From the historic charm of Lismore Castle's gardens to the nurturing of extraordinary botanicals at her own nursery, Vick Ind of Individual Plant Nurseries shares her verdant journey with us. Her story isn't just about cultivating plants; it's about fostering a deep connection with the rare and the unconventional. As Vick sprinkles our conversation with tales of her plant-hunting escapades and the artistry of using foliage to captivate the senses, it's clear that for her, gardening is not just a profession—it's a canvas for creativity and a testament to the resilience of nature.
Imagine a nursery where each plant comes with an intriguing backstory, where the passion for horticulture defies the ordinary. Vick's nursery is a trove of such living narratives, from the tactile intrigue of textured foliage to the symphony of scents that dance through the air, attracting pollinators and delighting the senses. Throughout our exchange, Vick weaves a tapestry of her personal plant preferences, drawing inspiration from South Africa's feynbos and sharing her expertise on nurturing hardy species that stand defiant against the harshest of climates.
As our episode draws to a close, Vick's stories leave us with a sense of wonderment for the peculiar and a newfound appreciation for the stalwart spirits of her quirky plants. Her dedication resonates with us, a reminder that the journey of each plant—from its origin to its role in the tapestry of our gardens—enriches our lives, inviting us to create our own unique garden narratives. Join us in this botanical odyssey, and let Vick's passion inspire you to venture beyond the garden-variety and embrace the extraordinary.
From the historic charm of Lismore Castle's gardens to the nurturing of extraordinary botanicals at her own nursery, Vick Ind of Individual Plant Nurseries shares her verdant journey with us. Her story isn't just about cultivating plants; it's about fostering a deep connection with the rare and the unconventional. As Vick sprinkles our conversation with tales of her plant-hunting escapades and the artistry of using foliage to captivate the senses, it's clear that for her, gardening is not just a profession—it's a canvas for creativity and a testament to the resilience of nature.
Imagine a nursery where each plant comes with an intriguing backstory, where the passion for horticulture defies the ordinary. Vick's nursery is a trove of such living narratives, from the tactile intrigue of textured foliage to the symphony of scents that dance through the air, attracting pollinators and delighting the senses. Throughout our exchange, Vick weaves a tapestry of her personal plant preferences, drawing inspiration from South Africa's feynbos and sharing her expertise on nurturing hardy species that stand defiant against the harshest of climates.
As our episode draws to a close, Vick's stories leave us with a sense of wonderment for the peculiar and a newfound appreciation for the stalwart spirits of her quirky plants. Her dedication resonates with us, a reminder that the journey of each plant—from its origin to its role in the tapestry of our gardens—enriches our lives, inviting us to create our own unique garden narratives. Join us in this botanical odyssey, and let Vick's passion inspire you to venture beyond the garden-variety and embrace the extraordinary.
how's it going, everybody, and welcome to episode 227 of master my garden podcast. Now, this week's episode we're talking about uncommon and unusual quirky plants. So I'm joined, delighted to be joined by vick end from Individual Plant Nurseries. And Individual Plant Nursery is a relatively new nursery based in County Waterford. Vic has a history as being a gardener in the beautiful Lismore Castle estate and I suppose her speciality is these uncommon and quirky plants. On her website some of the sort of categories of the plants are the grassy stuff, the woody stuff, foliage plants, scented plants, pot displays, pollinator-friendly plants, utility plants and succulents. So you're kind of grouping them together and, yeah, all of these are going to be kind of uncommon and quirky type plants, but all with a, you know, with an interesting story and tale to them. So, vic, you're very, very welcome to Master my Garden podcast.
Speaker 2:
How are you doing?
Speaker 1:
Good, good, great to have you so relatively new nursery and you have, like as I said, a kind of a history in gardening and spent some time in the beautiful Lismore Castle, so that's probably the kind of the catalyst for this move into in the last couple of years into a nursery producing kind of quirky plants. So maybe tell us a little bit about that kind of story first.
