A tour of the trial grounds at Ball Colegrave inspires and awes.
This week, F&F was lucky enough to visit the trial grounds of Ball Colegrave, one of the biggest plant producers in this country. We were there as guests of Plant Me Now, who as loyal F&F readers know, are supporters of our Dream Garden. These trial grounds are a mixture of plant geek’s paradise and inspiration for what we want to do next with the garden.
Ball Colegrave prepare new varieties of plants for wholesale, which means that many of the flowers in this post are plants of the future: some won’t be on sale until next year, and some have a few more years to go than that. In some cases, this will be the first time you will have ever seen these flowers. Many were top secret until the grounds opened a few weeks ago. So look sharp! We’re about to go on the brightest, most breathless tour that F&F’s ever taken.
For instance, have you ever seen so many snapdragons en masse?
Or quite so many Coleus leaves, all together?
Or indeed so many flowers that haven’t even reached the pages of plant catalogues, all growing together?
One of the purposes of these trial grounds is to take new plants created by breeders, test them, and then prepare them for the mass market, whether that be by growing from seed, from cuttings, or tissue culture. The plants are grown in containers, and in the open ground, to ensure that they really are suitable for selling on to retailers such as Plant Me Now. Some of them aren’t on sale yet, and don’t have names. These flowers below are just ‘experimental’:
Others are about to launch onto the market, like this stunning osteospermum:
And others are firm F&F favourites. As you know, we love geraniums, and seeing so many at Ball Colegrave today made us want even more in our garden:
Just in case you weren’t feeling inspired already, the Ball Colegrave people have put together some of their favourite plants into very bright show gardens, along with planting keys:
The whole place is buzzing with growers and breeders, picking plants for their orders next year and examining how their charges are doing. There are plants I am desperate to get my hands on when they do come up to market, and I’ll post separately on them soon. Plant Me Now sell around 100 million plants a year. That’s a lot, although after touring these grounds, it’s a little easier to imagine so many flowers. If only our own gardens were this bright!
And if you haven’t quite had enough flowers… here are some more…
