With a surname like Holley how could you work in any industry other than horticulture? If you didn’t, it wouldn’t seem right. Holley. The spelling may be ever so slightly different to the tree with the festive connotations whose branches are brought indoors to decorate myriad mantelpieces at Christmas time, but the mere word, however it is rendered, conjures up greenness and growth.
Today is a Tuesday in midsummer and Will Holley and his wife, Lauren, are sauntering around their Somerset nursery, Blooming Wild, pointing out their plants. There may be no sharp, shiny leafed, red-berried Ilex aquifolium here, but there are some eye-catching perennial specimens, including pink-flowered Echinacea pallida, the unusual blue/purple Cynoglossum nervosum, and the delicate clotted cream colour of Aruncus ‘Horatio’s blooms. In fact, there are a total of 9,000 plants on this shipshape site in Horsington on the edge of Somerset’s Blackmore Vale, but the Holleys want more. Many more. They have an insatiable thirst for plants that fit the bill of ‘naturalistic planting’ (see box), a look that evokes the feeling of a more wild landscape than many British gardens have boasted to date.
“The aim is to have 15,00020,000 plants to fill all our beds here,” says the ever-enthusiastic Lauren. There is ample space, it’s true. The long, rectangular nursery beds, edged neatly with wood, are empty at the far end, craving myriad new pots and their eye-catching contents.
As Blooming Wild is a relatively new venture, most of the pretty, easy-care perennials here today were originally bought in as young/bare-root plants mainly from within Britain, but occasionally from Holland. These are then grown on and nurtured with typical Holley affection and attention to details. But the couple has a very different plan long term.
Denne historien er fra November 2020-utgaven av Somerset Life.
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Denne historien er fra November 2020-utgaven av Somerset Life.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Up on the Down
Try this easy-to-follow Exmoor walk with SIMONE STANBROOK-BYRNE
Shop until you drop
It’s Somerset’s county town, it’s the place to go for the big shops, but Taunton is also home to a thriving independent scene, discovers CATHERINE COURTENAY
Creatures of the night
Have you ever had something swoop past your ear, almost unseen? You may have had a brief encounter with a bat, says BERNARD BALE
Bowled over
Now that we can return to skittle and bowling alleys - albeit with new rules BERNARD BALE reveals that the sport of bowling has many Somerset links
Trackway through time
In the Somerset Levels SIMONE STANBROOK-BYRNE discovers a place where our Neolithic heritage rubs shoulders with the present day
SAVING THE SPLENDOUR OF EXMOOR
The splendour of Exmoor National Park may appear timeless and untroubled, but a new book reveals the long and often bitter struggle conservationists faced to save the landscape from the twin threats of afforestation and the plough
Decorative art
Not simply functional, treat your walls like an extension of your personality
Charity starts at home
How do we teach our children the importance of giving back?
Blooming brilliant
Will and Lauren Holley purchased a four-acre field in Somerset, converted it into a nursery, opened during lockdown and now their perennial plants are flying off the shelves. JULIE HARDING meets the go-getting couple
Age-old advice
Just become a grandparent for the first time? Perhaps you need a little guidance, so here are some top tips about how to embrace your new family role
