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On the Saturday Pershore-based John Edgeley (pictured above), our guest fruit identification expert, and acknowledged as one of the best in the UK, was kept busy all day with an interesting array of fruit samples. He tells us 'Howgate Wonder' was one of the most popular varieties he came across for identification through the day. Coincidentally, we were also selling loose apples from New Creation Farm and included in the ten varieties for sale was, 'Howgate Wonder'. This variety is famed for its great cooking ability and when we were setting up the display Pauline Brown (pictured above) discovered a couple of corking specimens in the wooden crate, amazingly the two fruits between them weighed well over 2lbs! Pauline christened these "HOW GreATE WONDER!" and you can see why in the photo! So, big fruits, and a popular fruit to boot, 'Howgate Wonder' certainly takes on the first class status we've always said in our Mail Order catalogue! Popular expert Fritz Du Zutter from Moulton College in Northamptonshire was kept on his toes answering questions on growing apples, tackling rootstock queries as well as explaining the different apple trained forms available to buy at the Garden Centre. Elsewhere, two and four legged friends proved a huge attraction with two lovely young male Alpacas (called Czar and Beckham) wooing the crowd. Our thanks to Angela from Pet Alpacas for arranging this for us on Saturday. On Sunday, Susan Welch, one of our members of staff, who keeps and raises rare breed sheep and goats at their farm in South Northamptonshire, brought along sheep including Kerry Hill, Jacob, Herdwick, Hebridean and Soay; together with a Pygmy Goat with the cutest two kids you have ever seen, they were undoubtedly the star of Sunday! Chicks just a few days old were a crowd pleaser over the entire weekend too as Alan Ogg of Country Poultry, our main supplier of poultry birds, brought these in, under warmth, and children (pictured young Alfie Budd has a first encounter with a chick!) were able to learn more about them as well as hold the chicks too!
Our Apple Weekend was very much a family event with the children enjoying the animals as well as a conjuring tricks and balloon modelling from magician Phil Banks. Parents were also baffled by some of Phil's card and rope tricks! Lots of children, and again a few grown-ups, took advantage of face painting with Lynn Banks. Apparently butterflies, scars (the bloodier the better for the boys!) and sunsets were popular throughout the two days. Many staff showed off tiny apples on their cheeks too! Our special thanks to the following for helping make the weekend so memorable: Gary Paris from Wobbly Bottom Farm Cheeses, Rare Breeds Society, Reece Hetherington from Caked in Bread (apple themed cakes and bread), Joy Crussell from The Wildlife Trust, Barry Smith Head Gardener from Stowe Gardens, Neil Cook, Head Gardener at Hanbury Hall, Bernard Stopps and the Team from Buckingham Horticultural Society and John Branham and his Team from The Buckinghamshire Branch of the National Vegetable Society. Our raffle raised over £350 for our chosen charity, Air Ambulance Berks, Oxon & Bucks. All winners have been contacted. Finally, thank you for joining in our weekend... it was great to see so many familiar faces and a fair few new ones as well. A note then for your 2012 diary - our next major event will be Potato Weekend over the 11th & 12th February 2012. Regular customer Doris Whitehead (pictured above) brought in a huge 'Picasso' potato she had grown from a tuber purchased from us earlier this year, proof, if it were needed, that we all should try to grow some spuds! For more photos of our Apple Weekend, visit: http://www.facebook.com/BuckinghamNurseries?sk=photos The bare root season comethThe new gardening season traditionally starts in the autumn and at Buckingham Nurseries we herald and celebrate it with the publication of our Autumn 2011 - Summer 2012 Mail Order Catalogue.
