Posts by Emma Emmerson
Christmas Trees for sale and Christmas Events at Woodside
Our first Late Night Shopping Evening took place this week, with many customers enjoying browsing in our shop and selecting their Christmas Tree from our new floodlit shopping area. We have two more dates for Late Night Shopping :
Thursday 2nd December 4pm – 6pm
Thursday 9th December 4pm – 6pm.
No need to book, just turn up on the night and take your time to chat with us and enjoy a leisurely browse.
If you hand over a full loyalty card on any of these Late Night Shopping Evenings you can enjoy a free mulled punch (non-alcoholic version also available) and a complimentary homemade mince pie.
Christmas Afternoon Tea
We are also hosting Christmas Afternoon Teas with dates to coincide with our shopping evenings so that you can come into the shop and browse after your afternoon tea. To book please call on 01835 830315 The cost is £12.50 per person for:
Homemade turkey, cranberry and chestnut sausage roll, smoked salmon sandwich, homemade spiced apple, cranberry and orange scone, slice of Homemade Christmas cake, Millionaires shortbread and a homemade lemon tart with tea or coffee (or a cold drink).
We have a vegetarian option too, so please let us know when you book if you would like this and if you have any food intolerances or allergies.
Christmas Trees for sale
Our Cut Nordmann Christmas Trees have arrived this week. We have sizes available from 4ft to 8ft, and hope to get a couple of 9-10ft trees in by Thursday this week. Demand is expected to be high again this year, following a record breaking season last Christmas for us, so don’t leave it too late to get your tree. Don’t forget that you can buy now and collect nearer Christmas. We also have a range of different sizes of Christmas Tree stands, so stop all that messy fiddling about with bricks and buckets, and wonky trees!
We also have a range of potted Christmas trees that can be planted out or potted on after Christmas.
We’ve had two new deliveries of statues and garden ornaments over the last couple of weeks, with quite a few new items now in stock. Look out for new birdbaths, cast iron “Musical Mice”, Greenman Wall Plaques (we had these in stock briefly in the summer before they all sold out!), dogs, cats, hedgehogs, otters, hares and more……
Christmas for your dog
Talking of dogs, we’ve had a top-up order of our popular dog treats from Green and Wilds, and have now extended our vegan range of treats. We also now have Santa Sacks for dogs, so that your best friend has a happy Christmas too.
Much more in store
A pretty range of aluminium painted robins arrived today, which are suitable for indoors or outdoors, and we have our little stone sparrows also back in stock.
Groceries have taken a seasonal turn, and we now have available an attractive range of chocolatey and nutty food items, as well as curry sauces and naan breads. Winter treats include packs of dates, dark chocolate covered ginger, English Russet and Bramley apples, our own home-grown Jerusalem artichokes, parsnips, beetroot and clementines. Our grocery shop is open every day 10am – 4pm and will also be open late until 6pm on the next three Thursday evenings. Don’t forget we have freshly baked sourdough bread available every Wednesday and Saturday. These keep well, and freeze well too, so get stocked up for Christmas.
I’ve also started making wreaths today for doors and for graves, and I’ll do my best to keep up with demand! To be sure you get yours you can order now for collection nearer Christmas – just phone on 01835 830315 to let us know your requirements.
There are new items arriving every day, and although our shop is small, it’s absolutely jam-packed with gifts, decorations, birdfood and so much more, so do take the time to come along and have a look…….
Christmas Shop at Woodside
The Christmas Shop at Woodside is open, with by far our best seasonal display in our plant centre shop. If you’re ready to start thinking about Christmas, then Woodside is the place to visit.
We have a good range of Christmas decorations and gifts ready now, and plenty more iare arriving each week. We’ve got really unusual items (such as the quirky “Debon-haire” pictured above) suitable for creating your own festive display, or for giving as presents. You can get a taste of some of our display in the pictures below, but there are lots more to see in the shop, including a stunning range of dried fruit kits for making your own decorations, children’s stocking filler toys, luxury boxed food gifts, tealight holders and more.
