Posts by Emma Emmerson

This rain has been wonderful for our gardens, with the plants drinking it up and putting on lots of growth after a hot dry spell.

Now we have perfect planting conditions, it’s a good time to fill your garden with gorgeous hardy perennials.  We have lots of new plants this week to choose from including a beautiful selection from award-winning Howard Nurseries that have just arrived.

Here are some of my favourites – there are plenty more!
Actaea Chocoholic – this used to be called Cimicifuga and is a lovely tall dark leaved perennial with delicate looking flowers
Brunnera Dawson’s White – this is a really good variegated form, with blue flowers
Calamagrostis Karl Foerster & Overdam – two really nice varieties of grass, perfect for prairie planting schemes
Eryngium Jos Eijking – this is probably the best of the blue Sea Hollies, and is the one we grow here in our garden at Woodside and is much admired. Lovely to look at and irresistible to bees
Eupatorium Baby Joe – a compact form of Joe Pye Weed, with attractive purple flowers in late summer/autumn that are good for the butterflies
Geum Pink Petticoats & Totally Tangerine – two of the very best Geums, that have good strong colour, and flower for weeks throughout the summer.
Heleniums – fantastic late flowering perennials with daisy-like flowers, to give later interest in the garden. We have 4 varieties – Red Jewel, Wesergold, Moerheim Beauty and Short and Sassy
Persicaria – really good ground cover perennials that are easy to grow and have quite showy flowers too. We have four varieties of these – affinis Donald Lowndes, amplexicaulis Annes Choice, amplexicaulis Blackfield, and bistorta Superba
Sedum Herbstfreude – sometimes known as “Autumn Joy, this is probably the best of all the border Sedums, flowering quite late in the summer and persisting into autumn, providing a late food source for pollinating insects.

Other highlights

Look out too for packs of Lewisia and flowers for rockeries and alpine troughs, Rhodohypoxis in a variety of colours, Ophiopogon nigrescens (known as the “black grass” but not a grass at all – it’s actually a member of the lily family, and they’re just coming into flower now), Nemesias in three different colours and much, much more.

As you can tell, I’m very excited about our current range of plants and I very much recommend a visit to Woodside to fully appreciate the choice that we have. All our plants are container grown and can be planted all year round, and, as mentioned, planting conditions are now absolutely perfect with the warm weather and lovely rainfall.

Slugs

Remember that slugs like the rain too, so don’t forget to protect plants with slug pellets! We have a good range of eco-friendly slug pellets in the plant centre.

As usual, if you’d like anything reserved, to book a table in the tearoom, or have any questions, please call on 01835 830315. Emails and social media messages may go unanswered as none of us like computers – we much prefer plants!

What a gorgeous morning to start the Easter Weekend at Woodside. The first of our baby vegetable packs are now available and selling fast. We will be getting more over the next few weeks, so please don’t worry if you have missed out this time. Please note that all tomato plants will need heated conditions at the moment, such as a heated greenhouse. There will be plenty more tomato plants coming on for those of you with unheated greenhouses.

For this weekend we have packs of:
Purple Sprouting Broccoli
Green Calabrese
Red Cabbage (Limited numbers)
Cauliflower (Limited Numbers)
Spinach (Limited Numbers)
Lettuce Cos (Limited numbers)
Lettuce Green Salad Bowl (Limited numbers)
Lettuce Red Salad Bowl (limited numbers)

And in 9cm pots we have:
Leek Musselburgh
Sweetcorn
Tomato Alicante
Tomato Gardener’s Delight
Tomato Shirley
Tomato Ailsa Craig
Tomato Moneymaker

Herbaceous Plants

A delivery of herbaceous plants has arrived today (Good Friday). This means that we have a good selection of hardy perennials for the weekend, to add to our large choice of garden plants. The weather forecast is perfect for planting, and the sun is to shine for at least two days, so it’s the ideal time to get out into the garden.

Also for this Easter weekend at Woodside we have a selection of UK made wooden troughs and planters – as featured in the photograph.

We have trellis backed planters, suitable for short climbers and for screening, troughs on legs suitable for salad, vegetable and herbs, as well as square and rectangular troughs for patios, driveways and front doors. These are all very well priced, so do come in and take a look. We recommend that you line them with used compost sacks or bin bags for best results.

Easter in the Tearoom

In the Birdhouse Tearoom we have some delicious Easter Specials for you.

Try our new handmade oven baked Scotch Eggs, made here at Woodside by Mandy, using local free-range organic eggs and are available in four flavours – Pork & Apple, BBQ, Chilli and Herb. On the specials board we have Coronation chicken on this weekend.

Sue has been busy baking some Easter treats: Simnel Cake, Easter Spiced Biscuits and Chocolate Nests are all ready for you to enjoy, along with all our usual favourites. The tearoom is likely to very popular this weekend – so I’d recommend booking for indoor seating on 01835 830315. There’s plenty of space outside on our picnic tables, so no need to book if you’re happy to sit outside in the Spring sunshine.

