Gardening

This is a bit of a long read, so grab a cuppa and indulge me while I tell you  about  all the gorgeous plants that are available at Woodside this week.

Carpet Roses

Firstly we have Flower Carpet Roses available from our British grower that we have been dealing with for over 25 years. Many of you will remember that I am such a big fan of these easy to grow roses. They don’t suffer from all the usual rose problems, being disease resistant (blackspot, rust mildew etc) and rarely get attacked by aphids and black fly, which all makes them perfect for chemical-free gardening. Their foliage is deep green and glossy, and they have good strong shades of flower colour. Their growth habit is quite low and spreading, making them ideal for ground cover, and they will grow in beds and pots quite happily. Just remember to plant with fertiliser or manure, and to feed and mulch annually to keep them looking fresh. The colours we have available are:
Amber
Cherry
Pink Supreme
Ruby
Sunset
White.

Climbing Roses

In addition we also have a range of Climbing roses available including:
Sommergold (golden yellow with lemon fragrance)
Galway Bay ( double cerise pink, repeat flowering)
American Pillar (single pink with white eye, very hardy)
Grand Award (double deep red, scented and tolerant of wet weather)
Eisa (white and cream double flowers, repeat flowering).

Dierama Guinevere

Beautiful and rare Dierama Guinevere is now avaliable. This stunning plant, photographed in my own garden, flowers in July and has white flowers on long stems that dance in the breeze. It’s common name is Angels Fishing Rods. The plants we have for sale are in 13cm pots and are £9.99 and grown from seed from my own plant. To reserve one please call us on 01835 830315.

More herbaceous plants

We’ve also had another delivery from our herbaceous grower in Norfolk. This is another grower we have been buying from for over 25 years, so we are confident in the quality and vigour of the plants they grow for us.

It’s been quite a large delivery, so I’ll just mention a few of my favourites:
Coreopsis Ladybird:  This is a wonderful daisy like flower with attractive dissected foliage that flower for ages in the summer, providing a vivid splash of colour and is loved by bees. Prefers good drainage and full sun.
Achillea Milly Rock Rose. This is a relatively new variety, grown for it’s compact form (some of the other Achilleas can get a bit floppy and messy) and is in striking shades of pink. Easy to grow and good for butterflies
Cephalaria gigantea – Giant scabious with lemon yellow flowers and a great presence. It’s a tall back of border plant and much sought after.
Rudbeckia Butterscotch Biscuit – this is actually a Rudbeckia x Echinacea hybrid and has been bred for it’s neat growth habit (reaching about 40cm) and long lasting flowers of buttery yellow and bronze.

Dahlias – all wonderful for a splash of colour and loved by bees. Will need lifting in the autumn and storing in a frost-free place for planting out again next year. Choose from:
Bishop of Canterbury (a heritage variety with black-bronze foliage and magenta flowers)
Dreamy Fantasy (dark foliage and salmon, coral and yellow flowers)
Moonfire (golden flowers with an orange centre and purple leaves)
There’s also Salvias, Eryngiums and Hardy Geraniums, so plenty to have a look at.

Pond Plants

We’ve also got more pond plants in stock, including bunched and potted oxygenators, water lilies, and marginals, plus some more pond fish. Look out for our large shubunkins which are absolutely stunning. Our self-contained water features are proving popular this year, with customers wanting to add a bit of sound and movement to seating areas in the garden.

I look forward to seeing you soon.

The first tomato plants are now in stock.  Remember, they will need planting in a heated greenhouse, polytunnel, sunroom or even a window sill as it’s still too cold to either plant them outside or in unheated conditions.

They are fabulous stocky young plants that should just romp away when planted. We recommend planting in a Growmoor Tomato Planter, which is a larger version of a growbag. If they are to be planted in pots, simply decant the contents of the Tomato Planter into a pot and feed regularly throughout the growing season with Tomato Fertiliser.
The varieties we have in stock are:
Shirley
Alicante
Beefsteak
Moneymaker
Sun Baby
Gardener’s Delight
Golden Plum
Red Plum
Sun Gold.

Don’t forget that you can see more regular updates by checking our Facebook Page, which includes information on plants, events and tearoom specials.

As usual, we ask you to phone rather than email us if you have any queries or want to book a table. Please call us on 01835 830315.

We are delighted that we have sweet pea plants for sale now, having brought them on in our polytunnel. As you can see they are looking very healthy.

I have also recently written a Woodside Guide to Growing Sweet Peas, which you can read here.

The guide covers how to grow them from seed yourself, including how to select the right varieties.

