Posts by Emma Emmerson

Our delivery of trees has arrived as planned with a good selection of fruit and ornamental trees now available. Looking particularly good are the Cotoneasters and Crab Apples (Malus) which are both full of fruits and berries. As our trees are all container grown you can plant all year round. I’d recommend planting in a good compost with added fertiliser and rootgrow. Taller trees will need staking and securing with a tree tie, and we can show you how to do this – just ask in the plant shop.

Apart from our excellent range of trees, we also have a good selection available of shrubs and herbaceous plants, including Pieris, Skimmias, Salvias, heucheras, Cotinus, grasses, and much more. New stock is still arriving each week, to keep our selection fresh and interesting, with a new batch of herbs arriving later this coming week.

Compost

After earlier problems with compost supplies, we now have good stocks of:

• Multi-purpose compost
• General Purpose Wool Compost
• Wool Compost for salads and vegetables
• Lakeland Gold Claybreaking compost.

All the wool composts are peat free and certified organic.

We are expecting a delivery this week of both Ericaceous Compost  for all your acid loving plants such as Pieris, Skimmias and Rhododendrons and Farmyard Manure for improving vegetable gardens and to feed and mulch a wide variety of plants.

Face Coverings

As the use of face coverings now becomes more widespread we are pleased to be able to offer you a choice of attractive designs. So if you’re fed-up looking like you’re about to start surgery, or looking like a bandit, we now have a selection of “pretty” face coverings at just £4.99 each. Designs include rainbows, bees, flowers and birds, and our face coverings are available to purchase from both the tearoom and the plant shop.

We also stock re-useable face shields (the clear plastic visors) which have been made by the local “Men’s Shed”. These are in packs of 5 and are £15 per pack (£3 each), to cover costs, and the cash for these goes directly to the Men’s Shed to enable them to make more. So if you would like to get a pack and distribute them around friends and family, this is a handy way to do this.

We hope you are enjoying the summer and embracing the recent rain as the gardens did need it! We have plenty of plans for the rest of the year, including workshops, so please sign up to our newsletter if you haven’t already done so to find out more. In the meantime we are still getting more plants in to brighten up the summer and autumn. This weekend’s highlights are:

Penstemons available in 2 litre pots £8.49 each. Choose from Huskers Red, Heavenly Blue, Garnet, Purple Bedder, Sour Grapes and Snowstorm.

Patio Dahlias – ideal for brightening up tired looking planters and borders. They come in various colours – Pink, Orange, Red & White, Pink & White, Pink & Yellow or Yellow, and are in bud and flower and looking very colourful. These will now flower non-stop until the first frosts of the winter, so will keep going for ages yet.

Please feel free to enjoy the space here in the walled garden and perhaps have some refreshments from the tea room. The herbaceous beds are attracting a lot of butterflies, so lovely for a wander.

Next week we will have more herbaceous plants ready and hopefully more garden furniture in stock. And at the beginning of August we will have a new batch of fruit trees available.

There’s nothing to beat a wander around a plant centre and many of you are very excited at being able to visit – who knew that this would be so thrilling!!?
Now the weather has broken it is perfect planting weather and we’ve lots of treats for you this week – mainly in our herbaceous range of plants which we grow ourselves.

Herbaceous Plants available this week

We have a great selection of Eryngium (Sea Holly) which thrive in a sunny well drained spot. They flower for weeks from summer through to early autumn, and are a magnet for bees. As the name suggests, they do well in coastal gardens as they have good salt tolerance, as well as performing well elsewhere. Our varieties are: Jos Eijking (probably the very best blue), Blue Lagoon, planum (not as spiky as the others), Magical Blue Falls, Picos Blue and Picos Amethyst.

For dramatic spires of tall flowers we have two Lythrum (Loosestrife) varieties – the bright pink Feuerkerze and the delicate soft pink variety called Blush. Both are easy to grow and are tolerant of a wide range of conditions, but both perform best in a soil which doesn’t get too dry.

Herbaceous Potentillas are another group of plants that do well with us, and we have the following varieties available: Monarch’s Velvet, Monseuir Rouillard, Ron McBeath, atrosanguineum and Miss Wilmott. These all have a sprawling habit and are good for the middle or front of the border, and will soften edges around paths, paving and driveways.

I’m a big fan of Nepeta too – not just the usual catmint varieties, but the upright ones as well. These are also good for pollinating insects, and are very easy to grow, requiring no special care. Our varieties are: sibirica, subsessilis, Neptune, nervosa Blue Moon, and nervosa Pink Cat. The nervosa varieties are good for the middle of the border, whereas the taller sibirica and subsessilis would do well at the back.