As usual, for all enquiries and reservations, please call us on 01835 830315. The office will be closed until Tuesday, so emails and enquiries through social media will not get picked up!

What a couple of weeks this has been with new spring deliveries arriving every day! This morning (7th March) we have just had a delivery of azalea and rhododendron plants, which are sure to be popular as gardeners look forward to spring. Other plant deliveries last week included  Hebes, Hellebores, Ribes (Flowering Currant), Cotinus Grace and Royal Purple, some gorgeous mature Corylopsis pauciflora in flower, some beautiful feature Pines, and some large Wisteria sinensis.

Seed Potatoes

The remaining seed potatoes have been delivered and are selling fast. Fresh stock includes:

Charlotte
Kestrel
Jazzy
Nadine
Wilja
Organic Bambino

Main Crop:
Caledonian Rose
Cara
Desiree
Golden Wonder
King Edward
Maris Piper
Pentland Dell
Pink Fir Apple
Rooster
Organic Sarpo Mira.

If you’d like us to reserve a bag of  seed potatoes for you, please give us a call on 01835 830315

Scottish Grown Fruit Bushes

Also selling well are the fruit bushes which arrived last week from our specialist Scottish grower:
Blueberry Brigitta
Blueberry Jersey
Black Currant Ben Connan
Blackcurrant Goliath
Gooseberry Hinnonmaki Green
Gooseberry Invicta
Honeyberry Boreal Beast
Gojiberry
Redcurrant Rosetta
Rhubarb Champagne
Rhubarb Glaskins Perpetual
Rhubarb Timperley Early
Rhubarb Victoria
Tummelberry

Peat-Free Professional Compost

We are very excited  to have taken delivery of some new ranges of compost. Our NEW peat-free professional compost (Bronte Heritage) finally offers non-peat users a really good multi-purpose compost suitable for a wide range of uses, including potting and planting. This compost has been available to professional users for a while in bulk loads, but has now been packaged in retail bags in a manageable 50 litre size. They are £11.99 each, or 2 for £20. We will be using this compost ourselves for all our plant production and growing purposes, and Joanne will be very busy next week potting up our young plants ready for growing on.

We also now stock the Growmoor range of compost, which is a company based in County Tyrone and offers a full range of composts and related products, including Garden Mulch, Farmyard Manure, Growbags, Rose, Tree and Shrub planting compost, Multipurpose compost with added John Innes and a NEW peat-free Ericaceous Compost. And we have also taken delivery of a fresh batch of Dalefoot Wool Compost which is produced in Cumbria using fleece from Herdwick sheep and bracken. We stock most of their range: Potting, Tomato, Vegetable and Salad, Double Strength, Seed and Lakeland Gold (Claybuster). In all we stock around 25 different composts – so there should be something to suit everyone’s needs.

Recycled Metal Birds

And finally, we’ve had a delivery of more of our lovely recycled metal birds and animals, made by Zimbabwean artists to designs developed by a British team in the Coxwolds. These are not the mass produced items you find on-line, but individual handmade and hand painted items, made from recycled oil drums and other waste metal products. Our range includes a selection of British birds, which seems particularly suitable for Woodside.

If you want to receive regular updates about new stock as it arrives, please sign up to our newsletter list below

Our Scottish Grown Raspberry canes are now in stock, ready for planting. Choose from:

Early Varieties
Glen Clova – vigorous and disease resistant with small firm fruits that freeze well
Glen Lyon – compact growth, heavy cropper with tasty glossy fruit
Malling Promise – an early heritage variety with large rosy red fruits

Mid Season Varieties
Glen Ample – high yielding with very large fruit and a superb flavour
Glen Doll – spine free canes with good disease resistance and excellent flavour of fruit
Glen Ericht – Modern variety with good resistance to root rot, and firm tasty berries
Malling Jewel – compact growth with reliable crops of fruit with excellent flavour. An old favourite

Late Season Varieties
Malling Leo – a tall growing variety with abundant crops of large firm fruit
Tullameen – a Canadian variety and now one of the most popular ones available due to its abundance of sweet fruit. Suitable for growing in a large pot

Autumn Varieties
Allgold – very reliable cropper, easy to grow and establish, with attractive golden yellow tasty fruit
Autumn Bliss – large red berries with excellent flavour and good keeping qualities
Heritage – a primocane variety with sturdy canes that don’t need support, high quality juicy fruit

Raspberries can be tricky to establish – we recommend that you never plant on ground that has previously grown raspberries, and that you always plant with Rootgrow to give them some additional help. Read more in our How to Plant Raspberry Canes Guide.

