Staff from Gloucestershire County Council (GCC) and 25 other guests from its ‘Greening Gloucestershire’ stakeholders attended a special Open Day and tour at one of the UK’s leading nurseries recently (September 2023).
They visited Herefordshire-based Wyevale Nurseries’ Transplants section, had a walk & talk through its Transplant Fields and stopped-by its container trees site before touring its Container Plants department.
Alan Young, Amenity Sales Executive & GCC Account Manager at Wyevale Nurseries, explains: “A couple of months ago, I sowed the idea to GCC of us hosting a ‘Day on The Nursery’ event for their stakeholders. The GCC Tree Team thought this was a fabulous idea just ahead of the forthcoming 2023/24 planting season.”
Wyevale Nurseries supplies the full range of transplant tree and shrub species and related sundry items to GCC’s stakeholders, as part of its ‘Greening Gloucestershire’ campaign.
Throughout the upcoming season, Wyevale Nurseries will supply many thousands of transplants and trees through the county of Gloucestershire.
Among those who attended the event were GCC’s Tree Team as well as tree wardens, arboriculturists and representatives from other local authorities, the Duchy of Cornwall, Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership, Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, schools and other charities.
The day included a full tour of all Wyevale Nursery departments, starting at Transplants, then Container Plants and Trees. The guests saw plants growing in the fields, as well as the propagation unit and potting facilities.
Alan adds: “Together we made the event happen. The sun shone for us! We had lovely blue skies and warm sunshine all day to undertake a full guided tour of our nurseries, from the very smallest trees at our transplant nursery near Ledbury, to our tallest trees at our Tree Nursery.
“We also visited our container plants nursery in Hereford, where our Nursery Manager, Steve Read talked to the group about ‘in – house propagation’ with a tour of our Propagation unit and re-using water on the nursery. Our Production Manager, Kyle Ross gave us an interesting talk on biosecurity measures and the importance of buying from a Plant Healthy Certified nursery.
“We also visited our famous new reservoir. Everyone had a fabulous day and there was lots of discussion and networking within the group. We even managed to visit Foxbury Fields, the vineyard owned by our Chairman, Heather Williamson, for a wine tasting session before the grapes for this season are harvested. The event was very successful for all. We intend to repeat it in 2024.”
Wyevale Nurseries’ product selection is admired across the industry and the talented team regularly introduces new, award-winning plant varieties.
Its main business is to supply garden centres, landscape contractors, local authorities, foresters and landowners with a comprehensive array of trees, shrubs, hedging, herbaceous and specimen plants.
For further details about Wyevale Nurseries, please call 01432 845 200 or visit www.wyevalenurseries.co.uk.