We are also pleased to be stocking a new range of pop-out advent calendars, cards, stickers and gift wrap from a company called Roger La Borde. These designs are simply stunning and are wasted on children!! They also have the advantage of being flat and lightweight for posting.
Potted Christmas Trees
Our potted Christmas trees will be arriving soon, and we’ll be taking orders for these from the 23rd October. These are all living pot grown trees suitable for planting out or potting up into larger pots after Christmas, and are a sustainable and eco-friendly option. It’s only 6 weeks until our cut trees arrive – I can’t believe I’m saying this – and we can also take orders for these. As usual we’ll be making our own real foliage Christmas wreaths this year, although we won’t be running a wreath making class this year for various reasons. We plan to re-introduce this popular workshop next year.
 The quirky “Debon haire” |
 Roger la Borde Christmas sticker labels |
 Roger la Borde Pop & Slot advent calendar |
 straw effect reindeer |
 Resin fairy on mouse |
New Plants in Stock
A new delivery of autumn & winter bedding plants has just arrived, including pansies, violas, bellis, wallflowers, primroses and polyanthus. We’ve also got a fresh batch of mini cyclamen, perfect for a cool spot indoors or a sheltered outdoor position, as well as larger flowering midi cyclamen for indoors. We’ve had a new batch of Pieris, Christmas Roses and the stunning white Japanese Anemone Honorine Jobert in this week and our Amarylis bulbs have also just come in.
Spring Bulbs and Winter Bedding Plants
The autumn season is now in full swing and we have had more spring bulbs delivered to add to our existing range of alliums, daffodils, crocus, iris reticulata and tulips. These are all suitable for planting now for gorgeous flowers next year.
New arrivals this week include:
Leucojum Gravetye Giant – Summer Snowflakes. These are giant snowdrop like flowers that come out in late spring/early summer.
Lilium candidum – the stunning Madonna Lily
Indoor Hyacinths – these have been specially prepared to flower early (hopefully for Christmas) and come in a variety of colours. We sell these as loose bulbs, so if you only want to try one, that’s fine!
Indoor Paperwhite Narcissus – several varieties to choose from, and again these are sold loose so you can have as many or as few as you like. Very fragrant.
Cyclamen cilicium – this is a hardy outdoor variety for autumn flowering
Erythronium Pagoda and dens-canis. Dog’s Tooth Violets. Pagoda is a large yellow form and a great alternative to daffodils in a shady spot. Dens-canis is our native wild flower with dainty mauve flowers.
Iris hollandica Red Ember – a very striking flower in shades of burnt orange and plum purple. Most unusual.
Galanthus Flore Pleno – the double flowered form of our much loved snowdrop.
Autumn and Winter Bedding
Now is the time to take out all your summer bedding plants, as they begin to look tired and the flowers are fading. But it doesn’t mean you can’t have colour in the garden until next spring. We have a great selection of autumn and winter bedding plants suitable for planting just now which will flower over the coming months.
Choose from:
Pansies and Violas – these are flowering now and will continue all winter and into spring, just having a rest in the very coldest of weather.
Wallflowers – these should be planted now for a showy and fragrant display next spring
Bellis – double daisy flowers will start to appear this autumn, but their main season is early spring
Sweet Williams – these old fashioned favourites make a lovely spring display of cottage garden type bedding
Primroses and polyanthus – these are mainly spring flowering, but a few flowers tend to appear in the autumn.
All these plants are sold in packs of 6 at £3.99 per pack, or 4 packs for £15.
Garden Ornaments
Its not just plants that can add interest to your garden in winter. We now have a range of larger garden ornaments in stock which can make a real statement in the garden. Come and have a browse, because you really need to see them to get the idea of scale.