Herbaceous Plants for the back of the border

If you need something really large for the back of a border maybe try Helianthus Lemon Queen. This is sometimes known as a perennial sunflower, and can make large clumps of growth around 6ft in height, topped by lovely lemon coloured flowers. Or why not try Veronicastrum virginicum Pink Glow for tall thin spires of flowers. We’ve also got Veronica First Lady, which I’ve not come across before, but is a pure white form. Both Veronica and Veronicastrum are great for bees – I’ve seen them practically drunk with nectar!

For later colour in the garden we have Echinacea magnus, Helenium Moerheim Beauty, Aster Barr’s Purple, (all really good for attracting butterflies) and we still have Penstemons available – Snowstorm, King George V, Heavenly Blue and Garnet.

For all year round colour you can’t beat Heucheras, with their lovely coloured foliage. We have three varieties ready just now – Marmalade, Chocolate Ruffles and Mahogany. These all do well in the garden, and also look great in pots.

Bedding Plants

We still have bedding plants available and received a fresh delivery yesterday of ready made up planters and hanging baskets, so if you haven’t got around to doing yours yet, here’s an easy solution for you! New in this week are New Guinea Impatiens in a variety of bright colours. These are gorgeous bedding plants and even just one plant can make quite an impact. They are just coming into flower now, and will keep going until the first frosts of the autumn. We’ve also got Geranium Attar or Roses which has charming pink flowers and deliciously scented foliage.

Grow Your Own Edibles

Although tomatoes and courgettes have long been sold out, we still have leeks, cucumbers, pepper and lettuce plants, as well as a selection of herbs and fruit bushes. There are also quite a lot of vegetable varieties you can still grow from seed, such as carrot, beetroot, lettuce, radish, kale, winter cabbage, broccoli and much more, so if you haven’t got going yet – don’t despair, there’s still plenty that you can grow. We also stock potted fruit trees which are available as normal trees, and also as wall trained trees. These are pot grown, so they can be planted all year round with now being a perfect time after that rain.

Pots and Containers

We have a good range of pots currently available including the popular Errington Reay range, glazed pots, alpine troughs and planters of all shapes and sizes.

From 6th June we will be back to our normal opening times of 10:00 to 17:00 in the plant centre. Our first week of re-opening was good and busy, and the extended opening times worked well, but now we are back into our usual routine again. Customers are all being very sensible and are observing the rules that we have in place to keep both staff and visitors safe, and your co-operation with this is much appreciated. Woodside remains a lovely friendly place to shop, and with it’s own relaxing atmosphere it’s the perfect place to forget bigger worries  – at least for a while.

Finally, after 9 weeks and 1400 free deliveries within the Borders, I’m delighted to be able to tell you that Woodside Plant Centre re-opened on 29th May

We’re very excited at the prospect of having visitors back, and we’re looking forwards to you being able to see the plants for yourselves rather than relying on our descriptions!

We have temporarily extended our opening times to 9am – 6pm daily to allow more time to shop and have put in place various measures for all our safety. You can read our Safety Statement here.

The plant centre is looking amazing, and is full to bursting with plants, pots and compost (a delivery arrived on the 28th – just in time) so there’ll be lots for you to see.

End to Telephone orders and collections.

With the garden centre open, we are no longer accepting telephone orders or car park collections as this simply isn’t possible while being open – we would much rather see you anyway. If you are unable to come in because you are in the vulnerable category, please email me  with your phone number so that I can call you back and discuss your requirements. Please note that I’m not often able to get into the office, but I will get back to you as soon as I can. Delivery charges will be applied according to your postcode.

Highlights this week:

Bedding plants – packs of geraniums, plenty of potted begonias, petunias and callibrachoas and packs of nicotiana. The colour themed tub and basket carry packs are back in stock and we’ve also got more Trixies available (3 in 1 plants)
Fruit Trees – more fruit trees are ready this week, including apples, pears, plums and damsons
Compost – Westland have finally delivered to us, and we now have peat free Multi-purpose compost back in stock, as well as Multi-purpose with added John Innes, Alpine Compost and Ericaceous Compost. We also now have Wool Compost back in stock.
Pots and Planters  – it’s been rather a challenge selling pots over the phone as you need to be able to see them! Well now you can, and we have a good range of glazed pots as well as the popular Courtyard Range from Errington Reay
Herbaceous Plants – we’ve got a fabulous range of herbaceous perennials ready – most of them grown by us at our nursery site.
Vegetable Plants – we still have some veg plants available, mainly lettuces and leeks, with a handful of courgettes and cucumbers

We are delighted to be able to open again, and look forwards to welcoming you back to Woodside.

Please bear with us while we get used to this new way of operating our lovely plant centre, and we hope that you find your visit both enjoyable and safe. This safety guidance may be updated or changed as we go along, so please keep checking the website or sign up to our  emails to see the latest guidance before making a visit. If you have any concerns about safety during your visit please speak to any member of the Woodside team.

Whether you are one of our regular customers or one of our many new customers who ordered from us for the first time during lockdown and enjoyed our free delivery service during that time, we hope to see you very soon.