Speaker 2:
So yeah, working at Lismore was a really informative kind of almost a decade um and yeah it was. It was the place where I kind of learned my love and kind of got my teeth into the whole kind of um, collecting and looking for unusual stuff. So, yeah, working with Darren Topps, the previous head gardener, so we used to do a lot of um traveling to the UK. A lot of it was. It was a good time of you know, work trips, yeah, the UK and different nurseries, small independent nurseries around the UK and Ireland as well, and we just used to kind of go off and just walk around. Darren would have a kind of loose list of what we were looking for and then it would basically just be, you know, going around and looking at something and going, oh, that would be, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:
Let's get a few of them, yeah they can go in the lower garden and it's um.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and it was great fun, it was great crack so I know it's different in every scenario, but in that scenario, like some, some you know, estates like there's more. They may be restoring gardens to your previous, previous as such, and they're pretty much not exclusively, but they're pretty much on a set plants list. But it sounds like you guys had a kind of a free reign a bit as well.
Speaker 2:
So that sounds cool. Yeah, I mean Darren had. Ultimately, darren was the kind of Obviously being the head gardener.
Speaker 2:
he was the guy behind the overhaul and the, the plant planting designs and all the rest of it. But he was he was very much um, a guy who kind of let the team have an input. That was important to him, you know. So, um, if you came across a plant, you know, he really kind of fostered an enthusiasm in plants within the team so and left it open for the team would be like if there's any plants, you know, just any plants. So I was always going in with lists of stuff that I'd seen, you know, online research and stuff, and I was like, oh, they'd be awesome in there, whatever. And then he'd go like, yeah, or you know, are you mental? And then some of it would, you know, he'd work into whatever. But yeah, it was a great, a really good learning experience, you know. And it was a really good learning experience, you know.
Speaker 2:
And um, it was a really good um work environment working, because there was a lot of discussions about plants and we talked about stuff and um. On the trips to the uk or around ireland when we did plant procurement trips, we generally build in a load of garden visits as well, so it would be this short, intense, like two or three days, yeah, um, loads of driving and yeah, so we'd visit loads of gardens. And then we do what all gardeners do when they visit gardens look around it going, well, that's a bit crap or not, or you know, and just say, oh, that's, that's cool. You know, it was really good. It was really informative and interactive and dynamic and exciting kind of work environment that you know and it was.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it was good while it lasted, you know, yeah and it sounds like, as you said, it sounds like somewhere where you'd learn a lot because you were allowed to have an input and exactly yeah, the plant or the list got a year and a year, but there was a discussion around why you've got a year and a year, which inevitably leads to learning more about it, and so exactly, and the Burlington's were really good at giving Darren yeah, they're, they're not tied up in the whole.
Speaker 2:
It must be historical.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, obviously there's a respect for the bones of the place. So the but they they're not tied down, or at least they weren't. I don't know what they're like now, but they weren't tied down to this like it must be planted, like this. You know, they're very open.
Speaker 1:
I think they're more interested in just keeping or creating the aesthetic that they wanted, as opposed to a strict kind of you know yeah, replication of something that was yeah, yeah so yeah, and so so it's that it's that kind of um plant procurement trips, garden visits and and spending time having an input into the gardens there, that kind of led you to to setting up your own nursery yeah, and it was handy because, um, I did a lot of the propagation at liz moore.
Speaker 2:
So, um, a lot of plants that we stocked the garden with at the time were actually grown from seed as well. So, or we'd buy the plant procurement trips who might just buy one or three plants and then use those as parent plants and prop from that. So I really got um to learn through a lot of trial and error. I did my rhs exams as well, but you know that that only teaches you so far, and every garden environment is different and I'm I'm even sure that some plants either love you or hate you. So you know, sometimes you have to kind of negotiate with them over the years to to kind of figure them out, and then other people just say, oh, I just bung it in a thing of compost and it's fine yeah, and then, you know, for you.
Speaker 2:
You have to go oh, it needs 20 sand and it needs 10 perlite and then and then it might give you some root. But you know it's, it's kind of um, I love that whole. Out of all the jobs in the, in the, in the garden, it was propagation that I really love, and I love the whole seed collection and growing from seed, and so I grow a lot of my own stock from seed as well say um as well as yeah so on your website, that all of your, all your plants are grown from seed, are propagated on site through cuttings and division, I presume and all grown in peat-free compost.
Speaker 2:
And, yeah, so it sounds like, uh, you know, a very circular economy yeah, it's, that's, um, I mean, it does mean a lot to me to obviously be sustainable environmentally, but it's also a sustainable way of doing things. Um, for your own energy levels and budget as well, you know.
Speaker 2:
So it's that's important to me, like when I kind of do the couple of jobs advising on garden stuff that I kind of offer as well. It's sustainability is more than just environmental sustainability. You know it has to be um, a garden or garden jobs have to be sustainable for the person that's going to be doing them as well. So it's no good, you know, creating a garden or a planting that is going to be really labor intensive or you know it's going to take more time and money off you than you actually have. You know, and so it's.