Autumn Trees in Stock
We have nearly 200 autumn trees in stock following the large delivery that arrived last week. If you have already placed an order with us then you should expect a phone call soon to say your trees have arrived. If you haven’t already pre-ordered then don’t worry – there are plenty to go around! Highlights include a lovely range of Crab Apples (Malus) many of which are bearing brightly coloured fruits just now, a very pretty and unusual weeping variegated cherry called Prunus Frilly Frock, a good selection of Rowans (Sorbus) a weeping Mulberry, plenty of Victoria Plum trees, both on semi-dwarf and semi-vigorous rootstocks, and many more ornamental and fruit trees.. Don’t forget to plant with Bonemeal and Rootgrow for the very best possible start.
Bedding Plants
We are really well stocked with bedding plants just now as we have just had a fresh delivery in. The choice includes pansies, wallflowers, primroses, bellis, Sweet Williams and polyanthus. Summer bedding schemes in gardens are now beginning to look quite tired after the long warm summer, so this weekend should be a good time to haul the old plants out and plant with fresh plants, which will see you through right until next summer. For an even better Spring display, why not underplant with bulbs.
Bulbs
We now have just about all our bulbs in stock, and we have our biggest choice yet, including a fabulous Allium collection (look out for varieties Hair and Red Mohican – you’ve probably never seen alliums like these before!) and some of the giant border Fritillarias, known as Crown Imperials. We’ve also a great choice of Tulips, Daffodils, Dwarf Iris, Species Crocus, miniature Narcissus and lots more. We’ve also got bulb kits inside the shop for Christmas or winter gifts. Fill containers with Dalefoot Bulb Compost for the best results.
Autumn Gardening Essentials
We now have quite a bit more space for stock, due to our lovely new canopy that went up this year, and this means we can offer you more useful products than ever before. NEW in just now are:
Wheelbarrows – in trendy pink or traditional green
Besoms – traditional brooms perfect for sweeping autumn leaves
Leaf Scoops – like a pair of extra large hands to scoop up your piles of leaves
Bulb Planters – these remove a handy plug of earth to help make bulb planting that bit easier
One-handed shears – several of you have been asking for these handy tools, and so we now have them in stock
Herb Scissors – while not exactly seasonal, these amazing scissors are multi-bladed and will cut up your herbs into little pieces with very little effort. Maybe a good Christmas present idea?
Mushroom Kits – perfect for your own use or to give as a present.
Autumn Tree Planting
With darker evenings and farmers busy harvesting, our thoughts are turning to autumn tree planting. Autumn is fast approaching, it is my favourite time of year and a busy one for gardeners.
The late summer and autumn are the perfect seasons for getting trees established. Here at Woodside we bring on some of our own trees from British sourced stock and also work in partnership with Frank P Matthews tree nursery – a multi-award winning nursery which supplies top quality container grown trees to many UK planting projects. As you can see from the photo, this is a huge operation consisting of propagation greenhouses and polytunnels, nursery beds and fields and fields of trees. The lake you can see to the left of the photograph is their reservoir for all that watering.
Autumn Tree Planting Tips
We are now taking advance orders for autumn trees and if you click HERE you will open our list of container grown fruit and ornamental trees that are available this autumn. I’ve indicated rootstocks when appropriate for fruit trees, and pot sizes for the ornamentals, as well as the price. Some of the items are available just now, and the rest will be due in late August/September. If you would like to order a tree from the list please call 01835 830315 and have your card handy to make a payment. Alternatively email me emma@woodsidegarden.co.uk with your order and leave your phone number so we can call you back for payment. We’ll then phone as soon as the trees are available for you to collect, or we can arrange delivery.
Don’t forget to:
- stake and tie to secure your trees against wind damage
- feed trees with bonemeal
- help the roots establish with Rootgrow
- use planting compost for sites with poor soils
- use tree guards if you are plagued by rabbits and hares.
Autumn and Winter Bedding
Autumn and winter bedding plants will be arriving at Woodside soon, along with our biggest range of bulbs yet – lsign up to our newsletter to receive the latest updates.
Self Contained Water Features in Stock
New this week (w/c 8th August) are some lovely self-contained water features.
