Clockhouse Nursery

A streamline high volume operation, Clockhouse Nursery produces over 1 million quality plants – sold through its busy plant focused retail centre.  Offering a huge choice of varieties, at a competitive price, it attracts a loyal customer following.

Situated at Forty Hill, just inside the M25 near Enfield in North London, the 13-acre nursery has a turnover exceeding £4million and produces 80% of its plants on site.  This includes 50,000-70,000 pack bedding, 900,000 patio and pot bedding, over 80,000 shrubs and 50,000 plus perennials in 2litre plus pots. With no space for propagation, the majority of young plants are supplied by UK propagators, including Kernock Plants, Ball Colegrave and the Newey Group.

Founded in 1928, Clockhouse Nursery is run by the founder’s grandson, David Mills.  Over the past decade, he has overseen an ambitious renovation programme; including designing his own single span Polybuild roll up polytunnels, with Solar Woven sides and overhead misting irrigation, to make the most of the limited space.

Peat-reduced but same great performance

Levington has been the growing media of choice at Clockhouse for over 40 years.

“While we originally self-mixed using peat, we now rely on four bespoke peat-reduced Levington Advance Solutions mixes delivered as probales,” says David.

“Our mixes contain one, or more, peat fractions together with Fibagro Advance woodfibre. To open up the nursery stock and herbaceous mixes, the recipes include different rates of buffered coir and pine bark.  By tweaking the nutrition packages and wetting agent, these new mixes are performing as well as our previous 100% peat mixes, we really haven’t noticed any changes.”

New technologies

“With the addition of wood-based materials, the new mixes have a lower water holding capacity which is compensated for with our water management agent, H2Gro,” explains Sam Rivers , ICL technical manager for controls. .  “There can be Nitrogen lock-up associated with wood-based ingredients so, to get crops off to the best start, we include Osmoform High N slow-release starter fertilizer, with an 8-10week longevity.”

As to the main nutrition package, for the short-term autumn bedding crops David puts his trust in Osmocote Bloom Bedding (12-7-18+1.5MgO+TE).  A controlled release fertilizer with an NPK ratio of 2:1:3, it promotes condensed growth, while its small granule size is perfectly designed for annuals in small pots.

“For our hanging baskets we get great performance using Osmocote Exact Standard 8-9month,” says David. “With a constant release pattern, it promotes uniform growth throughout the growing season.  This Levington Advance mix is so popular with our customers that we also sell it in our own branded retail bags.”

For nursery stock, Clockhouse relies on our latest generation Osmocote 5 (12-14month).  “Designed specifically for peat-reduced/free growing media, its S-shaped NPK release curve matches plant’s needs closer than ever before, making it even more efficient and effective,” says Sam. “It also benefits from our optimised Trace Element Availability System.”

According to David, the nutrition programmes are generally so good there is no need for supplementary feed, apart from the odd hungry crop, such as Laurels.

Pre-incorporated solutions save time

To protect against root diseases such as ‘damping off’, Clockhouse has the biological fungicide Prestop pre-incorporated into most mixes. “Thanks to Prestop, we’ve almost eliminated damping off from the nursery – with just a few isolated outbreaks linked to occasional issues with the irrigation system,” says David.

“With the recent loss of thiacloprid, we now include Lalguard M52 in our nursery stock mix.  This new Metarhizium based bioinsecticide forms part of our IPM programme for vine weevil control.  The site is surrounded by hedges, trees and gardens so vine weevil is a constant threat. To keep it at bay, we also apply Seeka CT nematodes in October, targeting the grubs, and Pitcher GR to control the egg stage in late spring.

“The more products, like Prestop and Lalguard M52, we can incorporate into the growing media the easier it makes it for our busy production team.”

Market for superior retail growing media

Keen to stand out from the local competition, Clockhouse stocks ICL’s semi-professional Humax retail growing media range, and is currently transitioning to the peat-free options. “We stock four Humax mixes including the multipurpose,” says David.  “While the product stands out due to its attractive packaging, our display features an opened bag to let customers see and feel for themselves the quality.  There is definitely a market for superior growing media – Humax is a brand which has a well-established profile with keen gardeners, willing to pay a bit more for consistent high quality growing media that delivers the best results.

“While Levington and Humax quality and consistency is always good, so too is ICL’s service which is efficient and friendly – nothing is too much trouble,” says David. “Over the years, we’ve worked with several technical area sales managers – they’ve all been knowledgeable and given good advice.”