Speaker 1:
It's working with people to help them create something or work with what they have to make sure that they can sustain it as well, that it's sustainable on a yeah so level as well yeah, you're saying there in relation to, you know, a homeowner's garden, basically yeah if you get someone to come in and design and even a landscape company to come in and construct your garden, that when they walk out the gate, that six months later, you're not having to commit 10 hours, 20 hours, 30 hours a week.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, or you're paying, you know a gardener to come in and you haven't necessarily got the budget to pay a gardener to come in.
Speaker 1:
You know, because you should pay the gardeners yeah that's the other thing yeah, that's a conversation we've had on the podcast previously.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, funny enough. That's something that has struck me quite a lot recently in relation to garden designs and we're going off topic here because I know this is not what we're going to talk about overall, but it's an interesting topic because there is so many, you know, really good garden designers and they're creating these designs and they're putting them on Instagram and all the rest of it. And I do wonder and I've, you know, I've spent some time working in this site as well down the line 12 months, down the line 18 months, down the line how these you know, these fabulous gardens that have their barbecue area, their covered seating area, their their pool, and then densely planted with whatever the the plants of the day are. Yeah, um, and like you, I just know from a gardening perspective that the minimum amount of time that somebody could give to that per week to keep it looking the way that it looks, is you're probably 10, 15, 20 hours a week, and I wonder to myself like where?
Speaker 2:
how are these gardens?
Speaker 1:
maintained.
Speaker 2:
I'd love, it'd be nice, to do a revisit on a lot of those and see yeah, I mean, I think that's the thing with the, the whole kind of show garden thing, especially with chelsea coming up it's. It is a a kind of um, it's a showcase for what it's. It's basically like the biscuit tin lid gardens that kids do, isn't it?
Speaker 2:
but on a grand scale it's like you know it's, it's, it's that thing it's, it's um, it's a bit of a folly. You know there's very few people are going to be able to afford to keep that kind of garden. Going to the, you know, and I know liz moore to liz moore is a really labour-intensive garden and it's got a heavy weed burden. I know there's a move and it is possible to maintain a garden space that's an ornamental garden space, working with nature. You know it is possible to do. You have to kind of tweak your viewpoint on what you consider a neat garden. But um, it is possible.
Speaker 2:
Like we we at lismore at the time, um, we'd hit it really hard. It's got a heavy weed burden, it's got a a lot of the perennial weeds going on and so basically the from march through till early june, we just that was just basically my job was just hand the knees, weed, weed, weed, weed, weed. But um, I tended to weed the really kind of um pernicious stuff out, like the bindweed and the stuff that makes a garden look shoddy, yeah, and then things like plantains and stuff like that. You know, the little kind of wild flowery things. You kind of let those go a bit, you know, and then tackle them before they go to seed.
Speaker 2:
You know the little kind of wild flowery things and kind of let those go a bit, you know, and then tackle them before they go to seed, you know, later on when you've got time, but you can, there is a way of doing it, but it it's. You know. There's more skill, I guess, involved in mundane jobs like weeding than than people first think, because it is possible to maintain an ornamental space, but single-handedly yeah, as efficiently, but you need a bit of yeah, you need a bit of nice about you yeah, to know what you're weeding out and kind of target things, and then you can kind of let other nice weeds get away and just help.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so, moving on then to the nursery, so your tagline is specialising in uncommon and quirky plants, and I think this is going to be a bit of an education for me as well, because I'm sure I won't know some of these plants, but you mentioned that you know a lot of of, you'll say, open garden owners, uh, designers, come to you for sort of your specialist plants and and unusual plants. But you said that you know, in terms of your insert, in terms of customer journey, one of your, your favorite customer journeys is speaking to somebody who doesn't necessarily know the plants but likes the story of a plant and then like likes the outcome of that plant, say a year down the line, two years down the line, three years down the line yeah so tell us about some of these uncommon plants and you have it broken up quite well on your website and, as I said earlier, into scented plants, foliage plants, pot displays, succulents, grassy stuff, woody stuff and so on.
Speaker 2:
So um I kind of um. Basically I just grow what I like. I I'm not, I'm not somebody, and the way that I'm kind of building the nursery is kind of um I know, it's a bit kind of done to death.
