It’s amazing how much things can change in a week... We have now got all of our spring flowering bulbs in and I am as usual finding it hard to resist going nuts with them! I have bought some alliums to go in our new borders in the back garden and some miniature ‘pipit’ daffodils for our little patch at the front. I’ll also use some of these in my autumn planted containers so that when they emerge in the spring I’ll get a different and more spring like look.

Along with the bulbs we now have our autumn and winter bedding plants in. Its worth getting these plants in now so that they have plenty of time to establish before the cold weather sets in – I always find they’ll flower much more reliably if planted good and early.

So what to put in my pots for the autumn and winter? We have a lovely selection of young foliage plants with different leave shapes and colours to add interest so I’ll use some of these for structure. I’ll then pop in some of my favourite Violas and some Cyclamen for colour – Over the winter I’ll ensure that I feed the pots regularly with a tomato food, this keeps the plants flowering and the growth nice and hard helping them to cope with the coldest winter days. Drainage is essential in winter planted containers, if the plants get too wet they’ll really suffer. I find it’s worth spending a bit extra on decent compost specifically for containers so that all my efforts aren’t wasted!

After the last blog lots of you wanted to know exactly what we planted in our fruit and vegetable patch. So here’s a list.

Leeks and Beetroot from ready grown seedling packs – These proved to be excellent value at £1.99 per pack. We were surprised at how many we got in each pack and ran out of the space we had allotted them.

Chard, baby carrots, radish and Lambs lettuce direct sown from seed as they should germinate easily in the current soil temperatures

Gooseberry ‘Hinnomaki Red’ great flavour, heavy cropper and very disease resistant – Some gooseberries are prone to mildew

Loganberry – Great flavour and will look ornamental trained along the fence

Jostaberry – I’ve never tried one of these; it’s a cross between a blackcurrant and a gooseberry minus the prickles and sounds delicious.

These are all growing away well now. The mild temperatures and rain are making it perfect planting weather so I shall be out again in a few days getting my autumn tubs planted so they can establish before the cold weather descends...

Now I have my vegetable Garden ready I am itching to get some crops going, but what can I plant at this time of year? I want something I can get quick results from as I’m impatient!

I also want to grow vegetables that we’ll actually use, so I’m going to try Chard (or leaf beet) the variety ‘Bright Lights’ looks great with colourful stems and tastes like spinach, which my husband loves, we’ll also make good use of leeks and beetroot.

Winter lettuce, lambs lettuce, Rocket and Chinese cabbage will do well until November for salads and I’m going to try some radishes and baby carrots as they can crop within 4 weeks.

That’s just what I’m going to try but there are many other vegetables you can grow in August so if your earlier crops have been disappointing don’t give up!

Over the week-end we visited John Browns to get some ready grown Autumn vegetable seedlings and some fruit bushes. As we have limited space in the flat the little packs of seedlings are just perfect meaning we don’t have to germinate them on our limited windowsills, we just planted them straight into the veggie beds after we’d made net cages to stop the local cats using the beds as big litter trays! Some bamboo canes, crop protection netting and cable ties were easy to assemble around the beds and should also keep butterflies and birds off our precious crops.



At Golden Acres we really are ‘Passionate about Plants’. So much so that we grow most of our own bedding plants. At this time of year we review the plants we grew over the Spring and Summer to ensure we keep growing only the best varieties.

Last Wednesday we visited one

of our seed and seedling supplier’s

trials grounds to see what their pick

of the crops were and if any of

the new plants they breed each

year might be good enough

for us to try.

As you can see they have been busy and we were hard pressed to not get carried away ordering all the beautiful new plants they have been breeding.

We took advantage of the weather this week-end and really cracked on with landscaping the garden. We dug out the veggie garden at the far end of the garden and built the two raised veggie beds which I’d bought from our John Browns centre. I’m quite fussy about quality for this sort of thing and was really pleased to have found some strong and sturdy beds that were surprisingly easy to build look great and were relatively in-expensive.

We filled them up with some of the soil we’d dug out mixed with plenty of horse compost to give the soil some bulk and nutrient, well worth the effort and money to ensure we get the strongest healthiest crops.

We then spent a good few hours leveling the other half of the garden ready to build borders and turf.

On a visit to our centre in Landford I picked up this little treasure.

Clerodendrum Prospero.

Our manager David had spotted it on one of the houseplant listings we have through each week. As none of our plant experts had heard of this variety before we decided to order a few out of curiosity and in came these absolutely gorgeous plants. Clerodendrum Prospero was discovered in India by the Danish botanist Nathaniel Wallich. A vigorous flowering plant with exotic but dainty white clusters of hanging flowers that are set off beautifully by the glossy green leaves. It should flower for a good amount of time if kept in a light spot, gets watered regularly but sparingly and has a feed every now and again.

Our receptionist Lin is a very keen Grow Your Own-er and has been nagging me for weeks about when our seed potatoes to grow for Christmas will be in. Well Lin (and all you other Good Life types) they are now in and selling fast! If you plant them now you can have freshly harvested potatoes to go with the Turkey and trimmings on Christmas day.