If you are buying our seedlings here is the advice: “If purchasing plants that have been multiple sown in a small pot, these will need to be separated out, potted up individually, and grown on until they are big enough to plant out. For planting out, individual plants should be placed in holes and the soil level brought back to a level below the first side shoot and planted firmly but lightly to ensure good soil contact. Sweet Peas grow best in a sunny spot with at least 6 hours of sun each day, but like their roots to be reasonable cool – so don’t plant in a hot place in the garden.”

There is further advice in the guide about the best suport for them and how to maximise the flowering season.

We have several “Woodside Guides” available. At this time of year you might also like to read The Woodside Guide to Growing Potatoes and How to Grow Onions

Our first delivery of seed potatoes has just arrived. Our varieties for 2026 are:

First Early Seed Potatoes:

• Caledonian Pearl – a very early variety suitable for boiling and eating hot or cold
• Casablanca NEW – a quick maturing multi-purpose variety Highly Recommended
• Duke of York – a very popular dry mealy variety
• International Kidney – known as the Jersey Royal when grown on Jersey.
• Maris Bard – a reliable waxy textured all-rounder
• Pentland Javelin – a Scottish variety with a waxy texture
• Rocket – a very early variety with excellent yields
• Sharpes Express – pale lemon coloured flesh
• Organic Colleen – medium dry matter, and good disease resistance

Second Early Seed Potatoes:

• Charlotte – our best selling variety, versatile and tasty
• Estima – firm moist texture and high yields
• Jazzy – a waxy textured, yellow skinned salad variety
• Maris Peer – creamy white flesh, ideal as a salad potato
• Nadine – another top seller, a reliable all-rounder

Main Crop:

• Rooster – a red skinned variety suitable for roasting and chipping

Please note that Pink Fir Apple is not available this year.

More seed potatoes will be available from Early March

Most varieties are £4.99 per 2kg bag (1.5kg for Organic Colleen) Rooster & Jazzy £5.99 per bag.

If you’d like any reserved for you, just phone on 01835 830315.

We have a lovely range of Christmas plants for sale to brighten up your home or garden for the winter – ideal as gifts or just as a treat to yourself. The Plant Centre shop is absolutely bursting at the seams with temptation! My highlights are:

• Indoor Cyclamen. We have a few choices here in lots of different colours. Choose from Mini Cyclamen with bright red flowers at £3.99 each, Midi Cyclamen in mixed colours at £4.99 each or 3 for £12 or Large Flowered Cyclamen at £8.99 each. Look out too for a new variety – Cyclamen Exclusive. These are very distinctive with flared petals on downward facing blooms with contrasting paler sepals giving a unique appearance. These are a new variety, developed in the Netherlands, and new to Woodside and are £6.99 each. Keep all indoor cyclamen in a cool place indoors, and water sparingly and only when required. Some garden centres sell mini and midi cyclamen as being hardy, but don’t be fooled – we are completely honest with you and know that in our area these cyclamen are not suitable for outdoors but are superb indoor plants. If you’d like outdoor hardy cyclamen, please just ask – we have plenty of these too and they do well under deciduous trees and shrubs.
• Indoor Hyacinths. These are well known bulbous plants which are grown both for their colour and for their unmistakable scent. We have them in a very attractive rustic arrangement with a wooden Christmas tree (which need to be seen to be appreciated) which would make an ideal present. We also have a new variety to us – Hyacinth Multiflora – in shades of pink, blue and white. These consist of a lot of shoots coming out of a single bulb, and so gives multiple blooms to one pot. They are showing buds just now and look like they are going to give a wonderful display in time for Christmas, or just after.
• Waxed Amaryllis. Our last batch sold out very quickly, so we now have some more in stock – this time they are wearing a cosy Christmas jumper!  These are specially selected and tested Amaryllis bulbs which need no water or compost to produce flowers. They have a swirl metal base to provide stability and will sit on your windowsill just as they are, and will produce flowers on compact stems, and so are unlikely to become top-heavy and topple over. They make an ideal gifts to people who have limited gardening ability and are very rewarding to grow.
• Orchids – Phalaenopsis. These are also known as Moth orchids and are the most popular and easy to grow indoor variety and we have them in a mix of colours. They are in flower and bud now, and will bloom for weeks, and at just £11.99 they are far better value for money than a bunch of flowers, as you can keep them once they’ve finished flowering, and coax them back into bloom again and again. They do well on a light windowsill but away from full sun, and thrive in bathrooms and kitchens with the extra humidity. They are also very tolerant of central heating, unlike many other indoor plants.
•  Christmas Cactus – Schlumbergera. These are striking houseplants which burst into flower over the festive period creating a brilliant display of colourful blooms. They are easy to care for, thriving in moderate warmth and evenly moist compost, being careful not to overwater. Position on a bright window sill away from direct sunlight for weeks of flowers.
• Narcissus Tete a Tete – Miniature Daffodil. These are very popular spring flowering bulbs for the garden, but also can be forced on indoors for mid-winter colour. We have them available planted up in bowls suitable for growing indoors to give a bright splash of cheeriness. Ideal as a gift, or as an eye-catching display in your own home