Speaker 2:
It's growing organically. So I'm kind of building my stock by growing it from seed, and then I'll sell some of the excess and keep a few parent plants and then plant them out on the beds and stock beds and um, so I tend to just, yeah, trawl. I'm basically just funding a seed buying habit at this stage, but I kind of trawl through things and then I'll research the plant and then I'll kind of go right, that's, that's a lovely thing, I want that. So I'll get that, grow it from seed, um, then be able to offer it for sale, and so some of the plants I don't even know I'm still learning about them.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I love that about growing plants as well. You you kind of um and hopefully you manage to germinate enough that you've got some to sell, uh, some to keep and enough to keep that you can plant one out on the stockbed, uh, keep one in the tunnel and bring one up into the house to absolutely cover your ass over the winter yeah yeah, you can kind of learn about that plant then, where it died, what it didn't like you know.
Speaker 2:
So I like to try and keep at least five of everything so that I can kind of play with them and learn about them. Um, and, yeah, it's, it's I really love. Yeah, I really love kind of gnarly messed up looking things, stuff, um, and a lot of what I grow is probably considered kind of borderline hardy, so kind of no lower than minus five, you know. So it's I'm kind of straddling the lines a bit but and I've lost quite a lot of stuff but it's um, yeah, that's what I kind of enjoy. Growing is just stuff that I love. Basically I'm selfish with it. I'm not interested in the, in what people actually want yes, so it starts.
Speaker 1:
It starts with a plant that's obviously interesting to you and it's not your typical. As you said earlier, it's not your typical plant that you're going to see in a, you know, in a garden center, your perennial border, or whatever yeah but if we were to look at it in the category, so say, scented, scented plants, what are your?
Speaker 2:
so that's. I'm kind of not massively driven by flowers. There are some flowers that are just awesome the Iris Pumilla. That's a beautiful thing. Actually, the guy at Liz Moore who grows the veg bought some of the seed back of Iris Pumilla Most awesome Iris flower little dwarf guy. I've got a load of seeds so they're growing along. But um, yeah, generally the scented thing is I love the south african fane boss plants and a lot of the kind of arid climate plants are really highly scented. They're full of volatile oils and you know the whole plant, the foliage, everything exudes really strong kind of camphor-y, peppermint-y scent, you know. So I love, I love plants that, and they don't always have to be pleasant either. It's. You know some plants you kind of rub against them and you're like oh, yeah, so you didn't say nicely scented, you just said scented.
Speaker 2:
No, just highly scented yeah yeah, very good. Yeah, some of the Plectranthus can be. You know, they're one of those. It can either be cat piss or something nicer, you know.
Speaker 1:
And having a look on the website so everything looks interesting and not typical. So if we move to the categories then, like foliage, Foliage is obviously one of the. So you said flower is not massively important to you, but foliage and structure, I guess, are probably the two things then that.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and foliage is, you know, it's kind of, it's not underrated, I mean, it is used but like your plants are going to be in in foliage more than they're going to be in flower. So it's kind of important, I think, to create to keep that in mind when you're planting up a bit, especially early in the season, like this time of year when the, when the borders are still growing and all the bulbs are coming to an end and there's that little lag between, like now when the summer and everything, you know, everything's in leaf. So if you've got a really um, you know, to cover that, to cover your ass in between that time, if you've got stuff with really good foliage and and lots of different things, so you're creating almost this kind of and and lots of different things. So you're creating almost this kind of textural, and texture in foliage is as important, I think, as size and shape. And you know, um, if you can create that really nice, interesting foliage texture, I I find that really pleasing when you see a border.
Speaker 1:
So you've got maybe fluffy fennel and there's some um persicaria with little plushies of things, and then you've got, you know, other stuff, you know yeah, it's funny you mentioned that, because yesterday I just saw somebody and I can't just think who it was offhand had it was a garden designer, anyway and they had a, a picture of of a border with not with no flower in it, but it was. It was layers of foliage, plants and and it's really interesting because it was now it was a sunny day, so the video looked, looked brilliant, um, and the colors were all picked up. But there was the bottom layer. So, say, if you're looking back against the border and there was a wall at the back of it, if you're looking back towards the border, there was a, a low growing fern at the front, yeah, and so that had two layers of colors in it the, the new, the new foliage was a really vibrant green.
