Wednesday 29 April 2009

Akamba!!




Last Saturday I met up with fellow Blogger - Julia (from We're going to need a bigger pot) and we both went to a HTUK forum meet at a brilliant tropical plant nursery in Birmingham called Akamba- Julia had rashly offered me a lift up in her car- but luckily for her she didnt mind my frequent rambling and indeed I think we chattered non stop for about 5 hours there and back!










At Akamba I met up with a lot of friends from around the country who all have a shared interest in growing tropical plants in the UK from the HTUK forum. It was a beautiful day, and was lovely to catch up with many friends who I hadn’t seen for a year or 2! and met many new faces that perhaps I only knew as user name or avatar in cyberspace. I think in all we were at the nursery for 4 hours and I reckon we left early compared with most people!


Can you spot me?- probably not!- there were quite a few of us! We even were given name tags!



Frank and Me engrossed in plant talk


I resisted in buying any plants from Akamba (something not many people managed to do!). However after leaving there was a swap in the car park where people bring their spare plants to give away or swap to others. I was able to get 2 Tetrapanex 'Rex' pups (as mine hasnt pupped yet- one for the sunny side of the garden and one for P's mum), a purple Aeonium, and an Echeveria subrigida.


Frank and Julia

Myself, Julia and Frank decided to go 2 more nurseries on the way home the first was Fibrex- which is a nursery which specialises in Ferns and hold the national collection of Hedera, Pelagonium- and I bought a Cyathea cooperii and some smaller ferns (an Adiantum aleuticum 'imbricatum' and 3 smaller Asplenium scolopendrium muricatum, and once we had our fern fix we headed off to CGF- Cotswold Garden Flowers which has loads (and I mean LOADS!) of gems- i bought an Aloe, a Sanguisorba 'Tanna' for the grass garden, and 2 Asarum europaeum for the shady border.

I will add photos when I can of the visit! I fell in love with a metal crocodile- it was just the price tag that held me back! Thanks to Nick and Lucien for the photos above.

2 comments:

  1. Akamba seems to get hold of some amazing plants at particularly good prices. Keeping meaning to visit, but never really get the chance!

    I like those metal sculptures too. A lot were made in Zimbabwe (maybe they still are?), I saw a lot of them over there. The best was a crowned crane...maybe one day....

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  2. You weren't half as bad as you make out you were, Owen! As I said, it was nice to have a passenger who did more than just get in the car and fall asleep (I always feel like Hubster's personal chauffeur...).

    As for the crocodile - the price tag AND the logistics of fitting it in a Fiat Punto, yes?

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Owen