Outdoor plants include winter flowering Heathers, Christmas Roses (Hellebores), Skimmias, Leucothoes and Gaultherias, and much, much more. There’s really no excuse to not have a good display of winter interest plants in your garden with the choice of plants we currently have in stock!

Our Scottish grown cut Christmas trees for sale are all  Nordmann Firs, which are the non-needle-drop variety. As with all cut Christmas trees they do best in a cool room and away from heat sources – if you’re not ready to put yours up just yet (after all it is still November!) then keep in a cool place such as a garden shed and stand in a bucket of water. Nordmanns are well known for their bushiness, good shape and lasting qualities. We have them in sizes from 4ft to 7ft, and our prices are:

4ft £42
5ft £55
6ft £70
7ft £90

If you’d like one reserving (even if your’e not ready for it yet) call us on 01835 830315 and we’ll set one aside for you.

Living Christmas Trees for sale

If you would rather have a living Christmas Tree, we have a good stock of Picea glauca Perfecta, which is a naturally conical shaped Spruce, and these are perfect for table top trees. These are gorgeous trees which have been professionally grown by one of our shrub growing nurseries and are outstanding value for money at £24.99 for the smaller size  (approx 1m) and £36.99 for the larger size (approx 1.3m). They are suitable for planting outside in the garden or in a bigger pot after Christmas and will make a nice upright evergreen feature in your garden.

Christmas Wreaths

We have started making our Christmas Wreaths a bit earlier this year, due to demand. All our wreaths are made using locally picked natural fresh conifer and holly, and are suitable for doors, gates or for the cemetery. Our smaller size is usually used for graves and we can decorate them with cones, artificial white hellebores, or artificial red roses. These are £22 each. Our door wreaths are a bigger size and come with  a colourful bow, and prices start at £30. We also do small swags to order at £16. We try to keep up and have stock available for sale, but recommend that you phone to reserve yours, just in case we run out. Please call us on 01835 830315 to reserve yours and let us know what date you would like your wreath and we can have it freshly made for you.

Our Scottish grown raspberry canes are now in stock at Woodside, ready for planting now.
Based in Perthshire, Eastern Scotland, James McIntyre & Sons have been specialising in the production of soft fruit plants for over 60 years. They now produce over a million raspberry canes every year from 60 acres of ground located within the beautiful town of Blairgowrie, in the Strathmore Valley, as well as growing other soft fruit plants on the nursery, such as Loganberries, Gooseberries and Currants – all also available to purchase at Woodside.

The varieties of Raspberry canes we have in stock are:

Allgold – a very reliable autumn fruiting variety with tasty small yellow berries
Autumn Bliss – a red berried autumn variety, fruiting from late August until the first frosts, and doesn’t require support
Glen Ample – a mid season variety with heavy crops on spine-free canes, and with good disease resistance
Glen Clova – an early fruiting variety (July) with small but flavoursome fruits which freeze well
Glen Ericht – an early variety with good disease resistance. Sharp flavour so excellent for jam making
Glen Magna – a late summer variety with large sweet fruits, and good resistance to disease and aphids
Glen Prosen – a mid season summer variety with extremely high yields of good quality firm fruits on spine free canes
Malling Admiral – a strong growing mid-season variety with large flavoursome berries, on almost spine free canes. Good disease and virus resistance so good for organic growers
Malling Jewel – a traditional favourite mid season variety with good virus resistance
Malling Leo – a late fruiting summer variety perfect for extending the picking season. Tall vigorous canes with good disease resistance
Malling Promise – an vigorous and abundant early variety with firm fruits
Tulameen – a modern late summer fruiting variety with reliable high yields, suitable for growing in a large container and can be trained up a trellis or obelisk.

