This talk and all our lectures are FREE for Friends of the Botanical Gardens to attend. Members of the public are also welcome to join us on payment of £5 at the door on the day. Live talks are held in the Education Centre in the grounds of the Botanical Gardens - easily accessed via the Thompson Road Entrance.

Are Echinaceas expensive annuals for you? So many plants’ cultural instructions proclaim the virtues of a well drained soil but after 25+ years of trying to improve their clay to enable them to grow plants like Echinacea had proved disappointing, Helen and Andrew Ward of Norwell Nurseries in Newark tried an alternative - sand.

They now have over 20 beds filled with nothing but sharp sand and grow over 30 different Echinaceas as perennials plus hundreds of North American, Mediterranean and alpine plants thriving and astounding on an austere diet. These include, amongst many others, Salvias, Nepeta, Gaura, bulbs, grasses, Coreopsis and a few that like well drained but moist!

Andrew will provide good advice on growing in sand and share tips for those that naturally garden on a sandy soil.

Andrew trained as a Plant Breeder and started Norwell Nurseries and Gardens 29 years ago with his wife Helen. The garden holds over 2,500 different varieties of plant and has featured in many magazines including Country Living, Country Life, English Gardener, Landscaper Magazine, Gardens Illustrated, and the RHS Garden magazine. It has been been included since 2013 in the highly prestigious publication Great Gardens to Visit.

It is renowned for colour from spring but especially in the autumn when the National Collection of Hardy Chrysanthemums can be seen. They also hold the National Collection of Astrantias.

Norwell Nurseries website