Weber Airstream at John Browns Three Garden Centre Legged Cross

A Barbeque at the end of a hard days gardening always tastes amazing – This Saturday we have the Weber BBQ roadshow visiting our John Browns Centre in Three Legged Cross - pop in for BBQing tips, demos and some fantastic Easter special offers.

WeberAirstream at John Browns

With the current typical spring weather life in the garden is far from typical! Alongside having to dress for all weathers I’m noticing just how fast things are growing now with the longer and (generally!) warmer days. Every week we have more and more lovely plants becoming available and even the full range of summer bedding plants are now ready to go.

This year as always we are conscious of conserving water and keeping the garden low maintenance. There’s still time to plan your patch with this in mind. A good mulch of manure, soil improver or bark chips around your flower beds will keep weeds down and moisture in. Before you buy do a bit of research into plants that will hold their own come rain or shine and that will suit the soil and position or pop in and ask our experts for some suggestions. A good start in life is key, so invest in a general feed and some soil improving compost to plant them with now and reap the rewards later on in the year. Lawns will also cope better when under stress if they’ve been top dressed and fed at the start of the season.

For a glorious display use water retaining granules in your pots and baskets. This will help retain moisture and reduce the daily chore of watering – modern brands include a feed which will keep your bedding looking fresh and healthy. Another tip is to use bigger containers that will hold more moisture (and plants!) with a decent quality compost (a lot of research goes into compost and its water holding properties!) Again our experts can fill you in on the best choices for you and your garden.

Spring Offers!

What a difference a couple of weeks can make. With the weather in our favour gardening just couldn’t be more enjoyable. Every time I go out a new leaf is out or a new flower in bloom and everyone’s talking outdoor living. Its offer change over time for us at Golden Acres, so as well as having to make some tough choices of what to stock each week (its a hard life when you have so many wonderful things to choose from) our managers now have to find space for even more fantastic gardening goodies at really competitive prices.

My pick of the offers are on Grow Your Own – you can save £15 on selected fruit trees and our Raspberry Canes are £12 for two packs (usually £8.99 a pack).

Carries gone for Garden lighting with style. Steel Post Lights with a saving of £10 per pack, Solar Party Lanterns that will save you £8 off the RRP and we don’t need to say much about her border balls other than they’ll save you £9.50. Definitely more bang for your buck!!! Have a look at our website for the rest...

Happy gardening and enjoy.

http://www.goldenacresgroup.co.uk/

Vegetable Plants & Weber Airstream

Well it is an exciting time for us Gardeners at the moment with all the yummy new plants becoming available each week now. This weeks walk round our nursery revealed a whole tunnel of emerging vegetable plants. We have broad beans, cabbage, brussels sprouts, tomatoes just to name a few... The summer bedding plants are also coming through now, Fuschias and Ivy leaved geraniums are ready for taking home to grow on and the other tub and basket plants aren’t far behind, fingers crossed the sun won’t be either.

With Mothers day here Easter is only just around the corner. It is traditionally one of the biggest week-ends for Garden centres and we’re going all out at John Browns on Easter Saturday with a visit from the Weber Barbeque guys in their retro Airstream land Yacht! They will be giving demonstrations on Barbequeing and opportunities to sample what they’ve cooked up. Carrie has also been busy organising masses of Barbeque offers for the whole week-end so you can get what you need to cook up a feast at retro prices!

http://www.golden-acres-nursery.co.uk/WeberAirstream.html

Gifts For Mothers Day

With only a couple of weeks to go until the Mothering Sunday we’re thinking about our Mums at Golden Acres. Being ‘planty people’, we have some really lovely houseplants and planted arrangements that will last far longer than a bunch of flowers and to suit every budget. Our houseplant chaps have really gone the extra mile this year. I’m going to find it hard to choose. If you really want to spoil your Mum the giftware girls have been busy hand picking some beautiful ranges that will make a truly special gift and we even have some yummy chocolates – Flowers, chocolate and something frivolous, what more could a lady want?

I have made a start on clearing my garden, two trips to the tip and a few broken nails later I was ready to apply some herbicide to my lawn to kill it off ready for the rotavator in a couple of weeks time. I used a product with the active ingredient glyphosate in it as this won’t harm the soil but is systemic which means it will kill the grass and all the weeds down to the roots. Then when the rotavator chops it all up and mixes it in with the soil it shouldn’t grow back where I don’t want it to. I let my neighbours know that I was using a weedkiller so they could keep any pets such as cats that may walk across that area inside for a few hours until it was dry. Once its levelled I’ll be able to put down fresh turf and it should grow where I want it to!

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.

Well what a difference a week makes. The cold snap has finally arrived making the garden look amazing when the sun is out with the frost outlining each and every leaf and twig. Even in the depths of Winter the garden is still a thing of beauty.

Although it looks pretty, the cold can make things very tough for wildlife. Food is scarce and water sources can be frozen over. We can help by ensuring that we leave some fresh water out & food for birds that are often still fairly active at this time of year. Carries got some really good offers on at the moment to help you keep down the costs of keeping those feathered tummies full.

As I’m certainly not going to get out gardening at the moment I’m doing a bit of forward planning for the fruit and veggie garden. As with many of you my life is generally pretty hectic so I want reliable crops that will give me a good yield without taking up too much of my free time and that I’ll actually use.

Currants and Gooseberries are always easy – Many of the modern varieties are bred to be  disease resistant so I’ll be doing a bit of research on those as I also want the best flavour – Information is always easy to get on-line or I can always go and rack one of our Plant managers brains - they’re a pretty knowledgeable bunch! I research varieties every year when buying for the centres but as it’s impossible to remember everything I need to gem up a bit again. I’ll be looking at the veggie seeds this week when I’m in the Garden Centres so I’ll let you know what I decide on next week.

Plants and Plans

Allthough we should be enjoying the emerging spring plants now, as a gardener you never stop planning ahead to prepare the next seasons plants and plans. Over the next few weeks the little plugs of summer bedding plants will start to become available to plant for growing on ready to go outside in the early summer. They’re much easier to get going than seed as they already have sturdy little root sytems but you still get the satisfaction of growing the plants on yourself.

All you need is some low nutrient potting on compost such as John Innes No2, some cell trays a little larger then the plugs you are buying and a warm, light place to grow them in. As they grow gradually pot them on into larger cells and richer compost, then into individual pots and then into their final spot outdoors where they’ll be the envy of all your neighbours when they burst into flower!

I’m excited to see the summer flowering bulbs coming in. They come in dried out in packs at this time of year and are so easy to plant in a few months time once the soil has warmed up. I just love the bright colours! I’m thinking of buying some really bright Dahlias to put in pots for some impact outside on the area we’re intending on decking for summer Barbeques. I can see them now... Blooming away without needing constant attention, just good compost, regular water, a splash of feed now and again and the odd dead-heading session – A lot of flower for very little effort.