We’ve had quite a few requests for self contained water features this summer after launching our new aquatics department. We are delighted to be able to bring you a range of water features that are easy to set up, with no mess and no difficult self-assembly. Two of the features are solar powered, so you don’t even need a handy electrical socket for them.
Here is a selection but you’re best to come and visit to get a better idea of size and quality. They all come fully boxed, with easy to follow instructions and would make an ideal feature for gardens, patios and sunrooms.
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Amalfi Water Feature |
 Chatsworth Solar Water Feature |
 Cascade Solar water feaure |
Gorgeous new plants
We had a day off on the 11th and had a busman’s holiday visiting a wholesale nursery and filling the van with gorgeous plants to bring back to Woodside! There are some real beauties for you this week including:
- Agastache Crazy Fortune – a beautiful variegated form
- Agastache Mango Tango – unusual tangerine flowers with a hint of blue
- Evergreen dwarf Azaleas in pink, orange and white, and a lovely variegated one too
- A collection of Euphorbias – Ascot Rainbow, Ascot Moonbeam, Black Pearl, Silver Edge and Purpurea
- Some gorgeous Heucheras – probably the best we’ve had so far this year Can Can (purple leaves) Kassandra (warm amber leaves) and Venus (greeny bronze leaves)
- Malus Candy Mint – a disease resistant pink flowered Crab Apple
- Prunus Weeping Yoshino – a gorgeous weeping cherry with pinky-white flowers in spring. This is one of the best shaped weeping cherries I have come across, and we have just 2 available.
There are very small numbers of some of these plants in stock and they are likely to sell fast. To avoid disappointment please give us a call on 01835 830315 to check what we have in stock and to make a reservation.
Gardening In August
Whilst most of you have been enjoying your garden in the sunshine over the last week or so, we have been planning our stock for the rest of the year. In the gardening business we always seem to looking at least three months ahead, which is why I am busy placing Christmas orders. (Sorry!)
Many gardeners will also be thinking about what they would like to improve for next year and will be planning for colour throughout the year. Here are a few things you can do in your garden now and over the next few weeks to increase the enjoyment of your garden.
- Plant potatoes ready for Christmas – we have in stock both Charlotte and Pentland Javelin seed potatoes which can be planted now for you to harvest home-grown new potatoes on christmas morning.
- Sow autumn and winter bedding plant seeds such as pansies, wallflowers and sweet williams – seeds available in the plant centre
- Sow green manure seeds to improve the fertility of the soil
- Plant some conifers – we have a new delivery of conifers from specialist growers Golden Grove. These plants offer great value for money with year round interest
- Feed your garden – quite often when Stephen and I are answering questions to do with garden plants under-performing it seems that a lot of gardeners don’t realise that plants need regular feeding. With the weather set to break soon (maybe later today?) now is a great time to get some feed into the garden. It’s not difficult to do and usually involves scattering handfuls of granular fertiliser onto your borders, or watering fertiliser into pots and containers, so no heavy digging required! Feeding now will enable plants to build up strength and vigour before autumn and winter set in, which will in turn improve performance and growth next year. Our current range of fertilisers includes Growmore, Bonemeal, slow release granules, TopRose and more. Just ask for advice when you visit.
- Plant spring bulbs in autumn – these will be coming into stock in August and into September. Planting in autumn will ensure a riot of colour next spring.
Photo credit: Photo by mostafa meraji on Unsplash
Foraging Experiences at Woodside
We were delighted that guest forager, Jonathan of HartyCulture, led foraging experiences as part July’s mini garden festival. We are hoping he will be joining us again in September, so I thought you might like to read his summary of the day’s sessions.
Foraging Experiences in July
“We had great fun on our voyages of discovery and they were enjoyed by young and old alike. We hardly had to leave the car park with so much there to discuss and digest.
