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Peat-free case studies: Quinky Wholesale Plants

Charles Warner of Quinky Wholesale Plants shares their peat-free journey

Have you made the transition to peat-free? If you’d like to share your story to help and inspire other growers, please get in touch.

Many growers and nurseries in the UK are already 100% peat-free, or are well on their way. Charles Warner of Quinky Wholesale Plants has shared their story to help other growers learn about their experiences, and the solutions they have found to any differences that may be seen with peat-free.

Quinky Wholesale Plants: background

Peat-free status: 100 per cent peat-free

Date established: 2008

Type/size of plants grown: Herbs and alpines

Number of plants produced per year: Around 50,000 (1.3L format or equivalent) plants

Growing environment, irrigation and nutrition used: Around half the nursery is under polythene; the rest being outside beds. We water by hand and use a bespoke growing medium from Melcourt with 12-month Osmocote. Longer-term stock plants are supplemented with liquid feed

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Growing peat-free – in conversation with Charles Warner, owner and founder

Why did you decide to go peat-free, and how long did it take to transition?  

Our peat-free journey started around 2010. I chose a peat-free mix because I liked dealing with Melcourt and because at the time they would create a bespoke mix and deliver materials in a smaller volume (a single pallet). In this part of the UK, it is difficult to find suppliers of peat-free materials that are consistent and will deliver the small quantities needed at the start of the peat-free journey.

For the first year or so, I continued to propagate in a peat-based growing medium, but after a suggestion from my growing media manufacturer, I began using their potting mix for all our

cuttings and seed-sowing. As we don’t buy in any young plant material, this meant that at some point around 2010 we became entirely peat-free.

We were able to deal with consistency issues, either by being flexible in our growing, or by discussions with our growing media manufacturer

- Charles Warner, Quinky Wholesale Plants

Were customers asking you for peat-free plants?

None of the Welsh retailers that we supply have ever asked for peat-free plants.

Did you test many different growing media manufacturers or carry out trials? What peat-free medium has been most successful for you?  

The most important factor for us was whether we could get the product where we are, in Wales. I never did any trials comparing different peat-free mixes from various manufacturers – I am a traditional grower and I just adapted to the peat-free mix in the same way that I adapted to different peat-based mixes in the past. The success of peat-free growing mostly comes down to the art of watering.

There have been issues with consistency over the years, but nothing that we haven’t been able to deal with, either by being flexible in our growing or by discussions with our growing media manufacturer.

I just adapted to the peat-free mix the same way I had adapted to different peat-based mixes. I have never felt the need to blame the mix for any failures

- Charles Warner
How easy was it to transition to fully peat-free once you started?   

I found the transition very easy. We sell our plants to some of the most discerning retailers in Wales, and the plants have to compete with imports and products from the best growers in the UK. If there had been quality issues, we would not have survived.

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What were the different feed and irrigation needs when growing peat-free, and were there any other changes to production?

I have always been a traditional grower, and I still spend my time on hands and knees studying how the plants are growing rather than studying spreadsheets or orders from foreign plug producers. This allows me to constantly adapt what we do without really being aware of any particular differences with growing medium.

Sometimes crops fail, but it is usually due to poor timing, and I have never felt the need to blame the growing medium for any failures.

Have there been other benefits to being peat-free? E.g. fewer pests or disease, better root health, or fewer weeds and moss on the surface of pots?   

With many peat-free mixes you can allow the surface to dry out a little, which drastically reduces the growth of moss and liverwort.

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© Quinky
What are your top tips for those starting out growing peat-free? 

My top tip for growers wishing to transition from peat to a peat-free mix is to re-learn the ability to be flexible in your growing.

The nursery industry has grown on the backs of the excellent and mostly consistent growing media based on peat, which has allowed huge propagation nurseries worldwide to create great products and schedule them into production in an efficient and predictable way.

Re-learn the ability to be flexible in your growing

- Charles Warner
This is more difficult to do with a peat-free product, as the ingredients need to go through a process. Growing media manufacturers must constantly strive towards the consistency that growers enjoyed with peat, but growers can also do their bit by being flexible and responding to what they see on the ground.

I would also recommend visiting a peat bog, especially if you are able to do so with someone that understands the ecology of the habitat. I was lucky enough to do that, and it made me resolve to never use peat again for growing plants. I would give up my nursery rather than use peat – it is unnecessary.

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Growing media manufacturers must strive towards consistency, but growers can also do their bit by being flexible and responding to what they notice

- Charles Warner

Charles’ journey with Quinky Wholesale Plants

I left Pershore in 1984 and continued to work for Walker and Rutherford in Warwickshire as their first manager. I returned to college in 1985/86 to study plant production and marketing.

Following this I worked for two years as

propagator on a nursery south of Birmingham, then moved to West Wales to start a nursery producing young plants; initially for Four Oaks and then for other medium to large nurseries, mostly in England.

In 2001 I returned to the Midlands to continue the young plant nursery on a much larger site within an existing nursery, but eventually I returned to West Wales with no intention to continue in horticulture.

However, slowly I re-established the nursery. With no funds but a small area of land, I obtained planning permission for two houses and sold one of the plots to help fund the nursery.

After touring the plant retailers in West Wales, I felt that there was a living to be made selling a high quality product in the three counties local to me. So began Quinky Young Plants in about 2008 – at first to supply just herbs, and then herbs and alpines, to retailers within Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire.

We now supply retailers all over Wales. Our plants are often among the best examples available in the UK, and because we propagate all our own plants here, we are able to offer a range that is different to those of growers who buy in their plugs.

As well as being 100% peat-free, we also grow without the use of synthetic pesticides, and are part of the Saving Pollinators Assurance Scheme. 
 

Share your peat-free transition story: get in touch.

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