Natland Pleione

We have been lucky enough to have been nominated for the MyLocal awards for Cumbria Garden Centre/Nursery of the year. This is both a huge honour and opportunity for us to get some visibility and support for what we are doing and we would be incredibly grateful if you could take a couple of minutes to click on the link below and vote for us, and if possible share the link with others. Vote for Natland Pleione | My Local Awards I did contact Rick Astley to ask if he would co

Exciting times are upon me. I am working with a supplier to try and develop a testing process, suitable for us all to use at home that will identify the two major thorns in our collective Pleione growing backsides - Pleione Virus-Y (PVY) and Pleione flower break virus (PlFBV). I am aware that there are tests available for lots of other virus which can affect orchids, including Pleione, but the one that has been rampaging through collections and feeding the incinerators and co

We all have plants that we keep, that for some unknown reason are reluctant to flower, well this is one of mine - Pleione Eiger 'Turtle Dove' A delicate flower nodding gently in the greenhouse this morning. It must be 4 or 5 years since this last flowered for me. It has built up nice bulbs each year but no flowers, not until now.... Welcome back. There are lots of buds appearing now and the warmth of the last few days has really brough things along... Happy growing Stu

Exciting times....

I was asked to write a short piece for the localish (Westmorland and South Lakes) newspaper about Pleione. Here it is, please excuse the festive jumper in one of the pics. https://www.in-cumbria.com/news/25802922.south-lakes-man-behind-growing-orchid-community/

It makes me blush a little when I get really nice comments about the photos I take of my plants. Having a photographic record of plants is important to me for several reasons - I can compare year-on-year flowers if I suspect there may be an issue, I can identify plants where labels may have gone astray over winter and possibly most enjoyable is the fact that I can share the pictures of the plants with growers around the world. I am asked how I take my pictures and how I make

What a difference a bit of sunshine and warmth is making to the Pleione. I gave them their first 'damping' of the season last week and we have had a couple of warmer days since, infact today has been 'warm' after a freezing start and the first bees have been visiting the crocus on the lawn, basking in the sunshine. As predicted, it looks like Pln. humilis 'Myanmar' could be the first into flower this Spring but there are lots of buds appearing which makes for very exciting ti

Spring it well and truly on its way here in Natland and as usual it looks like it is going to be a photo-finish to see which plants open first with strong showings from Sirena, humilis 'Myanmar' and Margaret Kerr 'Purity' all pushing on. All plants are potted now and ready for the season, I have given the pots their very first gentle watering, just enough to dampen the compost but nothing more. I have stripped all the benches off and relined then with capillary matting as I

One of the reoccurring questions I get is around the subject of virus. Everyone has there own opinions of virus, its origins and whether a plant is, or is not affected. I, like many of you reading, have lost plants to virus and about 10 years ago I had a huge cull of my collection as I felt I needed to bin anything that remotely looks infected - I am sure I threw some good plants away by mistake but I wanted to be sure that I had taken the strongest course of action that I c

I am often asked what I grow my plants in, and the short answer is that I use two methods. One is the 'usual' mix for compost (pine bark, chopped sphagnum, and perlite). The second method I use, and this is by far the exception rather than the rule, is growing in pure live sphagnum moss. The pure moss method is something that was shown to me by a good friend some years ago and has been a really successful way for some of the plants - I must point out at this point that not al

I am now getting frequent requests for talks to groups, either in person or over the internet. If you are interested please drop me a message with you requirements and such and I would be happy to discuss. Happy Growing!

Its that time of the year, when the weather is cold and miserable outside that I head into the greenhouse and start the task of repotting and dividing up my plants, this is not easy feat as I now have over 200 different varieties of Pleione and I need to repot them all, having taken them out of pots, trimmed them and inspected them for health issues. I personally take this opportunity to separate flowering sized (FS) bulbs from those not quite there yet and pot them up and gr

Wow - what a rollercoaster the last few weeks have been with getting the website set-up ready for selling and then going live on the day. Many thanks to all those who visited Natland Pleione and bought plants. I hope that everyone got what they wanted from the page and that the information was clear and the pictures helpful. There have been a few lessons learned and these will be rolled into the next sale, which will be Autumn 2026 flowering plants.

'Is it difficult?' Short answer is no, but the longer answer is 'it could be'. I have been growing Pleione since I was 10 years old and...

The year is speeding past and the nights are drawing in which means that the Autumn flowering plants are starting to bud. I have already...

The plants are starting to push to very positive looking buds up now. It’s looking like Sirena will be my first Spring flowering Pleione...

At last we have the page up and running and I will hopefully keep a blog going, if people are interested in how I grow my Pleione in the...

Hello and welcome to Natland Pleione! Please be patient with me as I navigate around the setting up of a website - whilst I may have a...