Posts by Emma Emmerson

Last week was very busy in the plant centre shop as quite a few deliveries arrived and we have been unpacking over the weekend and into this week!

Streptocarpus one of this week’s plant highlights:

Streptocarpus are stunning houseplants direct from the award-winning Dibleys Nursery, see the featured image. We have a good range of colours in named varieties and they are easy to look after in the right conditions (TIP – do not overwater!!). Our plants are all good sized plants at £14.99 each or 2 for £25

Other plant highlights inlude:

Verbena Bonariensis – this is one of the best plants for pollinating insects you can have in the garden. Stunning mauve flowers are held high above the foliage and they really shine in the evening sun. They do best in a sunny well drained spot, and will over-winter in mild winters. Even if they don’t make it through to another year they’re still worth growing.

Salvia Collection –  Ornamental sage plants which are superb for mid to late summer colour and look good in pots or planted out in the garden. We have 5 different varieties – Embers Wish, Kisses and Wishes, Love and Wishes, Wendy’s Wish and Hot Lips

Scented Leaf Geraniums – These make lovely pot plants (outdoors in the summer and indoors in the winter) with an abundance of small flowers, and a delicious scent when you rub the foliage. Choose from Concolour Lace, Camphor or Cola Bottles – and yes it really does smell of coca-cola!

Chocolate Cosmos – another lovely scented plant suitable for tubs and containers. This one is a dark purple, almost black flower and scrummy scents of chocolate.

Alstromeria – these are excellent and reliable border perennials with masses of flowers from mid-summer onward. We stock the Inticancha series, which we’ve found to be particularly popular.

What else is new?

A new delivery of plant supports, obelisks and decorative garden spikes have also arrived. At this time of year many garden plants are starting to flop over and our British made cloche frames, double ring frames and border supports are all very useful in keeping these plants upright and performing well.

Last week we had another  buying spree on vintage garden items at auction. Of particular interest are the collection of sandstone garden troughs of various sizes, shapes and prices. My favourite items are the delightfully mossy Griffin, the weathered Lion, and the sundial. These are always popular, so please pop in soon to have a look to see if there is that unusual item perfect for your garden.

If you receive our regular newsletter, you will know that Stephen and I love going to antique fairs and bringing back a range of gorgeous vintage garden items to sell in the garden centre.

This is the perfect opportunity for you to pick up something unique for your garden. Examples of our most recent items are:

• Colebrookdale bench, fern and blackberry design – unusual two-seater size (pictured)
• Limestone garden sculptures
• vintage Sankey kale cloches
• vintage watering cans
• clay pots
• vintage birdhouse nestbox
• vintage garden gnome

With more fairs coming up through the summer, there will be more on offer, so please come along and find something unique for yourself.

Bedding Plants

We also still have a good supply of bedding plants in stock – so if you have a little spot that needs some colour these will be perfect for you.

After much deliberation we have now decided to discontinue our loyalty card scheme in favour of a voucher scheme which will be available to all recipients of our newsletter.

Loyalty Card Scheme Update

Pricings and costings have changed so much since the loyalty card was launched 11 years ago, that it has become difficult to update in a way that gives value for money for you the customer, and be also economically viable for us, the business. We will of course still honour all full loyalty cards in the tearoom, where you can enjoy a free cup of tea or coffee and a scone or a traybake when you hand over a full card. In addition we will also continue to fill any already started cards in the plant centre, but we will not be issuing any more new ones.

Voucher Scheme and Special Offers

As a replacement we will be offering regular special offers and vouchers to recipients of our newsletter  We know we have many very loyal customers – some of whom have loyalty cards, and some who have never joined the scheme, so now we are able to reward you all with these regular vouchers, and we thank you all for your continued support of Woodside. Simply print off the voucher and bring them along with you to Woodside to hand in when you purchase the relevant item. One voucher per person please – unless otherwise stated.

Sign up to the newsletter here

Last week we had a record-breaking week in terms of the numbers of plant deliveries, so we were delighted to have a busy May bank holiday weekend.

Those 23 transporting trolleys plus more deliveries expected this week means that we still have plants galore in stock.

Look out for:

• Grow your own vegetable packs
• Individual veg in 9cm pots
• tomato plants
• climbers
• hardy geraniums
• hostas
• ornamental grasses
• water lilies
• herbs
• rhodedendrons/azaleas

Bedding Plants

Our first bedding plants are also now available – but please beware of late frosts. The popular “colour shades” carry packs are already here. Once our new polytunnel is finished we will have a lot more in stock.

Late April is the perfect time to grow your own vegetables, with the soil having warmed a bit and the sun coming out. The plant centre here at Woodside is full of everything to start your vegetable patch off, no matter how big it is.

We have a really good supply of the following currently available:

• baby vegetable plants for you to grow on (including leeks)
• tomato plants
• strawberry plants
• herbs
• seed potatoes.

Compost

There’s something to suit all gardener’s requirements in our newly covered compost area. We think we may have the biggest range of composts, barks and soils in the area, including the popular Jack’s Magic Multi-purpose compost. We have a range of award winning peat free compost from Dalefoot Compost and more peat free compost from New Horizons  and Westland.  Also in stock is the traditional John Innes range of soil based composts and peat based multi-purpose compost.

