We are now getting geared up for the Christmas season here at Woodside with our Christmas display ready for you to enjoy. We will also be making fresh wreaths and will be selling Christmas trees towards the end of this month. If you visit us from south of the border, sorry but we ask you not to visit us during your national lockdown, you can however pre-order and collect in December. Details of how you can pre-order wreaths and Christmas trees will be sent to everyone on the mailing list just in case we have another national lockdown in Scotland too.

In the Garden

Many of you will be preapring your garden for next year and we have plenty of items in stock both to brighten up your winter garden and to plan ahead. Highlights include:

Lily of the Valley – we sell these as bare-rooted “pips” at £3.50 each. A vey nostalgic plant that lots of people associate with their childhood
Asparagus – now is the time to plant asparagus crowns
Dogwoods – these are really coming into their own now, as they are at their best in winter when the brightly coloured stems can be seen. We have two varieties – Cornus alba sibirica, with rich red stems, and Cornus Midwinter Fire, which is a shorter variety with bright orange stems.
Liriope muscari Big Blue – evergreen grass like foliage with unusual blue flowers each summer
Penstemon Blueberry Taffy – still in flower even after all this rain.
Forsythia Lynwood – we struggled to get enough of this classic spring flowering shrub earlier this year, but we now have plenty
Viburnam tinus Gwenllian – an attractive  winter flowering evergreen shrub
Amelanchier Ballerina – these are available as a large multi-stemmed shrub, certain to make a quick impact. £125.00 each, but well worth it.

Gardening gifts

Whether you want to treat yourself or buy for your gardening firends, here are just a few ideas:

Gloves – we have the full range of Showa gardening gloves ready for all your winter gardening tasks.
String and twine – finally we have managed to source a good range of twine – it’s been as scarce as toilet roll this year!
Felco Secateurs – these are the “Rolls Royce” of secateurs and we have Model 2, 6, 7 and 9 available as well as the folding pruning saw and new to us this year, the Felco sharpening tool.  A perfect Christmas present for the gardener in your life.
Amaryllis Growing Kits  in red, pink or white. Great Christmas gifts and light enough to post.
Microwavable wheat bags to ease aches and pains after a long day in the garden. These are available in a variety of designs so you’re sure to find a suitable one.
Face Masks,  this year’s “must have” fashion accessory, are now available in some new designs including tartan, Highland Coo, snowflakes and holly berry. We now also stock snoods, which are suitable to use as a scarf, headband or face covering ,and these have a pocket within them to fit a face cover filter for extra safety and protection.

As you can see we’ve had an invasion of rabbits! Luckily not the living breathing sort, but attractive garden ornaments to bring a smile to your face. We’ve also now got back in stock birdbaths, slate planters, statues, chickens and ducks. These are all lovely additions to the garden and would make welcome Christmas gifts.

Bird Food

A couple of years ago we stocked locally produced bird cake pillars made with ground corn. I’m pleased to say that Adam, who makes them, has gone back into production with them again, and we have them back in stock. They were really popular when we had them before, both with customers and with our hungry wild birds, and with the weather turning chillier and the nights drawing in, the birds will be grateful for the warming energy boost that these fat pillars offer. They are priced at £9.99 for a pack of 2. We’re also well stocked up with all kinds of bird food to help our feathered friends keep condition over the autumn and winter months that are ahead of us. Remember our bird seed mixes don’t contain corn, so you’ll not get a lot of wastage and mess.

Garlic Doocot

Our first delivery of this Scottish bred and grown variety sold out in record time! More has arrived today, along with some lovely garlicky food items, such as mayonnaise and oatcakes. Our planting garlics are £1.50 per bulb or 3 bulbs for £4. Each bulbs contains on average 5 cloves which are planted individually. You can find full planting instructions on our website here.

New in the Tearoom

Now it’s getting colder we are offering hot jacket potatoes in the tearoom to either sit in, take home or take out into the garden. We still are only able to have limited indoor seating due to social distancing measures, so please be prepared to sit out under the shelter of one of our gazebos. You may want to consider putting on an extra jumper to deal with all this sitting out and outdoor queueing that we have to do at the moment!
We’ve also started to do bacon rolls from 10am – 12pm each day. Perfect to set you up for the day ahead.

