Now's the time to buy.

[Serial_Apologist]

A week ago I did a circuit of all the local garden centres and came away disappointed with the non-choices on offer. Then yesterday everything had changed - from the local outlet I obtained 3 nasturtiums, 2 fuschias, a stunningly vivid crimson-flowered trailing Verbena, and a magenta Busy Lizzie I'd mistaken for something else, but never mind. £16.40 in all, which I think is not bad at all. Get 'em while still small appears to be the lesson right now - larger variations are more expensive these days, so it literally pays to plant, keep watered and fertilized, let 'em get root-established, and above all be patient. These were all bought for my outdoor pots, but the garden is looking more amazing right now than in all the 19 years I've lived at this address. This seems to be flip side result of the awful wet winter we've had - the neighbouring woods are just wonderful, with all those white-flowering trees shrubs and understorey ground cover plants in full bloom and giving off the most amazing aromas.

[french frank]

Well done. My garden doesn't look particularly exciting as It's mainly populated with self-sown seedlings: two small mountain ash saplings (about 12" high), a silver birch (now about 12 ft high), a load of rosy garlic seedlings (goodness knows where they originally came from) some root bits of a geranium cinereum, a buddleia cutting from my cousin, from which I've taken two more cuttings, self-seeded wild violets. Bluebells and cyclamens spread without any encouragement. A small felled hawthorn is bushing out from the bottom. And four musk mallow seedlings from a plant I found growing on the Common last year have just been planted in new pots.

[Old Grumpy]

We are looking to make a lavender "hedge" to edge our front garden. In the garden centres in March lavender plants were around £14 apiece. We went online and found suitable plants at c.£30 for 40 plants (Lavender Munstead "garden ready").

Too good to be true? Well, we ordered them anyway. On completion of the order and payment we were told they would be delivered mid May! At no stage during the online ordering process were we informed that there would be this delay.

Anyway, they have now been delivered as small plugs in 4x5 trays. They are now in the ground and we look forward to further developments.

[oddoneout]

We are looking to make a lavender "hedge" to edge our front garden. In the garden centres in March lavender plants were around £14 apiece. We went online and found suitable plants at c.£30 for 40 plants (Lavender Munstead "garden ready").

Too good to be true? Well, we ordered them anyway. On completion of the order and payment we were told they would be delivered mid May! At no stage during the online ordering process were we informed that there would be this delay.

Anyway, they have now been delivered as small plugs in 4x5 trays. They are now in the ground and we look forward to further developments.

The gap between ordering in early spring and actually receiving plug plants April/ May time is quite usual, but that should have been made clear.
Later in the season the plants are ready to go out straight away, but there may not be a guarantee of numbers or varieties at that stage. It's where that bugbear - pre-ordering! - comes in; early orders(and payment) mean the business can plan how many plants are needed to be got ready(since growing takes time) to fill orders, and allocate greenhouse space accordingly to bring them on.

[Old Grumpy]

The gap between ordering in early spring and actually receiving plug plants April/ May time is quite usual, but that should have been made clear.
Later in the season the plants are ready to go out straight away, but there may not be a guarantee of numbers or varieties at that stage. It's where that bugbear - pre-ordering! - comes in; early orders(and payment) mean the business can plan how many plants are needed to be got ready(since growing takes time) to fill orders, and allocate greenhouse space accordingly to bring them on.

Thanks FF, I thought as much. I suspect these plants were merely a glint in their father's/mother's* eye when we ordered them!


* Delete as inappropriate

[cria]

My wife bought a doz copper nails for me to hammer into 3 small tree stumps.

But they're so nice and shiny that I think I'll leave them in the packet 'til next year.

[Old Grumpy]

My wife bought a doz copper nails for me to hammer into 3 small tree stumps.

But they're so nice and shiny that I think I'll leave them in the packet 'til next year.

I'm with you there...


...too good to use!



Oh and please don't stick coins in the tree stumps!

[LMcD]

The gap between ordering in early spring and actually receiving plug plants April/ May time is quite usual, but that should have been made clear.
Later in the season the plants are ready to go out straight away, but there may not be a guarantee of numbers or varieties at that stage. It's where that bugbear - pre-ordering! - comes in; early orders(and payment) mean the business can plan how many plants are needed to be got ready(since growing takes time) to fill orders, and allocate greenhouse space accordingly to bring them on.

I pre-ordered from Suttons (near Ipswich) in response to an advertisement in my Saturday newspaper, and it was made quite clear that what I would get were plug plants and that they would be delivered in May (they arrived just over a week ago).

[gradus]

Four days ago I ordered from Dobies 36 red geranium plugs for £1 plus £4.99 postage so not a bad bargain. They turned up yesterday and look fine albeit small.