Thank you. Like you say, it’s probably too much if a gamble as I’d be bound to be the one who gif caught Thank you also for the tip. Duly ignored. That was getting rather unpleasant!
There is no ambiguity here, the answer is simply NO, please listen to Obelixx and don’t do it!
Some online nurseries in the EU are now set up to export to the UK (and vice versa) and handle the phytosanitary certification and customs procedures for you. For a price.
However, if it’s available in your country of origin you really should buy it in your county of origin because in Europe, the system isn’t perfect either and pests and diseases spread on plants imported from on EU state to another. Xylella, for example.
Even if there was something rare and unusual you cannot buy in the UK that you simply must have, consider that there might be a very good reason why it is not grown nor sold. Can you guarantee you would not be importing an invasive thug?
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
Thank you everyone who made helpful suggestions. However I seem to have unintentionally opened a can of worms with my question and given some people an opportunity to take the higher moral ground!
Guess that’s always the danger with public discussions! Gave a good day everyone
@zippychick73 Why would you want to bring plants to the UK in the first place. Surely there are enough opportunities to buy a vast array of plants here. Probably more so than in Europe.
I am sure you remember the mosaic virus on Petunias imported from Holland years ago it cost growers and GC's millions.
With the kinds of weather patterns that we are experiencing all plants are under stress and plant disease will increase a result. For some it's reach for the nearest chemical and kill off everything else that happens to be around too. We don't need to import more problems. One persons selfish act of bringing in plants could result in more food shortages and affect people's lively hoods. @Nollie mentions Xylella which is devastating.
I hope that anyone planning to bring plants to the UK illegally gets caught. The flora in this country needs to be protected as it does in the EU.
It is interesting that both @Obelixx and @Nollie have given the best advice of all. We need to listen to them.
I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
I go along with the why-not-buy-in-UK brigade. We have better range of material than anywhere on the continent. Dutch and Belgian nurseries are very good at specialising with a reduced range together with keen marketing and large scale production. A phytosanitary certificate will soon erode any price savings on a few plants.
Of course, I am generalising. The only continental nursery I think worth considering is a German nursey that grows lime tolerant rhododendrons. And many of their plants can be bought in the UK. Perhaps if I was into bearded irises, or waterlilies, or big plants from Italy ...
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
I didn't see anybody trying to take the moral high ground. Just people trying to make suggestions of other possible sources of information. If the RHS is indicating that all imports now require the relevant 'passports', I would be inclined to take that as coming from a pretty solid source of information.
It's not just the relevant passports, Having been through the document-obtaining session in both directions, (just for a couple of baytrees, a bonsai, a potted rhododendron, and a few special ivies), it was a half day's job by an expert.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Obelixx and Nollie live in France and Spain. I live in France too but my OH lives in Norfolk so I travel quite a bit between the two. I have read a lot about transporting plants to and fro between the UK and France. I used to take a lot of plants and roses to France but since Brexit I can't. Not worth risking it either, cars are sometimes searched at the ferry ports, including mine. I don't think it's worth taking plants from France anyway because the UK selection is much better.
My local rose grower, Peter Beales Classic Roses has stopped exporting roses to France since Brexit, too much trouble and expense,.
Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
Yep, pansyface, just removing the last ash from our back garden. It's a really sad one.
What unnerves me is reading (from another group I am a member of) how easy it is to import roses from the US.... or rather, that there are rose growers who there are happy to break the law and post plants to the UK. There are horrific rose diseases there (like RRD) and the thought of the mite that causes it ending up in UK gardens makes my blood run cold!
P.S. does the boldface make it easier for you to read posts? Should I use bold when talking to you?
If you know where to look there is a huge range of plants available to EU gardeners from across the EU. There are loads of plants I can't get locally - huge numbers of holiday homes with limited gardening ambitions - but they're avilable online of if I drive about an hour. Belgium is particularly blessed with good nurseries and plantsmen and women but so are more populated parts of France.
Ash dieback arrived in Belgium some time ago but it took a long time for them to recognise the problem. It's arrived here and we've had to have two mature trees cut down but there are younger trees still OK and lots of saplings about. I sincerely hope that the recent Italian innovations against xylella in their olive trees will prove successful and be picked up in Spain and France which also have huge olive groves.
Oaks are also susceptible. The UK may have the oldest oaks in the world but it has far fewer trees than anywhere else in Europe so needs to be careful about conserving what it has and that means plant hygiene. Xylella arrived in Italy in 2008 on a coffee plant but the microbes adpated to live on olive trees and are happy on oak too.
Be careful what you wish for when you improt unsanitised plants and seed.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
Posts
Thank you also for the tip. Duly ignored. That was getting rather unpleasant!
Some online nurseries in the EU are now set up to export to the UK (and vice versa) and handle the phytosanitary certification and customs procedures for you. For a price.
However, if it’s available in your country of origin you really should buy it in your county of origin because in Europe, the system isn’t perfect either and pests and diseases spread on plants imported from on EU state to another. Xylella, for example.
I am sure you remember the mosaic virus on Petunias imported from Holland years ago it cost growers and GC's millions.
With the kinds of weather patterns that we are experiencing all plants are under stress and plant disease will increase a result. For some it's reach for the nearest chemical and kill off everything else that happens to be around too. We don't need to import more problems.
One persons selfish act of bringing in plants could result in more food shortages and affect people's lively hoods. @Nollie mentions Xylella which is devastating.
I hope that anyone planning to bring plants to the UK illegally gets caught. The flora in this country needs to be protected as it does in the EU.
It is interesting that both @Obelixx and @Nollie have given the best advice of all. We need to listen to them.
Of course, I am generalising. The only continental nursery I think worth considering is a German nursey that grows lime tolerant rhododendrons. And many of their plants can be bought in the UK. Perhaps if I was into bearded irises, or waterlilies, or big plants from Italy ...
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
My local rose grower, Peter Beales Classic Roses has stopped exporting roses to France since Brexit, too much trouble and expense,.
What unnerves me is reading (from another group I am a member of) how easy it is to import roses from the US.... or rather, that there are rose growers who there are happy to break the law and post plants to the UK. There are horrific rose diseases there (like RRD) and the thought of the mite that causes it ending up in UK gardens makes my blood run cold!
P.S. does the boldface make it easier for you to read posts? Should I use bold when talking to you?
Ash dieback arrived in Belgium some time ago but it took a long time for them to recognise the problem. It's arrived here and we've had to have two mature trees cut down but there are younger trees still OK and lots of saplings about. I sincerely hope that the recent Italian innovations against xylella in their olive trees will prove successful and be picked up in Spain and France which also have huge olive groves.
Oaks are also susceptible. The UK may have the oldest oaks in the world but it has far fewer trees than anywhere else in Europe so needs to be careful about conserving what it has and that means plant hygiene. Xylella arrived in Italy in 2008 on a coffee plant but the microbes adpated to live on olive trees and are happy on oak too.
Be careful what you wish for when you improt unsanitised plants and seed.