Blueberries

We also have four different Blueberries to choose from:

• Blue Crop – the most popular and reliable mid season season blueberry variety on the market
• Darrow -a late season variety with large fruit for easy picking
• Duke – a good early variety for colder gardens with light blue firm crunchy berries
• Hortblue Petite – NEW to Woodside and an outstanding new variety producing two crops in one year – in July and again in September. Excellent for growing in containers. This is the World’s first twice fruiting variety.

All Blueberries require acidic growing conditions, so don’t forget to plant with Ericaceous compost and Ericoid Rootgrow.

As usual, for all reservations and queries it’s best to speak to us on the phone or leave an answer phone message by calling 01835 830315. Messages via email and by social media may go unanswered. Don’t forget we are now into our winter opening times of 10am – 4pm daily.

Ornamental Trees

We’re  pleased to have what we believe is the best range of ornamental trees in the Scottish Borders, and this weeks new arrivals include four varieties of Amelanchiers. These are one of my “must have” plant varieties that I think all gardens should have, but we’ve been struggling to get them for the last couple of years.

This week’s batch is some of the best I’ve seen and the varieties are: canadensis Glenform Rainbow Pillar, Edelweiss, Snowflakes, and Ballerina. All varieties have an abundance of dainty white blossom in spring, and pretty mid-green leaves which turn lovely shades of gold and red in the autumn.

Look out too for some gorgeous Rowans (Sorbus) – Fingerprint, Autumn Spire, Ravensbill and Olympic Flame, as well as the beautiful variegated leaved Cherry Prunus Frilly Frock.
Also new in this week are Hamamelis  – stunning Witch Hazels which produce fragrant showy spidery flowers in winter in shades of red, bronze or yellow. Our current varieties are Arnold Promise, Diane, Jelena and Pallida.

Fruit Trees

More fruit trees are now available, including some Scottish Heritage Apple Varieties:

• Bloody Ploughman,
• Galloway Pippin,
• Scotch Bridget,
• Scotch Dumpling
• Stirling Castle.

In addition we also have more Victoria Plums and Nut trees ready now – Walnut, Hazel Gunselbert, Filbert Cosford, Hazel Nottingham and Webbs Prize Cobnut.

We also have Raspberry Canes and Blueberry plants ready to plant now.

Some of our trees and shrubs are only available in limited numbers only, so if you can’t get to Woodside in the next few days I suggest you phone on 01835 830315 to reserve your choice. We have plenty of raspberry canes, so no need to worry about them selling out just yet!

As usual, for all reservations and queries it’s best to speak to us on the phone or leave an answer phone message. Messages via email and by social media may go unanswered.

Don’t forget we are now into our winter opening times of 10am – 4pm daily.

We’ve just had a delivery come in of some really gorgeous plants for autumn colour. They will really brighten up your garden. We all love them, and I’m sure you will do too……

In the main image you can see two evergreens:

• •  Pieris japonica Little Frosty, which is a fairly new introduction. This is a compact and bushy form, suitable for planting in small spaces or in tubs and containers, and has silver and green evergreen foliage and white bell shaped flowers in spring.
  • Leucothoe Curly Red, another low growing evergreen shrub. This one has unique curly leaves which open as red on the new growth, turning to green in the summer, then back to red in the autumn right through winter, making it a lovely warm colour to enjoy in the very coldest of days.

We also have in stock autumn flowering Callunas (Heathers) which are full of buds and flowers and ready for planting outside now.

Sarcoccoca, also known as Winter Box is one of my favourite plants. It has lovely glossy green foliage all year round and masses of tiny white flowers in the winter, which smell strongly of honey. We have three varieties available – Winter Gem, Purple Stem and Dragon Gate. All of them are smothered in flower buds and looking really tempting!

We have a superb batch of Hardy Cyclamen available too. These are the truly hardy ones, which can be planted out in the garden under deciduous trees and shrubs and come back year after year. This winter mix we currently have in stock has unusual silver foliage topped with dainty flowers in shades of pink. We also have more Patio Cyclamen ready  – these can be grown either as bedding plants, or as house plants for a cool room, and come in shades of white, pink, and red.

Two new varieties of Daphne have also just arrived – Daphne Perfume Princess (pink) and Daphne Eternal Fragrance (white). These evergreens have stunning highly perfumed flowers in late winter into early spring, and we often have real trouble getting hold of them, so we’re especially pleased to be able to offer such strong looking plants.

We’ve lots more plants looking really good at this time of year, so if your garden is looking a bit drab and lacking in colour, perhaps it just needs a freshen up. Don’t forget that we also have an excellent range of bulbs to underplant your garden with, so you can also be sure of a bright and cheerful spring garden.

As usual, if you’d like any of these plants reserving, just call on 01835 830315.

Hardy cyclamen for a display year after year.

Brightly coloured callunas in deep pink or white with Sarcoccoco behind