Hill House Nursery - Devon

I have just returned from a few days in Devon, where I spent a wonderful afternoon at this nursery not far from Totness. http://www.hillhousenursery.com/ It really is superb for exotic plants, and I would thoroughly recommend it.

The prices were so reasonable - at about £5 each, especially considering the fact that many were good sized, rare, and in flower.

I couldn't resist :-

Aristea major. Photo Annies Annuals. This is an African member of the Iris family, and grows to 3 feet or more from a bulb. But like all the other plants I bought - somewhat tender.


Cantua buxifolia. Photo StrangeWonderfulThings. This is shrub from Mexico. However from what I read my small plant will take some time to flower like this.


Dahlia imperialis. Photo StrangeWonderfulThings. This is a picture of a single plant, and was the item I really went to Hill House to buy. Its a tree Dahlia. At the nursery it grows 17 feet high to reach the top of their huge glasshouse, but doesn't flower till November. Its not going to be an easy one, and I doubt that it will flower for me - but its worth a try. I read that it produces tubers like any other Dahlia but they can be 4 feet long - in this country.


Above - Dahlia excelca - my purchase. I knew that D. imperialis flowered very late, but I remembered a discussion a long time ago on another thread between the wife of Ron Hubbard (the nursery owner) and someone else about another tree Dahlia that flowered earlier. Whereupon Ron produced this. There is no other place in the UK that stocks this plant - inspite of three other entries on the RHS plant finder that says they do. Some say its a different species and some say its a variant or hybrid of D. imperialis. It's said to grow to 10 or 12 feet in this country, but up to 30 feet (one source says 36 feet) in its native Mexico. Ron said that its stems are sometimes used as house drain pipes - which says something about its size. But the great joy is that it flowers earlier and my plant already had a flower bud.

Duranta erecta. This is a shrub from central and south America, where it is said to flower almost all year round.

 

I am continuing this as the softwareseems to do funny things if you upload more than four pictures of your own.

A picture of my Iochroma coccinea purchase. I saw this by pure chance when looking for another plant, and couldn't believe my eyes. Last year I scoured the internet looking at sources worldwide, but couldn't find anyone who sold seed for this. Then suddenly there it was - very rare, two feet tall and in flower, and all for only £5.


Lobelia laxiflora - yet another plant coming into flower.


I am already in love with this one. Streptosolen jamesonii - the marmalade bush. Even my small plant (shown here) was in flower and the colour is fabulous. Its an evergreen perennial member of the potato family from South America that flowers there virtually 12 months of the year.


Tibouchina organensis. Photo DavesGarden. Purple Glory Bush. This flowers late in the year, and like most of the above I know very little about it - other than the fact that my neighbours haven't got it.

 

Hiya Peter, thanks for highlighting this place. I go to Newton Abbot quite often, so I'll have to put it on my 'places to visit' list.

 

Great choice , lovely plants ,
my girlfriend totally forbidden to buy anymore plants but would love to pay a visit .

 

Now, Peter, you are trying to make me very, VERY jealous, naughty you! :WINK1:

I know of Hill House Nurseries and Strange and Wonderful Things.

Now I have seeds for Duranta erecta which I got from the hotel we frequent for lunch in the hills where my paintings are on display ... but I have never planted them!

Ooh, I just love the red Iochroma ...

Sadly, I gave up with my Marmalade Bush quite a few years ago ... it just didn't seem to like the constant dry heat here although supposedly it does.

My Tibouchina is still alive and well having liked our downpours of rain over the a few days of late ... such a beauty but really does not like the constant dry heat as above.

Your Geranium and Salvia are well, healthy and happy and I will take pictures soon for you when I write and catch up. Things SHOULD slow down here next week ... says she, tongue in cheek with fingers and toes and everything else crossed.

Thank you for sharing all of these and am sure you had a lovely visit with your sister.

 

Peter - I'm so glad that you've visited this gem of a nursery! And that you got some real beauts too!

The Lobelia can get rather large, but strikes easily from cuttings and may even set some seed too.
The Cantua will look a right mess by the end of the year even if you try to tie it up as it grows. Don't try to tidy it up though as it blooms on last years growth. It's probably only a year or two away from blooming.
I have Tibouchina urvilleana - that dislikes tap water, so bear it in mind with yours. It also strikes easily from cuttings.

My OH has just received a delivery from them and was over the moon with the plants and the packaging. £13 seemed a little steep, but it was a huge box that was properly divided meaning that everything arrived in excellent condition. However, as I have to go to Plymouth in a few weeks I'll be making the very slight detour to indulge myself in person.

 

Victoria - it must be strange seeing us drooling over stuff that grows so easily in Portugal. Though I am sorry to hear that some of yours don't like the dry heat - that's not usually a problem in my garden.

Keith - thanks for the tips. I didn't know that Tibouchina doesn't like tap water - I will have to watch that. Sometimes I think that you have to get a plant first before all the Googling starts to sink in.

 

The only damage done was horrid calcium deposits on the leaves.

 

Thanks Keith.

 

Its on my Want's List too ...

Your photo looks nice, and I get the impression that it would spectacular to look UP to those flowers, but everything I have read says the flowers are nothing to write home about ??

Some other fabby plants there too ... no idea where you squeeze them in? !! "Couldn't afford not to have it" I suppose?!

 

What cracking pictures..love to vist that nursery some day..
Thanks for posting
Wayne

 

The Dahlia imperialis is very small at the moment, but I hope to be taking some cuttings of this and the other plants in due time.

However the one that is potentially even more interesting to me is the Dahlia excelsa. It seems to grow to a similar height, but it flowers earlier - in fact mine already has a couple of buds on it. Don, on another forum who lives reasonably close, says that his reached 12 feet. There is almost no information about it on the internet - but the flowers seem to be very similar to imperialis. The pictures of imperialis on the web look lovely. I love the pink against the blue sky - but the real test is seeing one in flower.

I have no idea how or where I will put the plants - but I understand that a true gardener doesn't get sidelined by such trivia.


The other thing I loved about the nursery was being able to walk through their huge glasshouses and being able to see and admire their stock plants, many of which were in flower. They had two impressive 5' by 5' Alygoyne bushes in flower, which I really liked. They had a particular relevance for me as I am growing some from seed. The picture above is from Performance Nursery and shows it growing outdoors in California. Its a close relative of Hibiscus.

 

I'm a true gardener, and have space ... just a thought, you know, in case you have any doubts, eh? !!

 

That was certainly one of the highlights for me too - the Passiflora in the co-joined polytunnels were something else!
Nice to see wildlife encouraged in too............

 

My Dahlia excelsa from Hill House has now flowered. Its inside my greenhouse, so please excuse a bit of glass reflection. In bud it looked dark purple, but it has opened to a slightly purply pink. As Kristen said the flower doesn't compare with the big pompous hybrids we are used to; but I am delighted with it. I feel that many of the blousey hybrids would look good on a show bench, but are really rather out of place in a border. I would prefer to have a mass of smaller flowers rather than a few huge ones. I suspect that the flower is very similar to D. imperialis.

There are many more flower buds - so it has passed the first hurdle of flowering, in my opinion, with flying colours. Now can it reach 36 feet to pass the second hurdle of size.