Our production

Our nursery

Barnhaven has been in existence as a primula and polyanthus breeder since 1936, and we are very proud of its traditions. We are now based outside a small village in Brittany, France and we operate from a small family run nursery which has four shade tunnels and six plastic covered tunnels that are open at the sides to the elements. Our plants are grown to be hardy; none of the tunnels are heated and the plants will often freeze in the winter as our temperatures can drop to -5°C. They are over-wintered on benches in the open-sided tunnels or on matting or gravel in the shade tunnels. Our collection of Show auriculas is grown under one of the plastic covered polytunnels with extra shade netting so that the plants are not too hot and get plenty of ventilation. This gives them protection from rain, but leaves them exposed to the cold.

Our seeds

All our pollinating is done by hand using the same traditional methods as Florence Bellis. It takes a fair amount of dedication to spend days at a time with only fingers moving in cold, windy and damp weather. As the pods start to swell, there is a long battle against caterpillars, aphids, rot, birds and mice.

Seed pods are picked singly and it takes skill and experience to harvest at the optimum moment. Once they have dried, seed is extracted from the pods by hand or with the help of a seed cleaning aspirator. All seed is stored under refrigeration until the moment of dispatch which ensures the seed that reaches you is of the best quality possible. Hellebore seed is only sold fresh, just after harvest as it is difficult to break the dormancy if refrigerated.

The amount of seed we have available varies considerably depending on weather and pollinating factors. Some years, seed may not be available if the harvest fails or if we do not get time to pollinate everything.

We only sell seed that we have produced ourselves on-site so we can be sure of its quality.

We want you to love our plants as much as we do and we take enormous care to ensure that your seeds reach you in good condition. Please follow our growing instructions carefully, and keep your Primula seeds in the fridge if you are not sowing immediately.

Our plants

All of our plants are produced on site by sowing seed of our own production or by manual division. Occasionally we may grow some of our plants from other seed sources if we wish to introduce some new species or other varieties we do not have. Our bulbs are sourced from a reliable Dutch producer. A small selection of our double primroses are micro-propagated from our own mother plants as we cannot produce enough plants for sale by manual division. None of our other plants are micro-propagated.

The primroses we grow from seed are all sown afresh every year in the spring and are ready to be planted out in the garden from the autumn onwards which is when we put our new catalogue on-line. All our plants that are propagated from division are divided once a year. This ensures we keep our plants as disease and pest free as possible.

All our plants are sent out from October to June and are well-rooted in 7cm, 9cm or 1L pots. We are deliberately keeping the pot sizes as small as possible to keep the cost of shipping down. We spend a lot of time checking that the plants we send are healthy and free from pests. They are also packaged with the utmost care and sent with instructions on how and when to plant.

Please note that we do not alter at all the natural growing stages of our plants so if ordering deciduous plants in the winter, they will not have any leaves and they will flower during their natural flowering period.

Our environmental commitment

For the last ten years we have been working to change our practices to reduce our impact on the environment. Here are our policies regarding some of the major points of producing plants in a necessarily artificial environment.

• Pesticides: We do not use chemical pesticides on our plants preferring to use preventative treatments such as garlic, fern or nettle preparations or a mixture of linseed oil and essential oils. We will also use sticky traps at certain times of the year.
• Biological pest control: We use auxiliary insects to help us regulate unwanted insects in the nursery. This involves preventative treatments such as nematodes to control vine weevil or lace-wing larvae to eat the aphids.
• Auxiliary plants: We grow auxiliary plants in and around the tunnels to attract beneficial insects such as fennel or yarrow.
• Fungicide: We ensure the maximum ventilation of our plants and optimum watering including less fertilizer to ensure the plants are not vulnerable to fungal disease. If necessary we will use natural treatments such as fern, horsetail preparations or copper based solutions. If there is a severe threat we may very occasionally use a chemical treatment allowed in organic cultures.
• Fertilizer: We use an organic-mineral natural fertilizer made in Brittany called Probioterre.
• Herbicide: We do not use herbicides and control the weeds by hand-weeding, burning or bicarbonate of soda.
• Energy: We do not heat our tunnels and have installed solar panels for our electricity needs.
• Water: The water we use today comes from a bore hole. We are very careful with our water use, and watering times. We are also looking to invest in a bigger rain collection system.
• Plastic use: We still use plastic pots, but recycle as many as possible by washing, reusing or taking them to a recycling point. For our packaging, we use 100% recycled plastic that can be recycled again with your normal plastic collection and old newspapers, (while on the lookout for a better cardboard based option).

All our plants are lovingly and carefully raised and will contribute to enriching the biodiversity in your garden, helping feed the bees and early pollinators. Please consult our Culture pages for more information on looking after your plants in an environmentally friendly way or contact us for more information.