Fertilisers, and other garden treatments

We have extended the shelf space allocated to garden feeds, including vegetable feed. We have our best ever range of weedkillers, insecticides and fungicides, including many organic options. Just let us know what you are looking for, and we’ll probably have it!

Garden Furniture

Once you have done all that gardening you deserve to sit down in the sun and enjoy it. We have some beautiful “zero maintenance” garden benches available just now in a choice of 4 colours.  New stock of wooden garden furniture is due in anytime now.

If you’ve not visited Woodside in the last few weeks, you’ll notice a big difference to our facilities and in the amount of stock we have available. I think you might be surprised on how much we have done in the way of improvements (which are still on-going), so do come and visit.

Enjoy the sun and get into your garden to grow your own vegetables for you to enjoy throughout the summer.

It was a huge challenge to source wildflower plants during 2020 and 2021 as nurseries ceased propagation due to the “work from home” instructions of the lockdowns. We are delighted that production is  now back to something resembling normality and we are able to offer a good range of wild flowers for planting out now.

Our current selection of wildflower plants:

Wild Carrot (Daucus carota)
Cornflower (Centuarea cyanus)
Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea)
Lady’s Bedstraw (Galium verum)
Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum)
Water Avens (Geum rivale)
Ox-eye Daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare)
Forget-Me-Not (Myosotis arvensis)
Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium caeruleum)
Oxlip (Primula elatior)
Cowslip (Primula veris)
Selfheal (Prunella vulgaris)
Small Scabious (Scabiosa columbaria)
Red campion (Silene dioica)
White Campion (Silene latifolia)
Betony (Stachys offininalis)
These are all £2.99 each, or any 4 wildflowers for £10.

Wildflower seeds

In addition we stock a good range of wild flower seeds of individual species, as well as some wildflower mixes. Get going with one of our windowsill propagators to get seeds off to a good start. Use John Innes specialist seed compost, or the Dalefoot Seed Compost (which is peat free) for all your seed sowing.

For sowing “in-situ” we stock the Empathy Mini Meadow Mixes, which have a wide variety of British native flowers, all collected from British seed stock, and these have the added benefit of having mycorrhizal fungus (Rootgrow) added to the seed mix for good establishment.

Now is a good time for sowing many varieties of seeds, and is also a good time for planting, as the soil is warming up and the daylight hours are getting longer. We have a good range of propagators, seed trays, garden sieves, seed cells, Rootrainers, and everything else you need to get your seed sowing off to a good start.

Many people see the first of March as  the start of spring and it certainly feels like that here at Woodside, with the sun out, the birds singing and lots of new stock arriving.

Shrubs

We have had deliveries of fresh plants in, so we now have a good range of shrubs, including:Forsythia Lynwood & Weekend
Hypericum Hidcote
Cistus Sunset, corbariensis, Sunset and purpureus
Mahonia Winter Sun,
Hebe Baby marie, Pagei & buxifolia nana
Physocarpus Diablo
Potentillas (bush varieties)
Spiraeas
Osmanthus burkwoodii & delaveyi
Genista Porlock
Viburnam Eve Price & davidii
Syringa (Lilac)
….and much more

Herbaceous Plants

Herbaceous plants are beginning to start to emerge from their winter dormancy, and highlights this week are Pulmonarias, Hellebores and Epimediums.

Our popular range of rockery plants is back at £4.99 each or 3 for £15, and there is plenty in flower and looking good just now. Look our for Saxifrage, Thrift, Arabis, Sedums, hardy Violas and Aubretia.

Propagation Corner

Our shop is fully stocked with a full range of seeds, grass seed, garden tools, string, fertilisers, garden treatments and wild bird food. Our “Propagation Corner” is filling up with seed trays, Rootrainers, compost disks (known to old-school gardeners as Jiffy 7’s), grow tunnels, and tunnel hoops. NEW this year are electric propagators to get you off to an early start this spring – we have two designs which are both suitable for sitting on a windowsill, and are sensibly priced at £34.99 and £44.99.

Buckets of pelleted Chicken Manure are also now available – £13.99 for 10kg or 2 buckets for £25. This is a great fertiliser for all round use in the garden, and is recommended for feeding bamboos, box plants and the vegetable plot.

Our Dalefoot Wool Compost is now here, and we offer their full range (apart from the Wool Ericaceous Compost which has been hit by production problems). These composts offer a very good alternative to conventional peat-based compost, and are made without any peat, using natural waste products from the Cumbian sheep farming industry.

Bird Tables

New in stock is a range of attractive birdtables. We have been getting asked for these, so now we have them! Choose from slate roofed styles or a timber roof. Don’t forget stabilising pegs to secure them into the ground and prevent toppling in the strong winds.

Also another NEW item this year is a Colander Trug. This is a very cleverly designed plastic trug with drainage holes at one end, so you can put your dirty veg in straight from the ground, and then rise off and drain the water away. We saw these at a trade show last year, and being a keen vegetable grower myself I thought they looked handy.