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Box Elder Seed
Acer negundo£12.00 inc. VATBox Elder is not an elder at all but a relatively short-lived, bushy deciduous acer. Fast growing to a medium or large size. The bright green pinnate leaves are paler on the underside. Flowers pale yellow green before the leaves appear. Useful for colonising poor, wet soils but can become invasive and is classed as a pest species in Australia. There is a variegated form ‘Flamingo’, which has pink, white and green leaves.
pic courtesy of Karduelis, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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Broad Leaved Lime Seed
Tilia platyphyllos£6.00 inc. VATThe Broad Leaved Lime is a large vigorous tree with roundish sharply toothed leaves with downy hairs which are more prominent on the underside. The flowers appear in mid summer, and can be used to make a calming tea. Bees appreciate them for nectar. The timber is useful in turning and instrument making since it is fine-grained and soft.
Not for forestry purposes.
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Broom Seed
Cytisus scoparius£6.00 inc. VATBroom is a medium sized deciduous shrub, with whip-like fine branches and small leaves, quite like gorse but without the thorns. It has rich butter yellow, scented flowers in late spring, (again, like gorse) often visited by bees and the flowers have an interesting method of depositing pollen on the bees’ backs. Seed pods twist and crack open when ripe, making clicking noises. If pruning is necessary, it is done after flowering. Quite often found as a pioneer on poor soils
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Buckthorn/Purging Buckthorn Seed
Rhamnus cathartica£6.00 inc. VATPurging Buckthorn is a large deciduous shrub or small tree. The spiny branches are very attractive in the autumn when they are carrying their small shiny dark almost black fruits and yellowing leaves. Flowers are insignificant yellow-green in summer and held close to the stems. Leaves and fruit are slightly toxic if ingested, causing stomach problems, though birds eat the berries with impunity. It is the food-plant of the Brimstone butterfly. In parts of N. America, this plant is classed as an invasive species, but this doesn’t happen here.
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Burnet / Scotch Rose Seed
Rosa spinosissima / pimpinellifolia£5.00 inc. VATThe Burnet Rose is a small suckering deciduous shrub that makes dense low thickets of prickly branches so forms a good security barrier in plantings. It has small white or pale pink flowers from late spring through to early summer The profusion of highly scented flowers is followed by a heavy crop of rounded black fruits. Quite often it is found at the edges of beaches, sand dunes and shingle banks. Useful for coastal plantings.
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Butterfly Bush Seed
Buddleia davidii£7.00 inc. VATBuddleia or Butterfly Bush is a deciduous shrub which produces fragrant purple flowers on long racemes from mid summer onwards. As the common name suggests it is particularly attractive to many species of butterflies which feed on its nectar. Greyish leaves with a white underside. Prune in spring. It can be cut back to ground level without killing it! Often found on waste ground and railway edges, also on old and derelict buildings, especially on chimneys.
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Callery/ Bradford Pear Seed
Pyrus calleryana£6.00 inc. VATThe Callery Pear is a pretty and resilient ornamental deciduous tree that grows to 15m. When young it has a teardrop shape but spreads with age. The showy white blossom appears before the leaves in spring and gives rise to small hard brown fruits in the Autumn. Good for early bees. Extremely resistant to fire-blight disease.
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Cherry Laurel / Common Laurel Seed
Prunus laurocerasusPrice range: £5.00 through £11.00 inc. VATCherry Laurel is vigorous wide spreading evergreen shrub with dark shiny green leaves, often used for screening. It produces attractive erect clusters of white flowers in spring that give rise to small cherry like fruits that eventually turn black. Insects visit the flowers and birds eventually eat the berries. Clip in the summer, for hedging, and the best finish is by using secateurs!
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Cherry Plum Seed
Prunus myrobalan / cerasifera£5.00 inc. VATCherry Plum is a small, native, deciduous tree smothered in small white flowers in early spring. Mature specimens bear red cherry-plums in late summer and autumn. It is an excellent shrub for a dense hedge and attracts early insects so is useful on meadow edges and mixed plantings of native trees. Tolerant of pruning. Also known as Myrobalan Cherry. (There are other trees from Asia, also know as Myrobalan)
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Chinese Barberry Seed
Berberis julianaePrice range: £5.00 through £10.00 inc. VATChinese Barberry is a excellent densely growing, evergreen, spiny-leaved bush. The leaves are copper tinted when young. The scented yellow flowers are borne in bunches of up to 15. It makes a good hedging plant and security barrier.
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Chinese Flowering Dogwood Seed
Cornus kousa chinensis£5.50 inc. VATChinese Flowering Dogwood is a decorative, slow growing, large shrub or small tree suitable for small gardens. Long-lasting leaf-size pinkish-white bracts surround the small flowers from early summer. Superb autumn colour.
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Chinese Mahogany Seed
Toona sinensisPrice range: £5.00 through £22.00 inc. VATToona sinensis is a highly decorative deciduous tree, often multistemmed. The long and large pinnate aromatic leaves are often pink when young and are used in Chinese cuisine. The smooth bark on young trees becomes shaggier with age. Small scented flowers in July, white or pink, are produced in long pannicles at branch ends. The wood is used for furniture as a ‘genuine’ mahogany substitute and also burns aromatically. It is now being investigated as an alternative woodland tree because of climate change and disease issues.