As the summer continues to be a wash out it's really slowed things up in my garden. We now have the garden itself cleared, rotavated and levelled and have added a good layer of Eco-mix soil improver to add some nutrient and improve the soil structure before we start planting and laying turf. I decided to go with my fern plan in the small gap we have between the decking and the fence and with all the rain we’ve had they’re settling in beautifully. I have always had a love for ferns; it’s amazing how many different variations in leaf shape and colour these graceful foliage plants offer. Most varieties thrive in those awkward shady areas we all have. Some prefer damp situations and some do well in dry places but all are beautiful and will add another dimension to any garden.

Carrie and I are now entering the busy part of our year. We are finalising plans for autumn and Christmas and starting to look at products for next spring and summer. Carries off to look at a garden furniture show next week and a few weeks after that it will be one of the biggest garden industry shows of the year where we hope to find many exciting new products for the centres. We’ve been looking at trends and this year there has been great interest in bird care and in plants and products that encourage beneficial insects into the garden. Our top selling pack of seeds this year was the honey bee wild flower that is especially attractive to bees and bird food has been flying out all year. What a caring lot our customers are!

The unusually damp weather has led to a population explosion of slugs and snails. I was most disappointed to come home to find my beans that had been so full of promise now looking chewed and rather sorry for themselves despite being in a gro bag and in the middle of my decking. I don’t like to use too many chemicals in the garden but its either slug pellets or an empty gro bag and they do work. I am careful where I place them and ensure that I clear up any of the dead wee beasties once the pellets have done their stuff so that other animals don’t come to harm if they eat them. There is a school of thought that birds find pelleted slugs and snails dry and unpalatable but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Father's Day

This Sunday is the big day for Dads. We don’t seem to make as much of a fuss over our Fathers as we do our Mums on Mothers day. At Golden Acres we think our Dads deserve a bit of recognition for all the great stuff they do for us. Dad is always the one we call when something breaks or we bite off a bit more in the DIY stakes than we can chew and mine's pretty good with the tea and sympathy too. The trouble is it can be tricky to find a good gift for your Dad; flowers don’t generally go down well! Having a look round our Garden Centres has opened my eyes to a whole new Dad-gift world. Tools always go down well and if he’s a gardener, plants will always put a smile on his face. Barbeque accessories have got Fathers day, Birthday and Christmas covered for me and Carrie has bought in some lovely mugs, games and books that are great for Dads if you’re stuck for ideas.

We’re determined to enjoy June despite the rain, wind and cold! At John Browns we’re creating our own cheery summery displays. My favourite one the plant team have put together uses succulents around a beach theme. Succulents are a group of plants that come from hot arid climates. They are dependent on their ability to store water, usually in the leaves, which makes them appear fat and fleshy and quite unusual. These plants do really well in containers and as they don’t like getting too wet growing them like this enables you to bring them into a sheltered area over winter when the climate is damper.

With the fantastic weather this weekend I put some serious time into the garden. As with anything it’s all in the preparation so first I tackled the little border I have in the front. The previous owners of our flat obviously liked slate – I removed 13 bags of it! Underneath the soil was compacted but not in bad shape. We’re on sand which is easy to work but doesn’t hold nutrients or water well so whilst I dug it over I incorporated plenty of compost to give it a good start. A quick rake and level finished the prep. I’ll now leave it to settle for a while until I’ve decided what to plant there.

At the back I prepared the narrow strip between the decking and the fence with some more compost, cleared the honeysuckle that was taking the fence over and started painting the shed – I’m using an off-white colour so it’s going to take a few coats. My neighbour commented that it looks a bit like a beach hut, which is the look I was going for so I’m pretty pleased.

The herbs I planted are really putting on some growth now. It’s amazing what regular water and a bit of plant feed does. I’ve also popped some French beans into a grow-bag and am going to grow some basil from seed for economy as we use such a lot of it. Yummy with a simple meal of tomatoes, mozzarella, olive oil and some crusty bread.

Japanese Garden

Going by the weather its time to get gardening in earnest now – There’s so much to catch up with and so much about to inspire us. I love going round gardens to get inspiration for plant combinations and with the Chelsea flower show on every night my notebook is packed! This week-end I was in the Brecon Beacons in Wales and we visited one of their famous gardens. My favourite area there was a Japanese inspired Garden. This could be easy to replicate at home by painting a shady wall or fence in a light colour and planting it with fresh green Shuttle Cock ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris) Red leaved Japanese Maples (Acer palmatum) for contrast and Witch Hazel (Hamamelis) for the sweet smelling flowers in late winter or maybe a spring flowering Cornus kousa shrub. I would probably add some evergreen Euonymus japonicas shrubs for all year round interest along the back of the bed and some Japanese anemone (Anemone x hybrid) for the beautiful pink or white flowers in the autumn. A large granite bowl and a deer scarer would finish the look.