We started off with the wild Geranium family, finding a few varieties of cranesbill, which is handy for anyone with radiation poisoning, heavy metal toxicity or sows scouring. The pineapple weed was as popular a surprise as ever, with one lady aptly asking, “What was it called before they discovered pineapples?” I didn’t and still don’t know, but we then spotted some escaping apple mint, which saved face. Great crop of edible hogweed, which we didn’t touch due to potential photo toxicity. Their broccoli heads were mainly out and the cumin replacement seeds will be ready to harvest soon. The ground elder is starting to flower, which brings it into the danger zone of umbellifer confusion with hemlock; however the celery like, unstained grooved stems of the goutweed was safely sampled by all.
Disappointingly, there weren’t too many nettles, but I rattled on about their many benefits anyway; sure the Red Admiral has to lay her eggs somewhere after floating up from the Med. Nevertheless we found some supertall ones down by the stream along St. Cuthbert’s way, which would be great for cordage. Masses of marestail, great for so many things. We haven’t run out of oil yet, there’s 500 million years of giant equisetum during the carboniferous period to thank for that, however I suspect Emma wouldn’t object to a pet dinosaur keeping it under control. It’s high levels of silica perfectly compliment the bone knitting properties of the comfrey, flowering among the bees buzzing in a corner near the white willow, which is good for everyone and nearly every ailment.
The beech leaves have gone well chewy and was disappointed not to find any porcelain mushrooms growing on the fallen ones. Loads of yew down the woods, which is exciting in chemotherapy and the brave had their heads blown off by green wild garlic seeds. Wood avens in abundance for those with mouth ulcers. Found my first wonder violet among the hazel and lime trees. Some huge wellingtonias, great for totem poles and a sweet chestnut too.There was so much on offer: St. John’s wort, green alkanet, hedge woundwort, common nipplewort, wood-rush, flowering currant, Leopard’s-bane, burdock, ladies mantle, even primrose, which we resisted sampling due to scarcity.
However there was no scarcity of wild strawberries, with banks full of them, but we did keep running out of time, which might have made some late for their lunch, but thankfully no one complained of hunger and for those who mentioned friends and family who would be keen to come too, all being well, I’ll be back to Scotland in September, which will bring a whole new element to the harvest.”
Booking for September Foraging
If that report has tickled the taste buds, please sign up to the newsletter to be the first to hear about the date in September.
Numbers will be limited so I reccomend early booking once details have been released.
About Jonathan
Jonathan is usually based in Northern Ireland, so we are very lucky to be able to book his expertise to share with Woodside customers. Established in 2007, HartyCulture is a family-run business based in the heart of the beautiful orchards of County Armagh, Northern Ireland, offering a wide spectrum of horticultural and landscaping services to private, public and third sector clients, with a focus on quality, sustainability and listening to our customers’ requirements. They have also contributed a regular gardening column to the lifestyle magazine “Flavour”, and always enjoy presenting to community and other groups on areas of horticultural interest. Most recently, they have introduced year-round Foraging and Nature Tours in a range of locations across Northern Ireland, where they explore our natural environment during a guided walk through beautiful countryside.
This blog was updated on 16th July to include the July session report.
Bedding Plant Bonanza
We have a bedding plant bonanza for you this week with lots of colourful bedding plants to brighten up your gardens, patios, window boxes and containers.
Here’s what we have to offer you:
Argyranthemums (Crazy Daisies) in a choice of colours £4.99 each
Callibrachoas in both single and double flowered forms in a good choice of colours including popular orange shades. Just £2.99 each or “Mix & Match” with any other £2.99 bedding – 6 for £15
Bacopas are back in stock again – we thought we’d seen the last of them, but another batch has become available, also another batch of bright cheerful Bidens. All £2.99 each, “Mix & Match” 6 for £15. We’ve some special varieties of Biden available too – the BEE series – very attractive flowers and ferny foliage. These are in bigger pots and are £3.99 each
We also have a batch of trailing Nepeta for hanging baskets and troughs – a really pretty variegated foliage plant with long trails, and one of the best and fastest growing trailing plants around.