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Chinese Wisteria Seed
Wisteria sinensisPrice range: £6.00 through £20.00 inc. VATWisteria is probably the most noble of climbers. The leaves are made up of 9 to 13 oblong leaflets. The highly scented mauve or deep lilac flowers are borne before the leaves in spring and are produced on racemes up to 30cm long. These are followed by velvety seed pods. A mature specimen is a wonder to see and smell. Prune twice a year, shortening the long tendrils in February and again in June.
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Cider Gum Seed
Eucalyptus gunniiPrice range: £7.00 through £46.00 inc. VATEucalyptus or Cider Gum the best known and hardiest Eucalyptus in cultivation. Its evergreen juvenile leaves are rounded and an outstanding silver blue, much used in floristry. As they mature the leaves become sickle shaped. It can be allowed to develop into a specimen tree, pruned to bush size or coppiced. After pruning, the foliage will grow as juvenile again. Very fast growing. Unlike many Eucalypts, the bark tends to be smooth, not flakey. Flowers are creamy white, on and off through the season. Scented oils are released from crushed or burning leaves and are used as an antiseptic and to treat respiratory problems.
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Common Green Beech Seed
Fagus sylvatica£5.00 inc. VATBeech is a versatile, majestic tree with a smooth silver grey bark. New spring leaves are a superb lime green and in autumn they turn a rich copper gold colour. It makes an excellent specimen tree or an outstanding hedge, especially since the old, crisp brown (marcescent) leaves stay on the hedge until the spring. Pollution tolerant, it will cope with exposed and cold sites but will not grow in coastal areas.
Not for forestry purposes.
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Common Ivy Seed
Hedera helix£3.50 inc. VATCommon Ivy is adaptable and makes an excellent ground cover plant as well as being a good climber. Its evergreen leaves offer all year round green cover, and as such is used as a shelter and nesting site for small birds and insects. The scented spherical flower-heads offer a good source of nectar/pollen for late autumn flying insects and the blue-black berries are eaten through the late autumn and early winter by birds.
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Common Walnut Seed
Juglans regiaPrice range: £5.00 through £9.50 inc. VATCommon Walnut is a slow growing medium sized tree with a rounded head, and it is not very common! It’s deciduous leaves have lots of leaflets a bit like Ash, but bigger. It produces very valuable wood and the walnut nut. For pickled walnut, the aromatic fruit need to be collected in late June before the inner shell is formed, and whilst the fleshy outer part is green and quite soft. Myths abound about Walnut which is supposed to be The Witches’ Tree, maybe because the branches look sturdy but are, in fact, hollow. Beating the trunk in the winter with sticks is rumoured to increase the walnut crop!
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Copper Beech Seed
Fagus sylvatica atropurpureum£5.00 inc. VATThe Copper Beech is an outstandingly beautiful deciduous tree. This deep purple leaved form of beech is usually grown from seed. The purple plants are then selected from the 50% that show the purple form. Can be trimmed to form a superb neat hedge. It keeps the crisp dead leaves on the branches until new leaves start to appear in the spring. The copper-brown coloured seeds are encased in hard prickly ‘masts’ Quite shallow rooted, so best to be grown where not exposed to high winds.
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Cordyline Seed
Cordyline australisPrice range: £5.00 through £8.00 inc. VATCordylines or New Zealand Cabbage trees grow into small evergreen trees with a single trunk topped with a dense mass of long sword like leaves. Small creamy white flowers in large terminal panicles are produced in early summer. A very striking architectural plant.
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Cornelian Cherry Seed
Cornus mas£5.00 inc. VATCornelian cherry is a large shrub or small densely branched deciduous tree. It produces a profusion of small yellow flowers on leafless twigs in late winter which result in red, cherry like fruits. The leaves turn reddish purple in autumn.
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Crab Apple Seed
Malus sylvestrisPrice range: £5.00 through £10.00 inc. VATCrab Apples are small deciduous trees growing to 8m tall with white flowers that may be tinged with pink when they appear in late spring. Pollinated by bees. The fruits grow to 2.5cm across in the autumn and are sour to eat but make a delicious conserve. They are also good for wildlife with fruit remaining well into the winter. It can be pruned and chopped quite harshly if needed, in the winter.
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Creeping Dogwood Seed
Cornus canadensisPrice range: £5.00 through £14.00 inc. VATCreeping Dogwood is actually a herbaceous perennial with a creeping woody rootstock. It forms an attractive carpet of foliage starred with white flowers in May and June which are succeeded by bright red fruits in early autumn. The white ‘petals’ are really bracts surrounding balls of tiny flowers. Useful decorative ground cover for shady places and needs little maintenance.
pic courtesy of Superior National Forest, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
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Damson Seed
Prunus domestica insititiaPrice range: £9.00 through £17.50 inc. VATThe damson is a subspecies of the plum. A small deciduous tree, it produces the oval damson fruit which has a green yellow flesh and dark blue or indigo skin. The fruits can hang shrivelled well into the winter. It produces white blossom in April, good for early pollinators. Pruning is not advisable in the winter because a bacterial canker can get into the wounds, but if necessary Damson can be chopped in the summer.
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Daphne / Spurge Laurel berries
Daphne mezereum£5.00 inc. VATDaphne mezereum is a small twiggy deciduous shrub that flowers in very early spring, before the leaves emerge. Highly scented purple red flowers are followed by poisonous scarlet fruits. It thrives on chalky soils. This product is sold as dried berries which are still poisonous. Slow growing and often used in winter gardens and medium scale rockeries. Once planted, it’s best not to transplant or disturb. Appreciates mulching with compost or leaf mould in late spring.
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