In addition we have also had a new delivery of Honeyberries. These are members of the honeysuckle family and originate from Siberia so are very hardy. These are easy to grow shrubs producing attractive blue berries with a zingy flavour and packed full of goodness. They need to be planted in two’s for pollination and all our varieties (Blue Banana, Boreal Beauty and Boreal Blizzard) will act as pollination partners for each other.

Don’t forget that this is bulb planting season. Planting conditions for bulbs and plants are good at the moment with the recent rain giving us some much needed moisture in the soil. Whilst some of our varieties have already sold out, we still have plenty left to create a good splash of colour in spring.

Eye-catching bulbs

Here are just some of the bulbs that are particularly eye-catching and a little bit unusual

• Tulip Finola – large blousy pink peony-like blooms
• Fritillaria meleagris – the popular Snake’s Head Fritillary. Perfect for naturalising in grass or in informal borders
• Hyacinthoides non-scripta – our beautiful native British Bluebell. Great for woodland gardens and for planting underneath deciduous trees and shrubs
• Narcissus Mixed Butterflies – gorgeous frilly daffodil flowers with flared trumpets in pretty shades of cream and yellow

Alliums

I’m a huge fan of these stately flowers which are in the same family as chives and onions. We have several varieties to choose from:

• Gladiator – giant purple heads upto 20cm diameter on stems around 1m in height
• Mount Evereste – a strong form with white flowers
• Globemaster – another tall purple variety with large flower heads
• Schubertii  – dramatic loose heads of metallic pink lowers which have a star-burst like effect
• Purple Sensation – the most popular and relaible purple alliums growing to around 60cm high
• Christophii – Loose clusters of pinky purplish flowers on stems around 60cm high

Or if you can’t decide which to grow, we have packs of mixed alliums which are excellent value at £5.99 per pack of 12.

All Alliums need a well drained soil in full sun, and are very good for  pollinating insects such as bees and hoverflies. They make a dramatic display in the garden with their distinctive globe shaped clusters of flowers that are carried high above strap-like foliage.

I think they work brilliantly in a herbaceous border, where the sometimes scruffy leaves are covered by the growth of the herbaceous plants, allowing the flowers to tower above them. Many years ago I took a group of gardeners on a trip to Highgrove House, and we saw probably the best display of Alliums ever – in a grassy meadow amongst the buttercups. There must have been thousands of Alliums planted there and what a planting combination! We don’t all have the luxury of being able to plant on this scale, but even a small group of alliums in your garden will create a wonderful and long lasting display.

Our bare rooted hedging price list and order form is now ready.
You can open the form by clicking here or you can collect one in person from Woodside. We do not carry bare-rooted stock at Woodside, so all requirements for heding must be pre-ordered and paid for using the form.

Buying hedging as bare-rooted plants (that is without compost or pots) is much more cost effective than buying them as potted plants. While container grown plants are available all year round, bare-rooted plants are only available during the dormant season, usually November to February, when they are lifted from the ground with the minimum amount of disturbance to them. Once received plants should be planted as soon as possible to prevent the exposed roots from drying out, or if that’s not possible they can be heeled in to a spare patch of ground ready to be transplanted into their permanent position at a later date.

Some evergreen hedging plants such as hollies and Leylandii are best purchased as potted plants, as they can dry out very quickly without the protection of compost, and so are unlikely to plant out successfully.  Deciduous plants suitable for planting as bare-rooted plants include hawthorn, sloes, beech, hazel, wild roses, and hornbeam. A good mix of plants can provide a thriving hedgerow habitat for wildlife fairly quickly after planting.

How to plant bare rooted hedging

In general, I would recommend that bare rooted hedging plants are planted at a maximum of 3 per metre (about 1ft apart) for a single row. If you are looking for a thicker hedge, then a double staggered row is the way to plant them – this means you need 5 per metre.

To plant, you need to prepare the ground thoroughly; your hedge will be there for a long time and this will be your only opportunity to improve the soil. Clear the site of weeds, and dig over well, removing any weed roots. Use a garden line to dig out a straight trench about 25cm deep and add a good weed-free compost (either your own home-made compost or a bought bagged one such as Rose Tree and Shrub planting compost) and well-rotted manure, and fork into the base of the trench. Return the soil to the trench, adding a good handful per metre of Bonemeal or Growmore.

Separate your bundles of hedging into individual plants, and place in the trench, adding a sprinkle of Rootgow to the base of each plant.  Firm down the soil well around the plants, and water them in. You also need to be prepared to water them regularly for the first year during dry spells, just until the roots get established.

If you need any advice on hedging plant selection, just give us a phone on 01835 830315, or visit Woodside and have a chat to us.