Speaker 1:
The bottom there last year's layer of new leaves was gone, dark, so you had two levels of foliage. Then, above that, there was again another fern, but a slightly taller one, and it was the most brilliant snapshot. As I said, the sun was shining on it perfectly, so it couldn't have looked, but there was like 10 different shades of of leaf color in it. There wasn't a huge amount of variety in terms of of a, you know different foliage and structure. It wasn't. It wasn't a mad amount of structure in that tonal, but it was just a lovely toned border that would.
Speaker 1:
That would hold its own against any perennial border yeah and would look good 12 months of the year actually, because it would change and evolve and and you, you were saying that you didn't think it was underrated, but it's definitely underused foliage yeah, yeah, and I think it's under considered, maybe whened, maybe when people are planting up things.
Speaker 2:
I know that, liz Moore, the long kind of perennial border down the middle I always used to come in really early in the morning and have a walk around and just be looking at stuff, and the long kind of perennial border at the middle of the garden. I was always like, oh, oh, I'd love to just plant this up with, and it's just no flowers, or if, or if things did flower, just have them, maybe tones of green or really underrated, you know things, um, and just have it purely as a textural um border, because it'd be. Yeah, that was always my dream, but you know, I never got a chance.
Speaker 2:
But yeah yeah it's, it's like, um, I can't. I've kind of done that with my own garden but, like I say, my own place is more of a stock bed. So I do try and, you know, use the usual garden design things of fives and sevens and threes and drifts and yeah, yeah you know, I'm kind of like where's the space, bung it in because it needs to grow, because I need to prop off it.
Speaker 2:
But, um, yeah, I've kind of done it at my place, just because of the nature of the plants I like as well, tend not to be super flowery, so it's, um, I do, yeah, I love that kind of.
Speaker 1:
It's more about tone and texture yeah, and what are your kind of go-to foliage plants then?
Speaker 2:
so oh god, it depends on the on the day. I mean, they all look a bit pants when they're just on their own so it's like you don't really know until you see them all together, do you know? But they're loads of the grasses. I love restios. I'm growing a load of ratios. That's a great plant, um, and for a kind of evergreen structural thing as well, um, I'm not a massive fan of the big hairy leaf jobbies like rugmancias or anything like that.
Speaker 2:
I'm not. Um, yeah, I'm not. I'm not a fan of the big fat hairy leaf or even tropical leaves, I'm not. I like, I like little gnarly needle leaved things or, um, I like the kind of aridy looking stuff, silver, so a lot, the plectranthus and alerias and stuff like that and it's, yeah, I mean everything's, everything kind of works together. But I, yeah, I tend to like stuff that kind of mimics the, the feynbos in that south african famous the, the growing, the floral kingdom in south africa, and it's, it's like a tapestry of lots of little gnarly needle-leaved things and they're all very, it's all very tonal. Then you've got ratios in between that just kind of come up in between everything and these little lovely patterns of kind of wildflowers along the path edges and stuff, and then randomly you've got a weird succulent thing, just yeah, that there you know it's.
Speaker 1:
And restios, because I did think this was going to happen, but I have no idea what a restio is, so let's arrest it.
Speaker 2:
So there is a rhyme about it. So it's one of the grassy things on the website, but it's not a grass, but there's a great rhyme actually. So it's sedges have edges, rushes around Grasses have knees that bend to the ground, and restios is something totally else, but it's, it's, it's, they're in their own category, but it looks. And Restios is something totally else. They're in their own category, but they look somewhere between, I guess, bamboo and Ecclesium and what kind of like.
Speaker 1:
Hardy, not hardy.
Speaker 2:
They are hardy. Some of them are hardy, not hardy. What kind of they are hardy? Some of them are hardy, not all of them. They're hardy. The ones that I grow are hardy down to about minus eight, but once they're mature. So this is what happens to a lot of people as well. I think they get a borderline hardy plant that online says it's hardy down to minus eight, but they're buying it as quite a young plant and then bung it in the garden and then it dies in the winter because it's, I think. So I like to err on the side of caution and advise that people grow it up to, you know, a two litre plant or a four litre plant, even just get it as big as possible before you put it in the ground. Um, and it's the positioning as well, to make sure it's somewhere, you know, south facing, a little bit sheltered, so that you're giving it more, more of a chance.
Speaker 1:
Because the irish, it's the in ireland it's going to be the wet, cold that yeah, yeah it sees to borderline hardy stuff and and for the long period of time that we have that yeah, exactly for the eight months of the year eight months? Yeah, it feels like that actually at the minute.
