Daffodils & Primroses

Spring is in the air and we’re all just itching to get out in the garden – We nearly sold out of little tete a tete daffodils and primroses in the centres this week, they are really looking their best now so we’re busy re-stocking to ensure we don’t disappoint any one.

We’re also in the midst of redeveloping the out-door area of our Centre at Landford – We all love this centre – its in a beautiful setting in the New Forest and the guys there have a real feel for creating inspirational displays – its so exciting for us to have brand new paving and fixtures and fittings to make the plants look their best. The works nearly finished now so over the next few weeks the team will be filling back up with lovely fresh stock, I am being sent to see one of the best suppliers for specimen stock next week to get some real special pieces to set the new Plant area off with, I can’t wait...

Talking of re-developments I am busy getting quotes for my garden – The first stage is to have the whole lot rotavated and levelled, I also need a new fence and we’re going to put decking down over the existing and rather tatty patio. Once this has all been done I will have a good base to work on for the rest – Lawn, raised veggy beds and some small borders that should be low maintenance – I am having to be very disciplined and stop myself from buying any of the yummy stock coming into the centres at the moment as I have nowhere to put it yet! I hope those quotes come through soon.

Spring Time Is Approaching!

Spring is doing its best to push through; daffodils are starting to bloom and filling our plant areas with various shades of yellow. Very soon we will be absolutely spoilt for choice for plants of all types as they start to put on growth again. Some of my favourite shrubs on the Garden centres now are –

Camellias – Coming into full flower now, you just cannot beat a Camellia for the ‘wow’ factor in your garden. With the added benefit of being evergreen they’ll give you year-round structure in your borders too.

Chaenomeles – Commonly known as Japanese Quince, these shrubs can be trained against a wall and produce pretty little flowers in February and March going on to develop edible fruit in the Autumn. Good doers these shrubs will grow pretty much anywhere.

Skimmias – Neat evergreen shrubs with panicles of green/white or red flowers on the female plants that hold well through late winter until the weather warms up. The buds then pop open into full flower releasing a wonderful musky scent. If yours are looking a bit yellow, give them an Iron tonic and watch them green-up within weeks.

We also have the starter range Herbaceous perennials coming through now. These are great for adding colour to your borders and ‘in filling’ around shrubs. Many people make the mistake of buying lots of different types and ending up with the ‘fruit salad’ effect. If you want real impact in the garden choose fewer varieties but lots of each, odd numbers (in the trade ‘landscape’ numbers) in 5s, 7s and up look more natural and when planted in swathes can really do you proud. If you’re canny, do some research on varieties before making a decision. This will enable you to co-ordinate colour and timing so your borders look their best all season. We will be offering these plants at 5 for £10 through March and April which makes the above technique very affordable.

Despite the cold I have been out and about visiting nurseries to find the best plant stock for our centres. We try and source stock locally or from British growers whenever we can and if possible grown ‘cold’. This means the stock is kept outside or in unheated polytunnels to keep it hardy and ready to face the real world outside in the garden. Despite the weather some of these little toughies are doing their best to nose through and enjoy what sunshine they can get, on one nursery the foxgloves were even doing their best to flower! I know things are starting to move when the first Paeonies start to make an appearance, the first shoots are always the most amazing deep red colour and sure enough they’re just starting to tip through the soil so we’ll be getting some of those in soon.

Box Topiary, looking verrry cold. A pot and a trim and they're ready to go

Occasionally though we have to turn to our European friends for stock such as houseplants and topiary that we don’t grow as well over here. I was in Belgium last week looking at what they have to offer. The Belgians offer a good range of cold grown hardy stock and topiary. We visited several nurseries growing box topiary – It was incredible to see them en masse in fields surrounded by snow – I know if they can cope with that and temperatures lower then -13c they’ll do fine over here. We also saw many Azaleas and Rhododendrons and the best Bay trees I have seen by far. Interestingly China has picked up on the Belgian quality and is starting to buy there in quantity so I got my orders in quick! We have picked some of the Azaleas and Box plants for some of our offers coming up in a few weeks time.

Our Supplier looking warm in the Bay Tree Nursery. Those are the biggest Bays I've ever seen!

Vegetable Seeds

We’re getting all romantic this week – Wine, chocolate and bunches of flowers are pretty common fare for Valentines but I always think it’s a shame when they only last five minutes. A rose plant is less expensive than a bunch and will last a lot longer many have been named appropriately too, ‘Romance’, ‘Perpetually Yours’, ‘Temptress’ and even ‘Hanky Panky’ to name just a few. I often wonder who thinks up these names! The thought is the most important thing and the Garden centre is a great place to find something that bit more special for the Garden lover in your life.

I’ve been looking at veggie seeds over the past week and I think I’m going to start with some essentials that I like to eat. Cut and come again Salad leaves, they’re quick to grow, you can harvest what you want when you want them and they look great – I want my vegetable garden to look ornamental too.

French and Runner Beans are easy, reliable and good for the freezer. They’ll also make a good centrepiece grown up cane wigwams in the centre of each bed.

Swiss chard (or Leaf Beet), the bright lights type look good as well being tasty; I steam the leaves and flavour with butter and a twist of salt and pepper.

Carrots should be easy as we’re going to build raised beds which should deter carrot fly I also inter-crop carrots with spring onions which look and taste good and again may deter the carrot fly by disguising the smell (which is said to attract the flies) when I thin out the seedlings.

I’ll buy courgettes as ready started plants as I only want to grow a couple – I have a great recipe for courgette and dolcelatte cheese soup. Yum!

I’ll leave plenty of space for other bits that I can choose as I fancy, after all the garden should be fun and I want enough space left to play and experiment with.