So, what's new and exciting for this season, asks Chris Day? Well, for starters, let's begin in the fruit department. Last year there was lots of interest in a new red-fleshed apple being promoted in the gardening press. Well this year we have a new exciting variety with an unusual, attractive pink speckled 'rosette' pattern deep in the flesh that's called, strangely enough, 'Rosette'. This apple produces delicious, crisp and juicy red fruits in August on a compact tree, which is perfect for the smaller garden. We also have apple 'Christmas Pippin', a much improved 'Cox' type apple maturing later in the season with a lovely sweet flavour and pleasant honey aftertaste. This year has been superb for soft fruits - especially the likes of strawberries and raspberries, so we have a couple of new varieties to tempt you with. Raspberry 'Cascade Delight' is perfect if you have heavy soils where raspberry crops have been difficult to grow as this variety tolerates much more moisture and is resistant to root rot. It produces handsome crops of very large conical fruits with a lovely sweet flavour. It crops late season. The other new variety, 'Sugana', which like other autumn raspberries will crop on the new season's growth from August to October, but you should leave these stems to re-crop the following June, whilst training the new stems in for the following autumn's crop. The fruits are delicious and are larger than traditional autumn croppers, and best of all this variety is perfectly suited to growing in large pots on the patio! We love our trees and it appears we are planting more of them, which is great for the environment as well as the landscape, especially if the tree keeps to a manageable size. We have added a named variety of the spindle tree, Euonymus 'Red Cascade' this year as it grows to around 10ft (3m) and makes a lovely compact tree, famed for its unusual rosy-pink fruits which look spectacular through the winter as well as the amazing autumn colour from the foliage. Our other new tree for a larger garden is the weeping purple beech. This makes a spectacular tree in time, a real head-turner with its deep purple foliage which later turns copper in winter on a weeping structure that literally cascades. A class-act tree, give it centre stage in your garden and you will not be disappointed! Our hedging range continues to offer the wide and varied palette of native, evergreen, deciduous and ornamental hedges we are famous for, and this year we've added a couple of collections. Our Horse Friendly Hedging basically offers a selection of mainly native species that are safe to horses (should they graze on them) but still require some protection from horses to get them fully established. Please see the catalogue or website for the full listing of plants that make up the collection. Our Butterfly and Bee Collection is a direct response from our customers wanting to encourage more butterfly and bee activity in the garden in the wake of declining numbers. This collection will certainly help increase and expand the variety of the fauna that is likely to visit your garden and of course these plants attract perfect pollinators if you have a new or an established orchard or fruit or vegetables planted nearby. Plants featured in this collection include Buddleja, Cotoneaster lacteus, Old English Lavender, Marjoram and Sedum. Finally, the beautiful bearded iris, perfect for that hot, sunny border where others things sadly wither and fail. We've two new additions to our iris range. The first variety is 'Amorpha', a dwarf white flowered form with gold edging, its stature makes a perfect variety for front of borders and rockeries. The variety 'Grape Adventure' rounds off our review of new varieties. This highly attractive purple flowered iris has white veining and an orange throat together with a delicate fragrance set on tall 60-75cm (24-30in) stems. Shop transformation
We've also joined these colours with our popular Christmas floristry range, so all the colour inspiration you are likely to need is located within the individual colour displays. These themes link to our range What was our old aquatics department (pictured right) has undergone a major transformation by the Shop Team into our Fragrance (Yankee Candles), Toiletries (Bromley, RHS Range, Cotswold Lavender & Cath Kidston), Kitchenware (Denby Accessories, placemats, coasters and laptrays, Elite Gift Boxes from Emma Bridgewater & Madeleine Floyd and Stow Green Crockery) and Laundry accessories department. Why we love our gardens!You can always rely on BBC Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson to spark some kind of controversy ... ramblers, Reliant Robin drivers and Caravan owners to name just a few to succumb to his jibes; and this time it's our hobby he's having a right dig at, writes Chris Day. An advertisement poster to promote Jeremy's new book says: "Dads, gardening is a pointless way of passing the time until you die." The gardening trade was quick to comment. The Horticultural Trades Association, of which we are members, said: "Twenty million gardeners in the UK would disagree. And Jeremy might want to consider the benefits of gardening to his own health and well-being, before it's too late!" Clarkson writes a weekly column in The Sunday Times, and going back through the archives, to May 2001 may offer some sort of clue to why the Top Gear star is anti-gardening. Clarkson wrote: "I want to be a gardener. I want a shed and some secateurs. I want Homes & Gardens magazine to profile my work, but all I can do is cut grass. Everything else turns to disaster." Perhaps it's time he listened to eco-friendly head gardeners instead! To matters more normal... As we have discovered, Grow Your Own, certainly is encouraging more people to take the plunge into gardening and reap the benefits of growing fresh fruit and vegetables. Yes, you will save some money, have some trials and tribulations along the way, but it's also being in touch with nature, the soil and enjoying a healthy pursuit outdoors. Chatting to customers, it's apparent there is much skill transfer going on up and down the country's UK allotments. Gardeners generally are savvier; information is available from so many forms these days - television, magazines, books, radio and through the Internet, especially with the surge of interest in social networking sites where interaction and garden gossip can be exchanged quickly. That said, reliability of the advice given can be, shall we say, variable in places! We like to keep our customers informed through Facebook and Twitter, and if you haven't already joined us, please do soon, we would love to have you along! Details can be found the end of this newsletter.Development update
Our staff gardens are bloomin' marvellous!
