will set up a nursery but with a more focused business head on not just a hobby.

I bought a second hand greenhouse that me, hubby and dad had to go and dismantle 2.5 hours away, step-dad in law built the base and did a superb job at it ant then we got the frame up. I ordered plants and seeds in and awaited February 2008 which was when I was to sow my seeds. In the meantime I sowed some seeds that I could and had the heater set to maintain 10 degrees.

And now on New Years Eve 2007 I am doing my first task of starting a blog of the nursery goings on...