Speaker 2:
It does. Yeah, it's relentless.
Speaker 1:
What other grassy stuff do you like, do you?
Speaker 2:
grow? Yeah, I've not. Last year I had a lovely little grass called Bootyer or Bootyloo, I don't know what the pronunciation of it is. It's quite a short grass mosquito grass, they call it, or moustache grass. I is. It's quite a short grass, mosquito grass, they call it, or mustache grass. I think it's a north american um grass, but really nice, short um, little tufty fella and the, yeah, the, the, the flowers are like little eyebrows or mustaches and it ages really nicely and, yeah, it just looks ace. It's a really nice thing.
Speaker 2:
Um. I lost a load of the plants though, so I'm trying to bulk up my stock a bit again. Yeah, and yeah, in my own place I've got a lot of the um the pheasant, the pheasant tailgat. You know that's a great, a great grass, though it's kind of um, it's. It's a really hard worker. It fills, you know. It hides a multiple of sins, sees itself around. When it gets old and crap looking, you can just pull the clump out easy, do you know? And there's enough seedlings that. And it keeps it really dynamic because it pops up in some places and then doesn't in others. I've got um and some of the steeper tenissima um, I should change its name now I think think I can't remember the name that lovely fluffy ponytails thing.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, Again bog standard, but I don't know what it's like because you can get it everywhere. But it's a nice thing.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, for sure, and Steeper Gigantia is a brilliant plant. Yeah, yeah, and Hardy as well. Like that'll grow pretty much anywhere, Grows big now. That's the only thing that you do need to watch it size wise, because it will get big yeah yeah yeah, the um, yeah, the stupid jug and we had that in lismore the time I was there.
Speaker 2:
It was just, yeah, just held really well as well, well into autumn. You get that light, you get that, was it? Dan pearson calls them light catches yeah it's one of those.
Speaker 2:
So, um, yeah, it's, and I love that as well. That's, that's part of the kind of foliage textural um, or the foliage thing as well is stuff that will use light really well. I think des has said something about that in his book. Actually, um, and it is a kind of forgotten about thing with using plants and keeping in mind how they catch light and how they use light and how they throw shade. You know that's a cool thing as well. Occasionally you get a shadow of something on a wall or something and it's know, oh, yeah, yeah and it's not there all the time.
Speaker 1:
It's something that just catches your eye at a moment yeah and when we look at the, the other categories of succulents are starting to become very popular here.
Speaker 2:
And and another category on your, on your I did consider kind of trying to get a collection. I've got quite a collection of weird calancho again calanchoes or calanchos, um, god knows what, all the species I can't remember. I've just went through a phase of just buying loads of different ones and, um, yeah, um, there's the mother of millions, a degree montiana, I think, yeah, it's a cool thing and, yeah, that was a plan. A lot of what I I have actually is from stuff that I I got during the plant procurement trips that, uh, with lismore, um, and a lot of the stock that I have are kind of, you know, generations from that. So it's nice that they've got the kind of backstory. I love that about plants as well, is the stories that they carry. Yeah, people always like, oh, I got this one. You know, I nicked this one from the welsh botanic garden. It's like, um, or, you know, you remembered, like you know, that was a fun night camping in a field when I got that one, you know yeah, yeah, yeah like it's.
Speaker 2:
I love that walking around and kind of different nurseries as well that you get stuff from. You know there's really nice independent, quirky little nurseries shown in the arse ends of nowhere that you get plants from and it's kind of you know they've got their backstory from the plant as well, so you're carrying like this lineage of stories through the plants. It's. It's cool.
Speaker 1:
I love that, yeah and probably a lot of your plants have stories of some sort like that. Yeah, just given the nature of them, I do.
Speaker 2:
I do love the story thing. Yeah, it's, um, yeah, what we talk about. Succulents. Yeah, but uh, yeah, I've. I offer a few succulents. Bulbine frutescens is another one that I offer. I'll be listing that soon. Actually, it's nearly ready. That's a great, a great plant.
Speaker 2:
Um, it's the poor man's aloe vera they call it all right um, it's like a, a skinnier aloe vera, nice orange flowers on it, but you snap the things off and there's the juicy stuff inside. Um, yeah, and I've grown a lot of um different agaves this year from seed, which should be ready next year hopefully.