Our “Shades Carry Packs” are back in stock again – packs of 6 plants in Blue Shades, Hot Shades or Pink Shades. No need to worry about plant selection or colour schemes as the choice has already been made for you! We’ve also got Upright Fuchsia Carry Packs and Non-Stop Begonia Carry Packs. All Carry packs priced at £14.99 each.
We’ve got a good selection of “Trixies” again. These are pots of three plants planted as one, and you can simply plant into a container or basket to give an attractive display of flower colour all summer long. These are the perfect choice for novice gardeners as the hard work has already been done – just plant and enjoy! Don’t forget to regularly feed and dead-head all your bedding plants to keep them looking good right up until the first frosts of the autumn.
Pre-Planted Troughs
If you can’t be bothered to plant up your own containers, or want to give one as a gift, we also have a selection of planted bowls, troughs and hanging pots priced from £19.99. These are planted with a selection of bright and cheerful bedding plants, to give a welcome splash of colour to the garden or patio.
Chocolate Cosmos
This incredible plant for chocolate lovers is now available at Woodside for the first time this year. Attractive foliage is topped by deep maroon cup-shaped flowers which smell strongly of chocolate. They look really effective planted in a pot either just on their own or mixed with other plants, or you could mass plant in the garden for a showy, scented display. They are not reliably hardy for overwintering (although the green-fingered amongst you may be able to succeed) so are best treated as a bedding plant, with overwintering a lovely bonus if it happens. Our plants are in 1.5 litre pots, so are a good size already, and are £7.99 each. Hand over a full loyalty card and you can purchase 3 Chocolate Cosmos for £20.
House Plants
We now have houseplants in stock at Woodside, including the famous award-winning Streptocarpus from Dibley’s nurseries. Other plants include Begonia Rex, Spider Plants, Wandering Sailer plants, and Zantedeschias. So there’s no excuse for you garden to be prettier than your house this summer!
Mini Garden Festival – 9th June
Our next “Mini Garden Festival” is this coming Wednesday, 9th June.
We will be welcoming back Helen from Tinnisburn Plants , a small family run nursery from Dumfries and Galloway. Half a Hedgerow from Kelso will also be exhibiting their garden obelisks and ornaments once more. We are also hoping that we will be able to offer Streptocarpus from indoor plant specialists, Dibley’s – fingers crossed that the delivery arrives in time! The event will run from 11am – 4pm.
Last month we had an issue with parking with everyone turning up early – don’t panic, there is enough stock for everyone, so please don’t feel you have to attend in the morning as there will be plenty of plants available all afternoon too! If the carpark is full, please be patient – we will fit you in as soon as we can.
This week in the Plant Centre
The plant centre is bursting to the brim with plants, so there is still plenty on offer if you can’t make Wednesday. We have our best range of shrubs yet – look out for
Cistus (Rock Rose) corbariensis, purpureus and Snow White, Olearia haastii, Ozothamnus Silver Jubilee, Skimmia Kew Green, Spiraea arguta (Bridal Wreath). We have so many perennials in stock that some are being temporarily displayed on pallets, highlights include:
- Anemone Wild Swan – a much sought after perennial with white flowers and a distinctive blue back to the petals
- Geum Totally Tangerine – probably the best of all the orangey geums with good vigorous growth masses of flowers
- Geranium Pink Penny – a really pretty hardy geranium and one of the longest flowering varieties available
- Digitalis luteum – a perennial foxglove with small creamy yellow flowers
- Brunnera Jack Frost – one of the most popular silver leaved Brunneras with delightful forget-me-not type flowers
- Euphorbia characias wulfenii and robbiae – we’ve been waiting all season for these to come in stock and they are selling fast!
- Persicaria bistorta Superba – a magnificent perennial with candy pink spires of flowers held above vigorous ground cover foliage.
We have also received a new delivery of bedding plants and vegetable plants for you to squeeze a few extra into your garden.