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- A Potted History of Ashwood Nurseries
- A Potted History of Ashwood Nurseries: 1967-1969
A Potted History of Ashwood Nurseries: 1967-1969
The Early Years: 1967-1969
In 1967 Joseph and Hilda Massey acquired Ashwood Nurseries from Harry and Dora Beach. Their son John, aged 18, was still at school while Tony Cartwright at 15 years old was already working there part-time: after school, at weekends and during his school holidays.
Up to this point, Ashwood (trading as H.E. Beach and sons) was a small nursery selling a limited range of plants and aquatics but it had become very neglected and run down as Mr. Beach’s health started to fail.
John recalls: “the nursery was dilapidated, with bantams and ducks scratching around, and a line of washing hanging in a greenhouse”
Mr. and Mrs. Beach lived in a crumbling wooden bungalow (at the rear of the site of the current garden shop). Adjacent to this was a tiny shop with a small office attached and an open ‘packing shed’ on the front near the road.
Tony says: “The packing shed was used to pack hardy plants such as trees, roses and shrubs which were all sold ‘bare-root’ from October to March. A small range of containerised plants was also available grown in used tin cans supplied by the local butcher”
There was one partially sunken greenhouse for tender plants, heated by an antequated boiler. Here geraniums and fuchsias were sold together with cinerarias, gloxinias, Primula obconica, Primula malacoides and Maidenhair ferns (supplied by Elliot and Jackson of Kidderminster).
A second fully sunken cold house with a flat glass roof was used to grow bulbs in pots. Mr. and Mrs. Beach also sold bedding plants grown by Kidderminster nurseryman Horace Baulk and his son Philip. Another supplier was Blackhill Nurseries, Swindon (Howard & Geoff Wenlock) and the second generation of this family still supplies Ashwood today.
In 1968, John Massey took over the day-to-day running of the nursery and is still very much involved with the business in this our 50th Anniversary year. Tony Cartwright and Stella Gilson also started work full-time in 1968, followed by Barbara Pomeroy in 1969. Tony, Stella and Barbara are all still working at Ashwood, with an amazing 146 years of service between them.
At that time, John’s interests were hardy plants of every kind but he soon developed a particular passion for alpines, heathers and dwarf conifers.
John was keen to learn and many local nurserymen were influential including Percy Picton of Old Court Nurseries at Colwall, Geoff and Jean Gittins of Greenhill Nurseries, Wombourne, Claud Palmer of Richard Smith Nurseries, Worcester, Diana Palmer of Palmer’s Nurseries, Worcester and Joe Elliott of Broadwell Alpines in the Cotswolds.
John could also see the potential of the aquatics business and by June 1968 a new series of fibre-glass pools for fish sales had been constructed by Dutch Gardens of Wall Heath. Fish such as koi carp, shubunkins and goldfish were hugely popular: many were flown in from Bologna, Italy.
During 1968, work began on a new shop while a greenhouse (bought second-hand) was erected (on the site of the current shrub production house) and new sales beds were created.
In 1969, alpines and heathers were some of our best sellers. Alpines were grown in terracotta pots and plunged in sand: our main suppliers were Honor’s Nursery of Snowshill (delivered by train to Stourbridge Junction!). Joe Elliott and Teme Valley Nurseries (Tenbury Wells).
Heathers were bought in from local grower Roy Bodenham and our series of Heather Top Ten adverts (County Express) boosted heather sales and business in general (1600 heathers sold in less than 2 weeks).
Barbara recalls: “the four of us worked very long days, an early finish was 6pm, but in reality it was often between 7pm and 8pm during busy periods. Equal pay for women was unheard of then and in 1969 I earned £7.10 shillings a week… but the pay was unimportant because I loved what I was doing.”
Hardy plants were now being grown mainly in Hado polythene pots; we also used whalehide pots and hessian sacking. Many plants were still sold bare-root: roses, hedging and trees in particular. Johnny Malpass of BBN Composts, Wombourne supplied us with loam-based John Innes composts.
Stella remembers: “Bedding plants were grown in wooden trays of 60 plants and Paul Crample (price 2/6d) was everyone’s favourite geranium. Plant labels were mainly hand written or typed, catalogues were produced on a typewriter”
In autumn 1969, work began on a much larger aquatics section while landscape gardener Richard Amphlett started work on a rock garden, pool and Japanese garden.
A growing interest in gardening:
Greater prosperity in the 60’s, together with a building boom, resulted in a growing interest in gardening. Gardeners’ World on BBCTV had started in 1967 (does anyone remember the first presenter Ken Burras?). But it was Percy Thrower (who became the lead presenter in 1968) who was to have a huge influence on the popularity of gardening during this time.
Garden centres were springing up everywhere and, with a rise in car ownership, becoming increasingly popular visitor destinations, especially on Sundays when shopping centres were closed.
Read my next instalment of the Potted History Series: ‘Milestones and New Developments 1970-1975’
Category
- A Potted History of Ashwood Nurseries (2)
- Camellias (1)
- Cultural Advice (17)
- Cyclamen (2)
- Hellebores (7)
- Hepaticas (4)
- Hydrangeas (1)
- John Massey VMH (1)
- Lewisias (2)
- Primula auricula (2)
- Salvias (1)
- The Winter Garden (1)
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