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Sunday 29th June 2025, a market at Tan-y-Llyn Nurseries in aid of Medecins Sans Frontieres 12 till 3 pm. Interesting stalls and Nursery open for plant sales.

We are trying some new recycled pots for larger plants. Here is what the suppliers say:

The new eco-sustainable grower pot range from Pasquini & Bini

Reducing, reusing and recycling are essential to help limit the effect our activities have on the environment. This has lead to the development of a new material GranPlas.

What is GranPlast?
GranPlast is a material made from recycling Tetra Pak®-type packaging. Thanks to this innovative project, tonnes of Tetra Pak®-type drinks cartons discarded after use, are collected to transform them into a secondary-raw material. By separating its components and extracting cellulose from TetraPack to create GranPlast from the remaining components of polythene and aluminium.

Pasquini & Bini manufacture the Infinity plant containers from GranPlas.

Infinity pots provide several advantages when it comes to growing plants:

1. Temperature Control
Thanks to the qualities of GranPlast, the plant pots regulate root temperature, creating optimal conditions for the plants to grow. Infinity plant pots reduce the extent to which the substrate inside the pots overheats during the summer months, recording temperatures that are on average 5-7 degrees lower than black pots, with peaks of 10° during the hottest hours of the day. This is of considerable benefit to the plant roots, and for their health in general, reducing stress to a minimum. In the winter or on days where there is little or no sun, the Infinity range behaves in the same way as the black PE pot.

2. Phytostimulation
Infinity plant pots provide a positive environment for plants to grow in, promoting phytostimulation and improving root health. The advantage noted is that action due to the release of a small percentage of aluminium particles into the substrate the pot can be used in absolute safety including with edible crops.

3. Carbon Black Free
The total lack of carbon black simplifies disposal on completion of cultivation, making Infinity plant pots a sustainable choice. The Infinity plant containers are easily recycled through curb side recycling. 

The Infinity is much more than a plant pot, it is a commitment to a sustainable future, an initiative that proves how recycling and sustainability can go hand in hand.

stranger than fiction [ 01] dieithryn na ffuglen

Just a Giant Herb

Banana Dwarf Cavendish

There are thouands of varieties of banana but banana seeds are not very palatable, so the bananas we eat are sterile, without seeds. They are propagated vegetatively – all identically tasty – but unfortunately identically suseptible to disease. The main commercial banana of the fifties, Gros Michel a beautifully creamy fruit, was virtually wiped out by wilt disease.

It was replaced by Dwarf Cavendish which was resistant to the (then) strains of the disease. It is named Cavendish after the Batchelor Duke of Devonshire. His gardener, the legendary glasshouse builder Joseph Paxton, propagated the plant at Chatsworth and this far eastern plant was eventually distributed to the New World.

This is one of the most productive edible plants. The bunches can weigh as much as 40 kilos. The fruit are technically berries and the trunks are actually compressed leaf bases. 

Although Dwarf Cavendish will survive temperatures of 13ºC (plus 13, not minus 13) they need to be much warmer (and humid) to flower and fruit.  But even if you don’t have Paxton’s Great Stove glasshouse (large enough to take carriages) it makes an attractive houseplant and looks very tropical in a pot outside during the summer months.

One (or more) of these plants are ready for sale this week. Feel free to email or text to clarify. We are happy to send by first class post in the UK – bear in mind that post and packing usually costs as much as the plants. Here is the availability list for week 2024/40

Tanyllyn Perennials is selling plants for garden and railway at the Welshpool end of the railway at Gala this year. We’ll be there on Saturday and Sunday with locally produced perennials and rock plants.

Had a lovely time in the Quarry Marquee with a small perennial garden – friendly customers, volunteers and staff. Getting in and out was a challenge, but worth it!

Ignore the coating, laughter and adverts: several U.S. podcasts offer gem after gem about growing flowers for money and lifestyle. Entrepreneurial!

The Flower Podcast Scot Shepherd

No Till Flowers: Jennie Love

Azara microphylla is the hardiest of it’s group but grows best as a wall shrub. It makes an open framework with pleasing repetition of small, shiny, evergreen leaves and tiny yellow fluffy flowers in early spring. It smells stronger than you might expect, given the diminutive size of the flowers. It’s not uncommon for people to be confused, looking for a flower that’s as big as it’s scent is strong. Catalogues call the scent vanilla or chocolate but caramel is the fragrance that comes across to me. Unfortunately, synthetic caramel is now a popular flavour of vape locally: the association has lost a little of its charm.