Our plants and other garden supplies are continuing to sell quickly, so we are pleased to announce the following new arrivals.

Roses:

We are pleased that after huge demand earlier in the year we have new season roses in stock. The current selection of roses for sale include:

• Fragrant Cloud, Hot Chocolate and Rhapsody in Blue, which are bush roses;
•  a choice of roses with names suitable for present giving, such as Many Happy Returns, The Anniversary Rose, Warm Wishes, For You With Love and Golden 50th.
• Climbing Roses includes Arthur Bell, Compassion, Golden Showers, Handel, Iceberg Climbing, New Dawn and Starlight Express

Perennials:

You all just love your Hellebores, and last week’s batch sold out in no time at all. So we have fresh ones in this week, including Double Chocolate, Shades of Night, Double Cream Speckled, and Smokey Blue.
We also now have Gentians back in stock and the climbing Hydrangea petiolaris which is always very much in demand.

Bedding Plants:

After recent frosts, I expect that many of the summer bedding plants have now finally given up. We have just had a fresh delivery of pansies, violas, bellis and primroses, all suitable for planting out now. We also have bulbs available in the shop to underplant your beds, borders and containers with to plan ahead for Spring colour. We’ve also just had a big delivery of mini cyclamen, as the last batch sold out very quickly. New this week are packs of 6 mini cyclamen which are excellent value at £12.99 per pack. Sinlge plants are £2.99 each, so it’s a good saving to buy the pack. These are suitable for patio planters and do even better in a cool indoor space such as a porch or unheated room. They are really stunning and would brighten up anyone’s day.

Fruit Trees:

I’ve had another delivery of fruit trees and we now have pears back in stock after a few weeks without. Our varieties are Catillac, Concorde, Doyenne du Comice and Sensation. We’ve also got Medlars  and Quince Vranja available again.
For those of you wanting to order bare rooted fruit trees our list is now ready and can be downloaded here.You can come in and place your order, or you can post it with a cheque, or email it with a contact number for us to call you back to obtain payment. Whichever suits you best.

Please note that we have taken peaches, nectarines and cherries off our bare rooted availability, as we feel these do better in our area as potted plants.

Bare Root Hedging:

Our bare rooted hedging list is also now ready and you can download it here.
Please note that the minimum quantity per variety is 5. You can place your orders with us in the same way as the fruit list.

If you have trouble opening any of these price lists please let me know and I can either email you in a different format, or you can pop into the shop and use a printed copy.

Compost:

Compost sales continue to exceed expectations, and we are getting a new delivery in on Monday which will include Multipurpose with added John Innes, Peat-free Multipurpose, and John Innes numbers 1,2 & 3. We currently have in stock ericacous compost, farmyard manure and Dalefoot Potting Compost.

Firewood:

We’ve just had another delivery of logs and kindling for your open fire or stove. This is all locally and sustainable sourced, and is available in handy nets to neatly fit in the boot of your car.

And Finally….

Our fruit and veg sales continue to do well. We get two deliveries each week, on Tuesday and Friday lunchtimes, and we now have a big selection of fruit, vegetables and salad items available. This week’s highlights are UK Russet apples ( I tasted one a couple of days ago, and I think it’s the nicest thing I’ve eaten for ages!), local vine tomatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, enormous cauliflowers from Kelso, Conference Pears, also from Kelso, aubergines and leeks. new this week are quinces and sweet potatoes. We’ve increased the amount of baby salad potatoes. leeks and carrots as we ran out last week. Do tell your neighbours and friend about our fresh range, as the busier we are the more we can stock.

Whilst you are here stocking up on fruit, veg and plants why not have a hot bacon roll which are available again between 10 and 12 daily. We know they are appreciated by the hungry cyclists

We are delighted to launch our own mini green grocery at Woodside this weekend. This is set up in association with Down to Earth of Selkirk who will be supplying us with a range of seasonal vegetables and fruit. We are also harvesting here at Woodside  – some of the produce will be made into soup in the tea room and some of it will be sold in the green grocery too.

