Lowaters nursery visit.
Lowaters is one of the bigger nurseries that the Plant Centre buy from. 11 acres. Their freelance agent (seller, point of contact) Mr Plant took us there. It is located near Southampton, a mile away from the sea. It set up in the 1940s as first a strawberry farm then grew tomatoes in greenhouses. Due to the oil crisis in the 70s they were advised to grow hardy ornamental plants and have done so since.
They supply to garden centres all over the country, including the large chain ones like Wyevale and Long Acre. Mr Plant is now solely dealing with the 'independent' clients like Wisley, visiting his 'client' once a week during the growing season. They are big but not as big as Farplants and Hilliers.
They strive for a certain element of sustainability, they collect rainwater storage for their irrigation, solar panels for electricity (only loses 5% efficiency in 10 years) and peat free soil - a coir based medium specially made for them to a secret recipe by Melcourt industries. They found that the former two methods have definitely paid on return on the long run.
Photo 1: Water reservoir for rainwater storage with fish in it. They had 30-40% of their costs paid by a government grant scheme. It has made up its costs over four years.
They produce 70% of their own plants and have their own plant breeding programme, in particular Hebes (Photo 4). Their bread and butter plant is Hebe 'Heartbreaker', in which they receive 5% royalties for every plant sold. The rest of the 30% they buy in - plants that are new varieties, under license already or hard to prop.
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| Photo 4: One of the glasshouses dedicated to Hebes. |
Photo 5: They have a new Hebe called 'Midnight Sky' that they are excited about.
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| Photo 5: Hebe 'Midnight Sky' |
They use a humic compost feed brought in from Holland called Fargro. It's a high phosphate feed for Hebes. They mix ingredients together, oxygenate it, add molasses and seaweed in, then it is sprayed on plants. Plants are watered from underneath - capillary bed system.
They use 4 different transport companies. Have 1% of credit (returns).
Pots are recycled ones and are recyclable. They use black ones because other colours aren't recyclable yet. Their production line (Photo 7), when they're potting up and labelling.
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| Photo 7: Conveyor belt system for potting up. |
Photo 9: Staff members potting up Verbena bonariensis.
They have two propagators, one for seed and one for cuttings. Gillian who has been here for 19 years does 300 - 600 cuttings per hour (4 modules). They use slip cutters. Strict hygiene practice is carried out, sterilising bench and slips everytime they stop for break. They try not to use hormones for cuttings as that constitutes more work. Prop. material can be stored in polystyrene ice/ fish boxes with lids - some hard leaved ones up to four days. They also keep prop. material in fridge at 7°C.
Photo 10: Propagation house, with mist unit at the back.
Plants are hand trimmed. Insect traps are used to inform what insects are most active and what control to use.