Dutch Nurseries

I went to Holland at the weekend ... should have taken a juggernaut with me!

Visiting some nurseries around Boskoop (45 minutes from Hook of Holland port) was an experience, the plots are laid out as small holdings with a house by the road, and then a strip, the width of the house and drive, behind the house for perhaps 2.5 hectares. Beautiful "fenland" soil of course ...

I found a Google Maps collection of Exotic Nurseries
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?i...d=202951319301403897693.000478c211e3116e491a0
you'll notice that there are a few more in Holland than other countries! Several of these aren't what I would class as Exotic, but they stock unusual plants at the least, and obscure plants at best.

Of these the most impressive, as an amateur gardening "buyer", was Esveld which is geared as a conventional nursery with a large selection of container grown plants, but also a huge number of stock plants and field-grown plants being grown on - probably to containerise at the time of sale. Worth contacting them, by email, a week or so before you go so that they can source anything that they don't have in stock.

15' tall [unusual] trees in very good health for 50 quid - this rather nice [somewhat smaller] Acer pseudoplatanus 'Leat's cottage' was less than £40





and large specimens at, relatively, very affordable prices - a 4' tall & diameter Box ball for £170



I was also impressed with Rein en Mark Bulk's nursery (only 100 yards down the road).

I could not have told you the Genus even for 90% of their plants ! Lots of familiar (once I read the label!) plants growing as Fastigate, Weeping, Rediculously-small-leaf version, and some mega-leaf versions too ... most of their plants are field-grown, so only available in late Autumn. Here's a couple:


Davidia involucrata "Lady Sunshine"


Sassafras albidum

I picked up a leaflet of other nurseries in the "group" which have joined forces to sell plants to individuals, in addition to the "trade" as they have done in the past, so may not be well publicised, but should be able to make a sale to you They are within a mile or so of each other and may have outlets elsewhere. Not all of them are nurseries . I didn't have a chance to visit any of them on this trip. You may need a browser, like Chrome, that automatically translates the pages

http://www.esveld.nl/engels.php
http://bulk-boskoop.nl/en/

http://hgeers.nl/Welkom/3447
http://www.floraboskoop.nl/roos.asp?cid=6767
http://www.proeftuinvanholland.nl/
http://www.sortimentstuin.nl/index.php/en/
http://www.grassenerf.nl/
http://www.boomkwekerijmuseum.nl/
http://www.vvvboskoop.nl/
http://www.jandenhertog.nl/home
http://www.deplantenmarkt.nl/

If you can figure out how to get plants from me-to-you I'd be happy to bring back things for you as part of a bulk-order - assuming I get around to driving over to collect one in the Autumn.

 

I had heard of Hosta Mouse Ears, with dinky little leaves, here's a variation



Hosta Snow Mouse



Some Hydrangeas:


Hydrangea arborescens "Sheep Cloud"



Hydrangea arborescens "Bounty"



Acer pseudoplatanus Prince Camille de Rohan - £55

 

and a couple of Acers



Acer "Garnet"



Acer Shirasawanum Aureum (with other Acers in the background)

And a panorama from the back of their nursery of surrounding plots:

 

Some great plants there Kristen. It looks like they have the perfect position for irrigation, but only to be expected in Holland I suppose.

 

I should have taken more photos, a bit hard to describe, but every plot is long and thin, and there is a canal down the side of every one ... I have no idea why, the canal is a dead end, but no denying how handy that must be for irrigation.

 

Not enough!

List of my purchases here:
http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/show-us-your-recent-purchases.42582/page-48#post-704461

I'm up for a combined trip to Holland in the Autumn if anyone fancies it ?

 

It's all about drainage. Without mans intervention the water table would be higher. If I remember correctly the monks of the middle ages were major apple growers and planted many more trees than needed to help drain the land. I could be wrong though............

 

Ah, good point. Just seemed excessive to have a decently-wide canal between every property that I forgot that the whole lot is below sea level!

 

We are very fortunate in that several of the garden centers in our vicinity are Dutch owned and bring their stock in from Holland. However, they only bring in what is suitable to our climate so we don't always have the variety.

This one ... http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/giga-garden-centre-algarve.22481/#post-317853 ... has the tallest greenhouses on the Iberian Peninsula and is about 20 minutes from me.

 

I did wonder in what way it might be different ... I haven't found much in the way of recommendations for Hydrangeas, or comparison between them, on the Web. "Sheep Cloud" seems to only exist at a few nurseries on the continent, and the description is "Looks like a cloud of sheep" ... which I would also apply to your picture of Annabelle.

In addition to H. Annabelle I'm also growing H. Incrediball which supposedly has stronger stems, so will self-support its enormous flowers. I'll tell you in a couple of years time, when the bush is life-size, if that's actually true

RHS says that flowers of Annabelle "can be 15cm (6in) across, if not bigger", Incrediball can get up to 30cm across, apparently

I guess that H. Sheep Cloud, and probably a bunch of others, are just variations on a theme ...

In the case of "Incrediball" I guess the Summer Intern was told to think up names for the new varieties that year and that is as good as it got!!

Then there is Hydrangea Invincibelle (same summer intern named that one I suppose?!!). I don't find the shade of pink particularly attractive. Maybe, again, they need to reach life-size before I pass final judgement.

Anways, I expect I've been suckered by the marketting hype ... all the sites selling them say they are wonderful, but now I search the Forums I see many saying "bull", and the one I haven't got, Hydrangea Bounty, is probably the one I should have bought.

 

Excuse me for being ignorant Shiney but what are Irishman's cuttings?