Well here at the garden centre there is torrential rain this morning and high winds. I imagine most of the gardens in Cottingham and surrounding areas are finding it rather blowy today. I've been watching my garden at home for signs of the fence lifting off as I can hear the wind bellowing through the house so imagine how I feel in the garden centre made of glass! I think it's batton down the hatches today in the garden and here and hope for some nice days to return in the garden next week.

Spring Cleaning

Started painting the staging green today and getting the plants into trim. With a few days of dry weather people are starting to come in for bedding plants. Primulas and pansies are looking very good at the moment and plants of all sorts are starting to come into their own, remarkable what a bit of sunshine will do.

Pronunciation guide to botanical latin

Pronunciation guide to botanical latin

Introduce love of gardening to a child

Introduce love of gardening to a child

Connie Cottingham is a landscape architect in the US, who lives and gardens in Athens.

Compost, garden beds benefit from manure

Compost, garden beds benefit from manure

With a little bit of rain, cool weather that makes insects disappear and, for many in town, a few days off, now would be an excellent time to don those new garden gloves that Santa brought, grab a shovel from the garage and work off a little of that fruitcake. Two great projects to take on right now that will generate heat and burn calories are creating a new planting bed and turning the compost pile. For both of these projects, one good addition would be animal manure.

see: Connie
Cottingham

Beautiful large Witch-hazels for sale at £9.99 each see:
Witch-hazel wikipedia description

Beautiful January day in Cottingham today. Back from my holiday so time to get the plants out and have a spring clean, so there will be lots more bargains to have today. Hopefully see you today as probably the only dry day of the weekend and maybe the next week!!! I wonder if I can get a return flight back to the sun!

Tidied up the remaining Christmas trees and decorations yesterday. How quickly Christmas seemed to pass. I'm getting the Spring bedding ready now and I've fruit trees that for sale in a few months. We should have apple, plum, pear and a few others for March April time. It's amazing how many plants are still looking good at this time of year and it constantly amazes me as I walk around the garden centre what is still blooming or starting to show signs of life.

We'll be opening on Saturday hopefully for anyone wanting some very early spring plants or indoor plants. Have some wonderful shrubs and trees in as well. The weekend has been promised to be better weather for gardening so a good time to get shrubs and trees in and turn over the soil so that the birds can pick over the pests and the winter weather can break up heavy soil.

Happy 2008 to our customers new and old. We hope to have some wonderful plants to offer you in the new year. January is a slow time but hopefully we will be back to normal come February. Remember if the Discount Plants Garden Centre signs are at the end of the Park Lane / Northgate junction then we are open to sell you some of the cheapest plants in the area.