Lucien and Laura's Jungle: April 2012

We decided to make the most of the sunny weather and the fact it was Good Friday and go to the end of Cornwall, and go plant buying around "the trinity" (Lower Kenneggy, Trevena Cross and Hardy Exotics).

I am currently learning to drive and so it was my turn to drive to Penzance for our trip.

We left early morning to get in front of any holiday traffic and managed to get into Cornwall before 9 o'clock, there are a few things you see on the road to identify when you reach Cornwall, such as:

Ginsters pasty lorry

Wind turbines across the countryside.

I can see the sea..

Our first stop was Lower Kenneggy to see Steve, there were lots of new plants since the last time we were there. We also came across Steve's lovely cat, who showed us around the behind the scenes poly-tunnels.

Me looking at the Paulownia tomentosa.

Me looking at a hardy Orchid.

Steve's cat

Whilst out in the tunnels at the back of the nursery we saw that Steve had Schefflera taiwaniana, so we decided that even though we said we would never have one, we would get one.

Lucien showing off our first Scheffie.

Our next stop was a few miles further down the road to Trevena Cross, our first stop at Trevena was the bargain bin, usually this is the best place to get a bargain agave that hasn't been watered for a while and so they sell it for a ridiculously cheap price, this time though there was nothing to be had. We walked away very disappointed then we had a look at the ferns, we found a pot of Dicksonia squarrosa for a bargain price so that was our first purchase at Trevena.

Whilst wandering around we saw lots of newly shipped Phoenix, Trachys and Butias.

Phoenix canariensis

Trachycarpus wagnerianus

Butia capitata

Here are a few more pics from around Trevena..

We then went to Hardy Exotics but, en route, as it was such a nice day we decided to have a look at St Michael's Mount, there were hundreds of people walking over to wander around it.

Lovely day in Cornwall.

When we got to Hardy Exotics we saw that the Agave in the car park had grown to a massive size..

We found some lovely shade plants and another Petasites japonicus but this time it is a nishiki-buki. When we went to pay for our plants we had a very long conversation with Julie about various things and ended up with an extra plant given to us as a wedding present from Hardy Exotics. Here are some pictures from around the nursery..

Me with the Petasites in hand.

As we were leaving Hardy Exotics, we had a text from Lucien's parents to say they were at a nursery in Bodmin, we had never visited the nursery before so we decided to meet them there. Our unplanned next stop was Pinsla nursery.

Pinsla is just off the A30 at Bodmin and is quite small but has a very good variety of plants to buy and very reasonable prices, we didn't look inside the gardens there but we definitely will next we are there.