After being a course leader and lecturer in Horticulture at Nottingham Trent University for nearly 20 years I am now working on a new venture in Limousin, France. In our plant nursery and garden school we aim to carry on sharing our passion for horticulture and natural crafts.
Specialist subjects include plant science, propagation, plant identification, specialist traditional and modern pruning and maintenance techniques. We also teach greenwood crafts, weaving, stained glass art and other crafts using natural materials.
Nursery Opening for 2019 Saturday 2nd March
La Petite Pépinière de la Guinandie sera ouvert Samedi 2 Mars!
Our little nursery here at Le Jardin Créatif will be opening again for the new season from Saturday 2nd March. We open every Saturday from March until October (except for the occasional fermeture exceptionnelle) from 10.00am – 4.00pm. At other times we are open by appointment – if you want to call in on a weekday just send an email or message us to make sure we are here and/or available giving us at least 24 hours notice to reply. (We are not open on Sundays).
This winter we have added another large shade tunnel so that we can expand our range of plants and keep them cool and healthy in the hot weather.
We have a selection of spring and summer flowering bulbs, herbaceous perennials, cottage garden plants – great for butterflies and bees – tender perennials, ornamental edibles (we love plants that look good and taste good too!), ornamental grasses and from late March we will have bedding plants, vegetable plants, herbs and climbers.
We also sell professional grade compost, pots and baskets, enviromesh and other sundries. We will be opening our new sales office from our vintage Regency Balmoral caravan in the next few weeks.
For nursery customers our garden is also open on Saturdays for you to wander around, gain inspiration and see examples of planting combinations as well as our artwork and sculptures that you can come along and make on our courses.
Later in the year we will be taking part in the Jardins Ouverts scheme again and will be holding some open days and events ourselves over the coming months so watch this space!
overwintering insects that will be getting low on energy by now.
Another shrub with a powerful fragrance is the winter honeysuckle Lonicera x fragrantissima one of the shrubby honeysuckles that bears pairs of fragrant flowers all along its arching stems from January through till April will be covered in bees on a sunny winters day. Spot the pollen sacks on the bee in the photograph!
separate male and female floral structures. The male flowers are usually catkins, releasing pollen when they mature. At the moment the hazel trees are in full flower, their make catkins having elongated over the last week or so waving away in the hedgerows distributing their pollen in the wind. Harder to spot are the female flowers that look like miniature sea anemones emerging from small plump buds along the stems. Hazel trees need a period of mildly windy weather without too much rain for the pollen to spread effectively and be caught up on the sticky 
female floral parts. Unfortunately high winds and heavy rain at this time of the year can lead to a bad crop of nuts.
Learn to use willow as a medium for sculpture and create a life size heron sculpture for your garden or by your pond. All materials, light lunch and refreshments are included.
This half-day course in plant propagation will look at the basics of propagating from seed and from softwood cuttings. You will learn a little botany that will help you to be more successful in rooting cuttings and understanding the different types of seeds, seed sowing tips and overcoming different types of dormancy in seeds.
This half day introductory course is running on Thursday 2nd May 2-4pm 20€ per person
Learn the basics of sculpture using chicken wire to create a lifelike chicken sculpture for your garden. A good basic beginners course which can lead onto building on these skills to create more complex sculptures later in the year.
To book onto this workshop you can use the ‘Buy Now’ button below, this is a secure PayPal system but you do not need a PayPal account to use it as it also accepts card payments. If you prefer to pay be cheque use the contact form below to check availability and request a booking form.
Le Jardin Creatif 