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.

Scent In The Garden

The beautiful but chilly weather we had at the week-end got many of you out and about and thinking gardens. It was lovely to see lots of customers in the centres especially as we have some really lovely plants in at the moment. The primroses we grow on the nursery are really starting to flower their socks off. My favourites are the ‘Heritage’ and ‘Woodland Walk’ varieties. ‘Heritage’ is the classic spring yellow primrose that lasts for years if lifted and divided every so often and kept it moist all year round. ’Woodland Walk’ a really pretty pink variety which seems to be nearly as tough. Both look great planted en mass in the garden but if you only have room for pots they’ll do well there too. Deadhead regularly and they will flower for months.

It’s a great time for scent in the garden. Its thought that shrubs flowering this early in the year use scent to attract insects. They certainly attract gardeners as many are very highly perfumed indeed. The best, in my opinion, are...

Sarcococca (or Winter Box) an evergreen with tiny white flowers and a big fragrance. Viburnum x bodnatense. ‘Dawn’ is the most common form with Pink flowers on bare stems. Look out for ‘Charles Lamont’ which has whiter flowers than ‘Dawn’ and is more unusual with good Autumn colour.

Hamamelis (or Witch Hazel) With bright yellow, orange or red sweet smelling flowers on bare stems. Witch Hazels also have spectacular Autumn colour which gives them another season of interest.

Seed Potatoes

We’ve put the tinsel away in the Garden Centres & its now time to get back to what we do best... Gardening!

We’ve taken the first deliveries of seed potatoes which always means spring is on its way to me. I have just moved into a new home and have a garden of my own to play with for the first time in a few years. It needs a lot of work but to get me started I’m going to buy a few earlies to plant in potato gro-bags in March so I can move them about easily until we have the garden sorted later in the year. I can then re-use the compost after I’ve harvested them to enrich the soil in my lovely new veggie beds.

Christmas Is Finally Here!

For us buyers it’s a hectic time of year getting prepared for our busiest season in the spring but we still have to see how the current season’s stock is performing and of course that involves trying some things out. Carrie came into the office on Monday morning very excited about her new Chestnut roaster, she is responsible for buying the winter fuels and other fiery accessories we sell in the Garden centres and having an open fire at home of course makes her a true expert... I think she really needs to get out more, but then I am a bit jealous, she really had chestnuts roasting on an open fire!

We are now all counting down to the end of the week, but this years office Christmas lunch will be extra special. Two of our longest serving ladies are retiring, they’ve put in 27 years between them and we also have an engagement and a pregnancy to celebrate... Happy times!

Well this will be the last blog from me this year, we’d all like to wish you a great holiday and all the best for 2012...

Forest Products

We are getting busier and busier as Christmas gets closer, we are still finding some lovely products for you for those last minute gifts. At John Browns we have just taken delivery of some great children’s books by a local author from Verwood. It has been awarded the silver certificate of excellence from a pre-school magazine and positively encourages children to eat veggies.

My brother is a real pain to buy for but is a bit of a foodie so I’m going to make him up a little selection pack of jams and relishes from the Forest Products range that we keep in all of our centres. They are a Dorset company and top of my list is the most divine sweet garlic pickle with nigella seed, apparently the spicy tomato and caramelised onion chutney is amazing too so I might have to keep that for myself!

We have been offered some beautiful bulb planters which we are offering at less then half the recommended selling price – I love the ceramic ones so guess what the ladies

in my family will be getting on the 25^th? After that little lot I will have finished the present buying, not sure when I’ll have time to wrap it all up though...