Speaker 1:
Um they're brilliant plants oh, I love them take a bit of minding all right, but well, certainly where I am here in the midlands they would take a bit of minding yeah, they're kind of I mean again, it's the wet cold that will will do them.
Speaker 2:
I've got a few of the more tender ones, all right, which will come into the house this winter. Um, I'm just yeah, but it's yeah, the agaves are great like. So I'm I'm trying to slowly build a nice selection of kind of succulent stuff because it it is it's becoming popular, but also there's some really cool yeah, really cool and they're.
Speaker 1:
They're very functional as well.
Speaker 2:
Like people, yeah generally are successful with them, and yeah, they make a great security fence. Phantom on top of a wall be grand yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:
Um, so that's kind of the succulents, grassy stuff. Um, there's woody stuff, pollinator friendly. Pollinator friendly stuff is like in general. A lot of people are asking about that, but I guess, given your nursery again, this is not going to be the common stuff that you'd see. So what, what are you?
Speaker 2:
yeah, I kind of put it up there because there's some plants that are definitely, like, really obviously pollinator friendly, like the melanocelinum dissipiens with its big open plates and it's just, you know, full of wasps and flies and all kinds of cool things, and but yeah, if a plant is a species and hasn't been interfered with and overbred and over selected, it's going to be pollinator friendly. Because, kind of what, some of the things that I grow as well wouldn't be considered pollinator friendly in ireland because they're bird pollinated, like the cleanthes and stuff like that, and few of the salvias are, you know, quite obviously bird pollinated, so it's difficult for our pollinators to get to them yeah so but yeah, I think, just as long as a plant just hasn't been cultivared to death it's a unit, there's benefit in it then yeah, exactly, but any of the single open flowered species kind of stuff is going to be yeah exactly it's going to be beneficial.
Speaker 1:
And it is a bit of a buzz thing now and you know everyone sticks the pollinator friendly label on the plants, yeah, and you know everyone sticks the pollinator friendly label on the on the plants.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's uh as I said, a bit of a buzz a bit of a a fad at the moment.
Speaker 1:
But yeah, the rigor we we mentioned off air. You were talking about, um, we've spoken about it on the podcast before you that you like to grow, like to grow your plants slightly tough and don't mollycoddle them too much and, you know, produce them in that way and then yeah when they hit the ground in the right conditions, obviously they're going to really thrive yeah, so yeah, I am about that, like how do you deliver your plants?
Speaker 2:
so some of what I grow is quite capable of coping in nutrient deficient um habitats anyway. So um a lot of what I have also is drought tolerant um, and generally they're hardier plants anyway, hardier as in, you don't have to molly cuddle yeah because they're they're used to working hard, you know they don't.
Speaker 2:
A lot of them prefer the relationship with the, you know, mycorrhizal in in whatever substrate they're growing in to get their nutrients anyway. So, yeah, it's kind of, um, yeah, I tend not to, yeah, I tend not to over mollycoddle. They'll get a few feeds but I don't, you know, supercharge them and because I just think it makes the weak plants. They put on a lot of sappy growth. It's, you know, you get a lot of floppy stuff. Then they get open and to pests and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:
So it's um, yeah, I, I tend to grow them a bit harder I don't, I don't completely, you know, it's not, it's not neglect, but it's it's grown and it's like it's by design.
Speaker 1:
This is the way you're.
Speaker 2:
You're deliberately growing them to be yeah, likely hardier to be more resilient when they go out exactly, and then when I package them up to sell, I have a no plastic off-site policy, um, so I keep the pots, so they come wrapped in paper, but I don't, I don't sell anything until it's filling the pot, you know. So it's, it's gonna hold itself together, um, and be ready for potting on or planting out or whatever. Um, so yeah, it's, it's kind of and again it's from a practical level as well, um, because my site is quite difficult to to work, so everything has to be hauled in and up or down.
Speaker 2:
It's on a little narrow terraces, on a slope okay and so yeah, just the nature of getting substrate, like mulching the beds, for instance, doesn't happen. This is I'm just not. I'm just not doing it, so any of my stock plants have to be able to cope in. I'm on very open old riverbed because I'm on.
Speaker 2:
I'm on a quite sharp sided valley that used to be riverbed, so if I sold cobbles I'd be, I'd be loaded by now. That's basically what my garden's made of, but it's um. So yeah, the, the plants that I have can cope on, you know, quite gnarly conditions, you know. So, um, yeah, that's another reason why I kind of grow the type of things that I grow, because I know that they can cope with that open, quite hard conditions. So it's yeah, and for practical reasons and it helps that I actually like those kind of plants as well- yeah, so they're going to be suitable Generally.