Hold the bus!We were recently approached by a regular customer to our restaurant to see if we could organise a 'pick-up service', maybe once a month, to bring people to the Garden Centre then take them home again, giving time for a leisurely lunch and maybe time to look around the Garden Centre as well. Those coming would be given a ticket which could be redeemed for a complimentary cup of tea or coffee on arrival, then a 10% discount on any lunch they choose from the restaurant. We would aim to get folks to the Garden Centre by about 11am, then pick up for the return journey at 1.30pm or 2.00pm. If we had folks wanting to come from Tingewick, Water Stratford and Gawcott their time at the Garden Centre would be slightly shorter. We aim to launch this 'service' on the second Monday of November, the 14th, so that it can be advertised in the list of excursions The Winslow Community Bus are running for that month, then run the service once To book for November please telephone Sue at the Winslow Community Bus on 01296 715786 or e-mail wdcbenquiries@btconnect.com www.winslowbus.com Sue will then take bookings and arrange the route and timing and the fares will be taken on the bus. More space to talkOur Talks Season is well under way after the break through the Garden Centre re-development and we are now in the new Meeting Room set within our Restaurant. We have more space, around 40 seats, for holding our popular talks, so do please do come along. Talks start at 10:30am prompt and finish at around 12noon. Here's what is coming up over the next three months ... Wednesday 9th November 'Composting & Compost Teas' (speaker Rob Weston, pictured above); Wednesday 14th December: 'Growing Orchids & Christmas Houseplants' (speaker Peter White) and the first talk in 2012 will be held on Wednesday 11th January: We've got Christmas ALL wrapped up!
Hoe! Hoe! & Hoe!, well we are a Garden Centre after all! Please make sure you pop along to see Santa at the Garden Centre from 10am-3pm over the following weekends: 3rd/4th December, 10th/11th December & 17th & 18th December. What's happening locally... Just a reminder on Sunday 4th December, Buckingham is holding a French Christmas Market Fair from 10am-4pm, so why not combine this event when you shop with us! The event includes the town crier, bagpiper, church and school choirs, Ceroc, Zumba and Line Dancing and much, much more. The event is organised by the Buckingham Traders Association. Catch BGC's Chris Day on BBC 3CR on Sunday 18th December between 3-4pm on "The Gardening Phone-In" with a Christmas theme one suspects, with Ernie Almond. Gardening Tasks
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Apple identification with Ruth Ward on Sunday was busy with many samples being brought in for close inspection and scrutiny. Ruth tells us that a number of customers wanted to familiarise themselves with varieties from the past, so the big display of apples staged made this much easier than simply looking through apple guide books! Ruth was also signing copies of her book, 
We don't need to be reminded how close Christmas is, so no annoying countdown numbers! Yet, it's just around the corner and Rachel and her Team have been busy getting out our biggest ever spring bulb display, and now quickly following our Christmas displays. This year these have four specific themes - Peacock, a lovely combination of decorations in Blues, Greens, Pinks; Gold and Emerald, a rich colour combo; Red and Silver, very traditional colours but now back in vogue, and Woodland,
The Garden Centre's new frontage now has a new entrance/exit foyer and changes within the entrance and the Customer Service Desk are developing well. A new tower at the end of the building will house our signage (pictured far right), plus the construction will also house a "green wall" which will be planted with living plant material. Watch the wall to see how this develops over the next few months! You will be pleased to hear the new car park area is now fully operational, so allowing for ease of parking as we get busier with the bare-root season and the run up to Christmas.
A 'Highly Commended' in Buckingham in Bloom, part of the national Britain In Bloom competition, was awarded to Kay Musgrave (pictured left). Funnily enough Kay hadn't even realised her garden had been judged! When the certificate arrived, Kay's husband, Peter, was the name on the certificate. Kay laughs, "The cheek of it ... Peter only cuts the grass - I'm the gardener! I 'phoned the Council and they kindly sent out another certificate for me! At least Peter has a certificate for cutting the lawn!" Shop manager, Rachel De Cann, however had entered her garden and scooped the Gold Award for the Best Kept Front Garden (under 5 Years Old), but was "absolutely gobsmacked" when she realised she had won this category in the Bicester In Bloom Competition. Well Done to Kay & Rachel. So how did you get on this year, any Britain In Bloom Award Winners reading this Newsletter? Please let us know and we can share your success! 
We have approached the organisers of The Winslow Community Bus and they also think this would be a good service to offer and are prepared to provide the transport with a charge of £3.50 per head for the return journey. The proposed pick up points would be addresses in Winslow, The Claydons, Padbury and Buckingham, then possibly dropping folks from those places at the Garden Centre, then going on to pick up from Tingewick, Water Stratford and Gawcott. 
CHRISTMAS EVENT on Thursday 24th November between 8:30am and 6pm. Do please pop along to this special 10% Off CHRISTMAS EVENT when we will be offering a 10% discount off all "Christmas products". You will also be able to view our New-look shop, our themed Christmas displays, enjoy freshly prepared food in our Restaurant, meet Santa as well as enjoying a free mince pie and a glass of mulled wine (limited one per customer). The discount on Christmas products is ONLY available on Thursday 24th November. Starting on the 5th December and running through until the 24th December, Christmas Eve, we will be offering a Christmas Dinner on our restaurant menu. A Two Course Christmas Dinner consisting of a starter and main course will be £9.50, or a main course Christmas Dinner will be £7.20. For parties of over 6 people, please pre-book on 01280 827907. 
TAKE CARE of our feathered friends! Keep your bird feeder filled, especially when there is snow/hard frost on the ground. Make sure the birds have access to fresh water too. 