Down to Earth is a high street green grocers based on Selkirk and supplying across the central Borders. Their aim is to sell vegetables and fruit grown locally, reducing the food miles, supporting local producers and ensuring you, the customer get fresh and tasty fruit and veg. Read more about them here.

This weekend’s highlights include tomatoes grown in the Borders, UK grown Cox’s apples, potatoes, mushrooms, leeks, parsnips, and plump green grapes from Italy, crisp Pink Lady apples from New Zealand, juicy easy peeler oranges from South Africa and much more.

We’re also beginning to stock a range of dried food products such as lentils, split peas, and broth mix. It’s so much nicer shopping for these items at Woodside, instead of battling round a supermarket, and I’m sure you’d all rather support a small local business rather than a big multi-national company, and you’ve the added bonus that you can buy fruit, veg, plants and cake all in the same shopping trip!

Autumn Planting

Mini cyclamen are now in stock and make a lovley splash of colour in your tubs and baskets. Autumn bedding plants are also available, choose from pansies, violas, myosotis and primulas.

Now is also a good time to start preparing for spring, with our range of spring bulbs and wallflowers.

For late garden colour the dwarf asters are just coming into flower and provide an excellent late nectar source for bees and butterflies. We still have some Phlox and Rudbeckia in flower for you to buy and plenty of plants and shrubs that have finished flowering but still have interesting foliage – plant them now for your summer borders next year. For winter interest why not choose the contorted willow, the twisted stems are very attractive in winter when they are most noticeable.

Keep Warm this winter

As the evnings are getting chillier and night longer you might have started lighting your fire (we have). We now have local logs and kindling for sale and will soon be stocking eco-friendly “coffee logs” made out of recycled coffee grinds.

It’s been busy in the plant shop with boxes and boxes of Spring Bulbs arriving. We are working to get them ready to sell this weekend. Varieties include daffodils, crocus, snowdrops, hyacinth, alliums, miniature iris, and much more.

Tips for planting spring bulbs

Now is the time to get spring flowering bulbs, planted either in the ground or into pots to give cheerful spring colour next year.

• • If planting in pots I’d recommend using specialist Bulb Fibre, supplied to us this year by bulb experts, Taylors Bulbs
  • plant several different types of bulb in one pot to give a succession of flowering times and a variety of heights.
  • Plant autumn/winter bedding plants over the top, such as pansies, violas, forget-me-nots or primroses to give an even brighter and longer display. Wallflowers should be ready in a couple of weeks, and we are taking orders for these just now.

Other New Stock

We’ve also got some new plants in stock just now, including:

• • a beautiful new Astrantia called Burgundy Manor, which is a lovely wine red colour;
  • 4 different varieties of candelabra primulas which are huge plants and look set to produce masses of flowers early next summer;
  • hardy ferns suitable for damp and shady spots in the garden, or for planting in tubs and pots in a cool place. We have a good variety of leaf textures, heights and shapes of this interesting group of plants.
  • More statues and garden ornaments are due in from two different suppliers, following the success of last week’s delivery which sold very quickly.
  • More wild bird food and feeders are also due in.

New Range of Ornamental Garden Pots

We are all looking forward to the release of the new seasons range of ornamental garden pots. The local rep for these is visiting next week with a brand new catalogue and I’ll be placing an order for immediate delivery. I’ll let you know when this comes in.

There is plenty to look forward to in the garden, and with all our plants being container grown, you can plant all year round as long as the ground conditions are suitable. Just now conditions are perfect, with plenty of sunshine to warm the soil and lots of rain to keep new plants well watered!

Best wishes to you all, and hope to see you over the next few days to enjoy our selection of bulbs – browsers in the shop are most welcome!

We now have the first batch of autumn and winter bedding plants for sale. Coose from Violas, Pansies, Myosotis (Forget-me-not) and Primroses which are ready to be planted out now in tubs, baskets and in beds to give colour over the next few months. If your summer bedding plants are all beginning to look tired then now is the time to replace them.

Underplant winter displays with Spring flowering bulbs for extra colour and interest.

Our packs of bedding plants are £3.45 each or 4 for £12 and you can mix and match varieties.

GET A FREE PACK OF BEDDING WITH A FULL LOYALTY CARD until 30th September 2020. Offer limited to 8 packs (8 full cards) per transaction.