Speaker 1:
you're going to be looking at things that are suitable for, you know, dry banks.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, coastal conditions.
Speaker 1:
Coastal conditions yeah.
Speaker 2:
It's not that I'm by the coast, but, um, yeah, so. So things that are, and a lot of things, are suitable for growing in pots, kind of you know quite shallow soils. Um, you don't have to worry about putting them out in you know lush conditions you could just yeah yeah, with any old shite and a bit, a bit of seaweed food once in a while, be grand yeah uh, you mentioned earlier on about uh, some, is it like consultancy work you do in certain gardens as well?
Speaker 1:
so like with domestic gardens or with With any garden.
Speaker 2:
really, I'm kind of open to anything. So yeah, I've done a few little small little back gardens and advising on what people can do. And yeah, it's just nice. I enjoy kind of talking to people about the space that they have and, in some cases, working with what they already have. But I can be that kind of person that can be do you really need all those roses? You could lose a load of them and put some roses in that are really going to like it.
Speaker 2:
And yeah, I have to do this first before you do that you know, and it's it's kind of um, it's more of an advisory service than a consultancy, because it's it's slightly different in that I'm not somebody that's gonna draw up a architectural level, you know planting, plant, planting, you know, yeah, yeah um, it's, it's more kind of informal than that. Um, I will.
Speaker 2:
I I've created documents for people with plant lists and um talk about what we discussed and my advice for it, so that they've got a hard copy yeah to to look back on and then a plant list with um yeah, where, where to, um where I'd advised the plants to go, and kind of rough estimates of numbers that they might need and ongoing care with it and that kind of stuff. But yeah, I'm just kind of playing with the idea really, just because it's another kind of string to my bow, I guess so the the nursery itself maybe tell people where they can find it.
Speaker 1:
I know that you you have website. Obviously uh plants delivered. It's a mail order nursery predominantly. You do some uh plant shows and fairs and and I suppose keep an eye on your instagram and so on.
Speaker 2:
Hopefully next year? Yeah, hopefully next year I'll be at a few of the plant fairs, the kind of more specific plant fairs for the type of plants that I grow. Website is individualplantsnurserycom. It's just mail order and I'm in person at liz moore health store in liz moore great little shop if you're visiting castle um, they do pizzas on a friday and saturday nice one and uh yeah, so I'm there every saturday, unless it's peeing down brilliant um so people can find you there on a saturday and through your website and, uh, your, I know you're on instagram and so on as well yeah, instagram individual plants nursery.
Speaker 1:
Um, it's been a really interesting chat. There's lots of interesting plants and, yeah, as, as your, as your tagline says, uh, specializing in uncommon and quirky plants, so definitely not your common everyday stuff, so things that yeah, so some some of the things you can find in a normal garden play, but I you know that there'll be things that I like. And not mainstream typically anyway, yeah, yeah, maybe not.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I kind of I'm out of touch with what is mainstream anymore, so I don't know. It's like I'm at that age now where I'm not relevant.
Speaker 1:
It's been a really interesting chat. There's lots of great stories and and interesting plant choices and names there. Uh, for more information, check out vick's website and uh, yeah, thank you very, very much for coming on master the garden podcast.
Speaker 1:
Good crack so that's been this week's episode. A huge thanks to vick for coming on. Really interesting chat, lots of uh, interesting stories and, as I said, the way she looks at plants it's definitely different to to the way you typically see them. So, not going for the the standard run-of-the-mill stuff, everything has a kind of an interesting look to it and each plant has an individual story. You know whether that's the origin story of where that individual plant has come from or whether it's, you know, a know, a story about how this plant came to end up in the nursery. And yeah, they're always interesting to see and then that story can be carried forward, as she said.
Speaker 1:
So it was interesting to hear about customer journeys and you know that people who have no sort of knowledge of these quirky plants started to buy them and now, a couple of years later, are coming back and saying how well they're performing and how different and unusual they look in their garden and that's, you know, that's kind of the idea of, I suppose, growing uncommon and quirky plants is that somebody else finds the you know, finds the joy in it and gets it going in their garden and then is able to tell that story forward. So I suppose that's. That's what it's all about, and really interesting chat, and that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening and until the next time, happy gardening, thank you.